Lawmakers are rewriting rules as schools grapple with teacher shortages
Burnout and thinning substitute teacher rolls plus the fallout of the omicron surge is pushing school leaders to the brink of desperation. Lawmakers are respond rewriting hiring rules.
It used to be that when Cordelia Watson got an automated call to substitute teach at the Los Angeles Unified School District, there was a specific script that included the name of the teacher she'd be replacing for the day.
Now, she says, there is so much turnover and so many teachers calling out sick or quarantining with COVID, that the system can't keep up. The messages often exclude any mention of a particular teacher.
"The call comes in the morning and the voice says, 'We have an assignment for ... vacancy,'" Watson told NPR. "That means the actual teacher, the one with the training, doesn't work for the district anymore and they haven't been replaced."
Watson, who is 25 and an uncredentialed substitute with a
