001state I woke up in physical state but we're in Indiana good I saw some pictures online 36 people more than a little bit more yes we had to move Yes, the media center. We usually like to use this room because it it's just a little bit more informal for some reason instead of the tables and you know, but we had to Is that a professional technique? I was thinking that. That's pretty. That's like the guy who taught me you hold your car keys up to your head like this and it just I don't understand. I watched him do it. It's like that impulsive, huh? No, it makes it longer evident that somehow it only have billing. I don't know like a range of what I'm missing something like when you're unlocking car if you hold
002it up to your head makes them makes the range. I don't know if I believe the science, but I don't know if I'd want that point. Yeah, I want any more of those. I was going to say, you know, I hold this up to myself. So, All right. Do you want to follow? Do we have presentations? There are. Yes, that's right. Margaret had ton of those that I mean, look here. See that church? Yeah, that's in Croatia. Beautiful. Really? No. Possibly. Oh, really? Remember the old drink from the little really good friends every once in a while? So, I don't care. It'll be my first time trying, but there's some other ones that try and slap them out. No, these are in my bed right now. So, they're not all over. When did you go
003there? But the ones that I did transfer to church right after I retired from so it's it's been a while. been on a trip already. We went the first week of November and the people on the bus were veterans. They go on several vacations a year. They always go first because the only you're going to put in the first I did I got a bill today. That's the one thing that we're not there's a chance that we won't. I might just do I love my daughter. You have one of your old I think that's everywhere now. All right, folks. If you can we get a roll call vote, please. Y um Sam Elli here. David Shder here. Dan Bolner here. Craig Wharton here. Mike Higgins. Lorie Holland here. Fred Y here. Diana Johnson here. Tuna
004Johnson here. All right. Anybody join me in saying the pledge? I aliance to the flag and to the republic for it stands one nation indivisible with all. Thank you very much. Well, I guess I did those in reverse order. I didn't have my glasses on. Sorry. Um, so I'm hoping this doesn't have to go two hours, but I wanted to give us time to talk because we can be a chatty bunch. Um, we have had a lot of discussion. I had discussion in the community. I had discussion from staff. We've had discussion amongst ourselves about the staffing issue and talked to Jared about this. And one of the things is, and we're talking subs, we're talking paras, we're talking contract staff, we're talking staff, uh, and Jared suggested having an itinerate staff meeting to just
005kind of just talk about this. Uh, I'm not looking put this together for us to make any board uh, action on this. That is not the purpose of this. This is uh meeting is purely for discovery purposes um to have Margaret and Jason provide us information on the steps that we're taking um for any of our staffing issues, what we're looking forward uh as we move forward into the next year. And I know this is a lot of this gets covered in HR, but you know, a lot of folks are going to miss that. So, I wanted to just get us all together and so we're confident talking when we get questions and when the community says, "Hey, what are we doing? What is this staff um issue?" You know, I know that I had
006in the last year I've had a a staffer who had emailed me morning every morning with a list of how many people that they had um out sick and you know, how many subs that they didn't have and that sort of thing. So, I thought just let's get everybody together. Let's talk about this. Let's look at this because this is one of the bigger issues we have and just kind of answer questions and then we can move forward. So, all right. So, Jason and Margaret, I'm going to let uh you have the floor here and uh proceed as you will. Okay. So um in talking with Jared about the plan for this evening, he had asked me to pull together some data about our current self situation and to talk a little bit about what
007we've observed. And so um included in board docs is a a summary of that. uh the 2024 sub bill rates January to March, the last PDF one, okay, which shows that if you look across I mean if we we can pull organizationalwide data as well, but um we we know just from what we see that that fill rates vary from school to school and we knew that on some days, you know, a couple days quite a bit actually, the high school was frequently reporting 100% fill rates. And um we know that there has been uh concerns expressed to all of our administrative team regarding middle school pill rates, which have not been as high. And so when the middle school fill rates aren't when the jobs aren't filled, they have actually a rotation schedule that
008has been implemented that is uh you know it's a rolling rotation ski uh schedule and it's considered it's required. I mean people have to participate. Now, they always take volunteers first, but they're not always able to meet all of the volunteer or the volunteers aren't sufficient to meet the vacancies. And so, then that's when they resort to the mandatory rotation. they uh staff are paid for that, but they what what we know is that there's a level dissatisfaction uh with giving up their prep period because it takes all their time away from focusing on what they need to prepare for in the classroom. So, so we know that that is an issue that we have struggled with over the last couple of years. Last year we came to you and we had asked you for
