Local News
Sebert Seeking Substitutes to Help Around FDL School District
We’re in the middle of American Education Week – and Friday
is National Substitute Educators Day. The
Lac
has seen a dropping number of substitutes in their ranks over the past few
years. Superintendent Jim Sebert thinks there are a few factors that may have
led to that shortage.
Sebert tells us “as
fewer people – and it’s getting better, more people are going into college to be
teachers again, it’s starting to come back – but for a while after the Act Ten
era of 2011, we had quite a few people not going into education so we started
to have teacher shortages. So people that used to be subs were getting jobs,
and so the sub pool has consistently gone down.”
Sebert hopes that as the amount of people getting into education sees a new upward trend, the district will be able to find more people to serve as substitute teachers.
He says they are needed because “things happen in a district where you have 550 teachers, roughly. People get
sick, people have babies, people have sick kids, things occur – so it’s always
nice to have a nice cadre of substitute teachers that we can call on. So
that’ll be something we continue to work on too, trying to find more people.”
Sebert points out that since Act Ten passed, there have been several adjustments to the requirements for substitute teachers in Wisconsin.
He explains that “different things have been put in place so people with just a college degree, at first, could substitute teach – now it’s people with an associate’s degree. So we’re certainly always looking for people in the community if they’re interested.”
Today is also recognized as National Educational Support Professionals Day.