Substitute teachers

[RidgeRunner]

Below is an excerpt from the FWSU Business Manager relating to this issue.  Hopefully this will provide more insight into the reasoning behind exploring this option: 

Also while the ACA has been in place for 2 years, I believe we have been exempted for those two years as a large employer.


"The requirements under the ACA are that employers track ALL employees who are expected to work less than 30 hours per week.  As you surmised, we currently keep our subs in this category.  We do not get to just say they don't work 30 hours though.  We have to have a system in place to track all part-time employees, and review each employee status again after each year to be sure that they did not qualify for benefits.  If an employee claims with the feds that they were not offered health insurance, and felt that they should have been, it is the employer's responsibility to prove that the employee did not qualify.  If the feds find just one case where we should have offered benefits and we did not, the fine is $3,000 per full-time employee after a "freebie" of 30.  So in our first pay run in May 2015 for Fairfax this could be a fine of over $200,000.

Additionally all hours for an employee are added together.  So if a sub happens to also be a coach, those hours are added together to see if we meet the 30 hr threshold.For the FY16 budget I did add in some health benefits for subs.  We have had a few that have meet the minimum requirement for a few months, and after discussion with the Board we felt it would be prudent to provide some benefits in case we are required to offer them.  One last item to note; for the ACA tracking we do not count the weeks that school is not in session.  So it is not an average over the entire year, but an average over the time that school is actually in session..

I understand that some individuals may believe that our substitute system is not broken, however, we at FWSU process subs for all 3 schools.  The majority of the school personnel directly involved are experiencing frustration with the current system and asking for us to address the situation. 

Some benefits that may not be well known are;

The training Kelly provides for its substitute teachers.
The benefits available to Kelly employees.
The ability for substiutes to customize their own schedule.  They can select what schools to work in, what days they are available, reply to openings electronically and see a work calendar.

Most sub coordinators are doing a lot of employee shuffling because they are unable to fully staff substitutes for the absences with the existing sub pool.  Though this will still be required, we anticipate that there will be less of this. All sub coordinators currently have calls coming in after hours (evenings and early AM). They will no longer be required to be on the job for whenever a staff member calls with an absence.   A significant amount of HR hours are spent on hiring substitutes who do not end up working very many hours (or at all).  This time would be better spent addressing the needs of our permanent employees-  Just a few that I have noticed are: getting leave plans fully set up before school starts, ensuring contracts/letters of hire for new employees are issued quickly.

I hope this gives you a broader picture of why we are considering this move"

[Watchman]

What do other area schools do to keep track of subs and coaching and hours worked? I know other school systems have solved this problem without using the Kelly Services "solution".

[mkr]

I think a concern with the younger children and those with special needs that are young children is parents and teachers have worked to get subs for the para educators that work well with the child and also limits the disruption to the student and the class. 

I understand those parents concerns and I think there could be a happy medium to all this.  You have to remember that child's disruption of change does not end when school does. Can we work together on this? I would certainly hope so....

I had responded to you Jasen on the reply of your email to me about the subs with no response...

Jasen,

Thank you for the reply.  I think many are more concerned with the effects on the Elementary children subs and para educators and how the local subs provide familiarity and less disruption then if they were to have someone unknown to them.

Would it be possible to do this for say the middle school and high school and leave the existing process for the younger children?

I think this could help make the decision a win win for the school board, children, and the parents with the compromise from what I am hearing.

~Mary Kay Raymond


So I would like to know why.

[RidgeRunner]

MKR, I do not believe that is a possibility because all of the issues about hours are still in play but you should speak with the business manager at the FWSU.  The ACA is really the driving force behind all of this.  It's a complicated and messy bill to say the least.

My experience with agencies as a Human Resources Manager in the UK has been positive.  With a little bit of communication the agencies like Kelly will normally work with you to make certain that you receive the level of service you desire. For example, if you know that a certain person works best with a student requiring one on one, you can request that person by name and as long as the person is available you will receive them as a sub.   I also suspect that Kelly has a good pool of licensed educators who are looking for employment and trying to get their foot in the door of local schools, so one other added benefit may be that we could have licensed educators working as subs.  I am not a hundred percent certain on this point but it seems logical to me that this would be the case given the high numbers of people who apply for jobs at the school.

I really don't believe anyone is losing or winning with this, I believe it's just a new way to conduct business that protects the school from the potential of large fines that would have drastic impacts on the school and the quality of education that could be provided.

Also if the school decides to utilize this service, Kelly has agreed to take on anyone who is currently subbing for the school which should mean minimal disruption for the kids. 

[mkr]

I truly hope it all works this way and that the special needs of children are a priority when it come to sub selection for them.  Thank you for responding.