009the approval to go ahead and raise our rates which had fallen quite a bit below the market. And we had raised our rates from I believe it was $110 a day to $140 a day. And then following that, we did find that immediately after that, I mean that went into effect the first week of December and um and between January and May, we had hired 11 new subs. So um 11 new teacher subs. So that seemed to have some positive impact. Um I I don't know that it was directly related to the pay, but it's more so some we have hired in um a while. We're also now coming we were coming out of COVID. We're able to do a little bit more promotion and getting people more attract, you know, attracted to apply because
010they're not as fearful of going into the work environment, which was a really big um um deterrent to recruitment in 2021 2122. it really seemed to start to get to be less of a deterrent in 22 23 but it really started to show like more of a return to normal dynamic in our recruitment in 2324. So we know that in terms of the market right now where we fall as far as price is concerned we're about the middle of the road just about everybody around here and certainly to the west of us and um to the Waka area with the exception of the super large districts um are paying about $140 to $150 a day for um short-term subs. Um we have uh I don't have any fresh data to work off of yet. School
011year hasn't started yet. So we don't know what we have um coming on deck in terms of of um our need for substitutes, but we anticipate that it will be um uh significant. uh most districts in this area. It's a monthly topic on the HR director's meetings in in um the southeastern and the central south uh uh organizations and we're constantly monitoring each other for how how how can we steal your subs from you, what are you paying or things like that. So um we know that self shortage is an issue and we anticipate starting out that it may be an issue for us again. Um so so what we brought were a few we did a little bit of brainstorming. We uh reviewed like where we fall in the market. Um, I think there's
012a a handout there that talks about some potential ideas that we could could um uh get approval for in order to position ourselves in a super good position starting out. Um, and of course that's that is going to include the idea of an increase to the daily rate. I mean we do know from past surveys and past discussions with um with um uh substitute teachers that they are somewhat price sensitive. Um certainly the survey data that we had collected in 2022 said that if you increase those pay rates I will work more. We also know that former WUSD educators are super good source of uh potential substitutes. we are prohibited from talking with any of them during the 75day waiting period while they u meet their eligibility requirement for uh WRS. But um one of
013the things that we've already started talking about is you know reaching out to that pool of people a little bit more assertively than we have in the past. We we have we have not we have mentioned in passing which is all that we can do under the current um uh legal requirements for WRS. We can't talk about bringing them back as sub while they're still here in their last year. You know, we can't make any proposals. We can't do any invitations. All we can say is basically we know that a lot of WUSD educators like to come back after they met their 75day waiting period, but what we're talking about doing a little bit more assertively now is to actually pick up the phone and start calling those people on day 76 and saying, "Time's
014up, you're eligible. Are you thinking about coming back? Great. Let's reactivate you." Um so that is one of the the strategies that we'll be using this year. Um we could also you look at things like targeted incentives for those low fill areas where if we know that RMS is consistently a low fill area. Uh we would need to set some defined thresholds in terms of what constitutes being low enough to trigger eligibility for any incentive that is designed along those uh along those u lines. And then set up either a bonus or a enhanced daily rate or something like that to attract people into those uh positions a little bit more easily or more effectively. So those are some of the things that we had talked about. Um we do feel like we have a
015little bit of room to grow in in terms of uh some of these attempts like increasing even the guy put 165 but it could be 155. I mean, we could go with something like that and see, you know, is that drawing some of the these local uh subs over from Johnson Creek or from Dodgeand or places like that. So questions um something that comes to mind when um you know we're thinking about um you know like the daily increase rate and some of the incentive things and stuff like that that we've done since I've been on HR so you know walked walked through the process the last few years. Um, as far as that goes, I know, um, you know, a a difficult difficult thing was that, okay, so we're, you know, the Harris, for
016example, you know, had this extra bonus and that was, you know, bumping right up to the rates as far as, you know, regular full-time employees. Um, so I'm wondering as far as like if we're looking at certified teachers, if you're looking at bumping up the D rate, um, you know, then does that bump the long-term sub rate, which is typically more, and how close does that get us to like starting teachers? And, you know what I mean, just as far as like what is the the consequence of how how that works up the ladder there? So the long-term rate we did not adjust when we did the increase to 140. It remained at 200. Okay. And that's where it's at today. Okay. Um if we increase to like I think it would depend on the
