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A school district in Atlantic County is more than doubling its substitute teacher pay rate to $225 per day after preventing staffers from instructing classes remotely due to family health concerns, according to the local teachers’ union.
The K-12 Hammonton school district is offering a hybrid schedule, consisting of in-person instruction and remote learning, starting Sept. 8. Teachers already are on the job, having reported Monday for the first of five preparation days.
While individual students will attend classes in person no more than 2 days per week, teachers are being required to instruct classes via recorded lessons and online assignments from the school buildings every day, including on Wednesdays when all classes will be virtual, said Hammonton Education Association president Anthony Angelozzi.
Angelozzi said at least 20 teachers cited health concerns involving family members, in requesting scheduling accommodations, but that the district responded with a blanket denial on Aug. 28 — the same day that the district posted a revised job ad for substitute teachers at a rate of $225 per day for all and noted the coronavirus pandemic.
Job ad for substitute teachers in HammontonSubmitted
The prior rate was $100 for those with a state teaching certificate, and $90 with a substitute teacher certificate.
“It is a disgrace how staff members who requested remote teaching accommodations based on the health conditions of family members were led on for a month believing those accommodations would be granted, only to be denied days before the start of the school year,” Angelozzi said in a written statement he plans to read at Thursday’s school board meeting in Hammonton.
“Now, those staff members are scrambling to make the choice to go to work and risk the harm of a family member or take a federal leave that could possibly create a financial hardship and leave students without a teacher. The district solved its staff shortage issue by denying employees with vulnerable family members and increasing substitute teacher pay to $225/day,” Angelozzi said in the statement, which he shared Tuesday with NJ Advance Media.
Hammonton Schools Superintendent and Sam Mento, president of the Hammonton school board, did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
A spokesperson for the New Jersey Schools Boards Association said her organization does not have statewide data on substitute teacher pay rates.
“We have been hearing, anecdotally, that districts are having a hard time finding substitute teachers, although we don’t have direct knowledge of what districts are offering to pay substitutes this year,” the spokesperson, Janet Bamford, said on Tuesday.
Finding enough substitute teachers was a challenge even before the pandemic.
A recent report from the EdWeek Research Center found that, prior to the pandemic, U.S. schools were filling just 54 percent of the approximately 250,000 teacher absences per day — and that 12 percent of teachers say the pandemic may prompt them to leave. It recommended raising substitute teacher pay and providing professional development opportunities, such as alternative credentialing programs for substitutes seeking to move up to a full-time teaching job.
In Morris County, the Morris School District is offering long-term substitute teachers, or those working at least 10 days, the same $195 per day as before the pandemic, said district spokeswoman Jennifer van Frank. A statement on the district’s website reads, “There are significant obstacles to fully staffing our buildings, and we are in need of multiple long-term substitute teachers.”
As of Monday morning, while more than 190 school districts across the state have indicated they want to begin the 2020-2021 school year with all-remote learning, the rest either plan to fully reopen or start the school year, like Hammonton, with a hybrid mix of in-person and remote learning.
Hammonton is among the districts requiring teachers to report to school building even when students are learning from home.
Angelozzi is a 10th grade history teacher and in his second year as the local union’s president.
In questioning the decision to reopen the buildings, Angelozzi said the district has agreed to pay bus drivers overtime to clean school buildings due to not having enough custodians, and that the air filters are below the recommended MERV 13 level.
“District officials have expressed in meetings that it will be a matter of days or weeks before we have positive Covid tests in the school district and have to shut down. In the meantime, staff members and students will stress about their safety and wellbeing while in school buildings,” he wrote in his prepared statement to the school board.
Angelozzi said some teachers are planning to attend the school board meeting on Thursday to discuss their concerns.
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Rob Jennings may be reached at rjennings@njadvancemedia.com.
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