EDUCATION
Rescue
Mission Substitute teachers provide much-needed stopgap to keep schools open By Meghan Allsopp
I
n the wake of the pandemic, there is now a serious shortage of licensed substitute teachers in Bend-La Pine Schools district. Schools are feeling the crunch, and some classes are even closing temporarily due to severe staffing shortages. Parents may wonder: What’s going on? Why is it so hard to keep schools open right now? The ongoing staffing hurdle became a full-on barricade when in-person learning returned post-pandemic shutdown because trained, licensed substitutes were getting called into classrooms more than ever.
COVID protocols
Once in-person learning returned to BLPS February 2021, teachers needed not only to be healthy, but had to stay home when they had been exposed to a COVID-positive person. With so many regular teachers quarantining at home, substitutes became on-call essentials for schools to remain open.
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“To be clear, our goal is to keep our students learning inperson, every day, as we know that this is the best place for them academically, socially, mentally and emotionally,” announced the BLPS website’s Key Updates from Jan. 7, 2022. “We believe we have proven that, with mitigation strategies in place like masking, and distancing, our schools are among the safest places for our students. However, we cannot continue to provide on-site instruction in a safe environment if we do not have sufficient staffing…We are back-filling staff vacancies at every opportunity with staff from all departments, including administrators.” And therein lies the rub: everyone wants to keep schools open, but teachers quarantining at home puts the brakes on that objective.
Substitute teaching license
Oregon requires substitutes to have a state teaching license. This makes sense; however, the licensing requirement made staffing problematic even before the pandemic–teachers with a license are most likely already teaching full-time. Thus, was born the “restricted substitute teacher license,” which is designed to allow someone with a bachelor’s degree and no state teaching license or provisional license to be a substitute.