017amount of the increase which would kind of inform do we want to also do a corresponding increase to long-term subs. Long-term subs are generally seen as um better assignments because they are by definition long-term. It's usually to cover a person who is out on an extended medical leave, most often on maternity leave. And so people come in and they know that I'm for the next two or three months I am the classroom teacher for second grade at Webster, you know, and and so they work they get a couple of days to work with that individual that's going out on leave and then they essentially have a very dedicated assignment. They're not floating around trying to figure out, you know, what what the staffing plan or what the substitute plans are, things like that. They're more
018or less to the extent possible folded into the building culture and into the certified staff as best as we can. I mean, we've included some of those long-term subs on things like PD that's applicable to the day that they are are, you know, to the time period that they're working and things like that. So long-term subs aren't as much of a a um recruitment challenge as um the short term and particularly the one day the day of are the worse. The longer somebody the earlier somebody puts a vacancy in, this is anecdotal observation of our systems. uh the earlier people put a an absence in the sooner it's gets picked up and the the more it gets to the day of those are that's where we don't that's where we have the low fill rates.
019So if people are calling in sick unexpectedly for a day or two and it you know those are the ones that in the last minute are really hard to fill. If somebody knows that they're going out for knee replacement surgery or something for a couple weeks and it is only a couple weeks lately I hear then they put in you know six or eight weeks or three months in advance and those sub assignments get picked up uh more regularly. So part of it is a a a function of like how quickly do we have to have turnaround that during the sub can I switch topics a little bit or we still okay um I'm curious two major things not major bigger things right now why are we only looking at January February and March is
020that is there a sign I just didn't know if there was a significance there well we can't just aggregate it No, no, that's okay. I I did draw that with a higher because as I'm looking at that, March is always interesting to me because of spring break and the week of spring break there are 107 absences in that week. 35 of them came the day before break. So, I'm curious if like when I was teaching, we had policies for absences. You could not be absent the day before a vacation. just it I don't know what the policies are here. If you have on your third day of a consecutive absence, you had to have a doctor's excuse if it was a P. I mean, I don't know if those are things that are typically here.
021So, those are all things we've already enacted. Then I'm looking at okay, is there a reason why the numbers are higher? You know, is there is it I don't want to say a mental health or whatever because I know that there are some staff that have talked to me about that. But when I look at Phil, I know that there's people that say, "I will not go to RMS because the behaviors are horrendous. I will not sub there. I will not this." And when I look at you can get WHS at 100% fill rate, you know, but I know there's retired teachers that come back and and you know, so there's different it's culture, it's rapport, it's other things there that yeah, I like some of the shortterm kinds of things that we can do,
022but if we're not fixing the root cause, we're not fixing the problem. So, I would like to and we're not going to do it today, but I would like to propose that we start to investigate some of the root cause pieces to why is there a smaller subpool there? Because frankly, there are people that will never sub in a middle school because subbing in the middle school is worse than high school or elementary. Middle school is a different beast. True. They are. Um, some people love it. I loved it. It It's just It depends where it is. But if you go into a teacher that doesn't have a huge or a good structure to begin with, it's a nightmare. You're fresh me. So, it doesn't solve the problem of what do we do for the
023the teachers giving up their time. That's a huge issue. Teachers having to sub for one another. I don't know if there's a way to fix that right now without at least honoring them and saying, "Okay, here's an extra whatever per hour for this year is a short-term thing. Investigate the problem, whatever. I don't want to stay at those things." Craig, I actually I agree with much of what Diana just said. Um I I think that but I also take a step back and I also wonder okay there's a lot of teachers in general are going to look at at that from that perspective. There's teachers that want to teach in the high school. There's want teachers that want to teach in the elementary and there's teachers that want to teach in the middle school. That's
024what they're designed for that they they they know that this is where they want to be and and they love that age group of kids. Um so so me I'm tending to believe that it's more of a um a cultural behavioral issue when it comes to um to to dealing with um that environment. And some people say it's like being thrown to the wolves, you know, and there's just lack of support. And um e even among seasoned teachers that are required to be on the rotation to be put into a different department those those challenges are still there. Um so what needs to change? I think I think you know uh we just at at the HR committee we heard um some steps in which the administration's trying to um take to to try to
025deal with some of those things. I'd like to see how that works. But um I I still support uh you know the the incentive pay that for the middle school until that improves. Uh a comment via email once said uh if it's truly about dollars and give them a choice today to be a sub in the most needed role tomorrow for a premium. and if somebody places them at 7:15 the next morning, um, you know, well, that's that could be a challenge, too. But, um, that that seems to be another solution. You know, allow allow a choice for which somebody would um be able to sub anywhere in the district where the greatest need is at a premium. Um, and maybe that's that extra incentive there. And I I want to make sure we don't
026get down solutionizing for them because I know Margaret's got a bunch of things in in play here. Um I do want to know I want to ask the rates that you set. Do you have to have them posted? How quickly can you change the rates? So the rates when we changed them last time we did it on the recommendation of the HR committee. We had Jared had had attended and the HR committee had endorsed the recommendation to increase and also implement a pair par professional bonus program and we went live with that by the time the board meeting went live. But my question is is if they're um so I've had I have some background in public transportation industry and they have a theor thing there they call variable pricing. So parking at noon is
027more expensive than it is at 6 p.m. because it's that's the high demand areas. you have a set rate. If if there is if you had the capability to do variable pricing and say, you know, if you want to be at the middle school and we're going to give you same day notice, it's this amount. If we give you, you know, if it's at the elementary school and it's two-day notice, it's this amount. and you have that capability within that is that is something that you could adjust on on the fly like that or so I mean what I'm thinking is that we'll need to first of all define what the minimum threshold for eligibility is like is it 70% that that then triggers premium pay is it 80% and um so so that would
028be the first step that we would have put a little work group together here to make some decisions, set up the criteria for what exactly constitutes a situation where we would implement um um incentive pay and then set up a mechanism after that to monitor our absences a little bit more in a real time basis. I mean, Jamie does do this. She gets up at 5:30 every morning to, you know, verify how many vacancies we have and and where we're at and then that activates like a sub calling routine and things like that, but then adjust our messaging when we're making those calls that this vacancy is is um is eligible for premium pricing. And this isn't I mean this is done in healthcare. I didn't know this anecdotally. I have a daughter who's a
029CNA at the male clinic up in Oaklair and she was just telling me this week that, you know, her schedule unexpectedly changed. And she said she might pick up some some hours, but she's going to wait for a a premium text. And I said, "Why?" And she said, "Because if you go premium tax, they'll pay you $50 bonus and double time and they won't consult you." So I'm like, "Oh, okay." She said, "Otherwise, if I if I sign up for extra shifts, then I might get floated out to Bloomer or to Monami or something like that, something that is not satisfying for CNAs." So, so it like I guess in my mind just having had that recent conversation with her and seeing how money motivates her very pretty well. I think it it's like it
030I'm I'm envisioning something along those lines like we get to a certain threshold and a certain time period and we say, "Yep, premium pay." And then the texts and the auto the we have an auto caller that that is used through frontline. Then that starts activating. Hey, we've got premium pay assigned available if you're here within two hours, three hours, half day, you know, like that. And then that's how we pay pay. I mean, we once it's set up, we have the capacity to adjust the compensation for. Um, yeah. So, I think uh I think these are really great ideas. I think the idea of that variable model is really clever. However, I do want to ask if you implement a system where after a certain period of time you get a premium, will that
031incentivize kind of like what you were talking about, will that incentivize people to just wait until the last minute? So, would it maybe be better to if someone say like the knee surgery thing, if they announce it three months beforehand, there is no premium that will come with it. It would only be for those shortterm notice, right? uh spaces that open up. But well, I mean, the risk to that is it's a roll of a dyson. I mean, we do have subs that like to work regularly and they like to know what the assignment is going to be. So, like in the case of a knee surgery, somebody else might that'll stay out there vacant till somebody picks it up and somebody might pick it up and then that whole opportunity is gone. So I
032mean you're you're it is something of like do I wait and see on that day if premium pay is enacted or not or do you because like the way the model that I was describing is premium pay is activated on a day. it's not it you don't know if it's coming that day or not, you know, and and so that's where we would need to enhance our monitoring on a like we do it on a daily basis, but it might be on a two or three time a day basis just to check like are we stacking up to look like we're going to have to implement premium pay and then we would likely implement that the day. Gotcha. Yeah. So it wouldn't be for those long-term thing. It would be more of a dayby-day. Okay.
033Gotcha. Go ahead. Go a little second. What kind of pool uh do you have for um retired WCUSD teachers? How big of a pool is that? I don't have that off the top. I imagine and and my my thought here is that you know you put forth the idea of moving from 140 to 165 and you keep the $25. Is there is it more beneficial to keep it at 140 and get offered the WSD retirees 50 or you know and keep the flat rate but if you increase the increase the incentive for people who are already here in town ideally and you know already don't have to for those short-term ones they don't have to get used to it they know where they were you know maybe there's a better benefit there I think we
034should first though look and see are all those are the majority of them at the high school already where there isn't any again that's why I said what does the pool look like yeah David Craig to your earlier point I'd love to sit here all night and talk about reverse auctions and bidding on etc but that's based off of the entire assumption and and I think those are all great ideas point is it's not our position to solve those I am interested in trying to understand that all the solutions brought forward so far have a dollar in front of There's a dollar sign in the solution and and I and Diana touched on some of them. Is it the job satisfaction? What are the conveniences? What are the perks? What's the culture? Have we explored
035referrals? Have we discussed what our eligibility requirements are? I don't want to say lower the bar, but can we increase the pool? And I want to know what other levers have been explored that don't involve a dollar sign or as Diana asked, why are we in the position we're in? Because any of those five or six items don't have a dollar sign in front of them. I mean, you could throw in a free lunch and entice people. You could give them the premium hours. I'm not This is not our position. I Brett, I agree with Brett wholeheartedly. Our job as a board is not to try to come up with 50 solutions in the next two hours and then implement them. That's your job. You're explaining to us the problem and I want to make
036sure we understand the problem. Yeah. And if we don't understand the problem, we're going hellbent on trying to throw more money at people and that may not be the problem. So I want to make sure that you and the administration understand the problem and ask those questions. I don't know what other questions need to be asked. I I only came up with maybe they don't like the commute. I maybe they, you know, maybe they need a preferred locker room. I don't know what the no idea. But I don't want to assume that a dollar is going to make a difference. It might, but we don't know that. We're not in a position to even assume that that's the case. So, let's I don't want to get too far down one rabbit hole, but I love
037the idea of the bid. The bid system is a great idea. I just don't want to go there. There areas that we have. I mean DPI did lower the qualifications for substitute teacher eligibility to an associate degree and in doing that we did recruit amongst our pair professionals that we would work with them to facilitate the substitute training and provide the professional development they needed they needed to qualify for the um to apply for the license. Although this has a cost associated with it, if they worked five shifts as a substitute teacher, we reimburse them the $125 uh license fee, which I mean 125 doesn't sound like a lot, but to some of the pair of professionals that are working part-time hourly positions at 15 or $16 an hour, I mean, that is a significant
038uh uh cash outlay for them. So, I mean, we have done that. We have um tapped into just about anyone that we think is eligible into in the district that might qualify for a substitute license. I myself who I would be kind of scared have a substitute license, but you would not want me in a classroom. So, just to be very clear, but um unless it was an HR class, but unless it was an HR class, that is true. So, um so we are doing some of those things. In 2022, we did do focus groups at the end of the year to find out a little bit more about what people liked about working here. There were things that we fixed after that. Uh, one of the things that was a really big complaint out
039of both of the secondary schools was I can't get into people's Google classroom. So we had worked with the tech department to facilitate some way that they could then access the online classroom materials which have become a substantial part of the teachers toolkit these days. So um we are we have addressed some of those cultural issues. The survey that we did also did say that if you increase pay I'll work more hours. So I mean that was one component of it. the things that Diana talked about too. We've talked about forming work groups where we can go in and talk to um um subs from a specific area to say what is it that keeps you coming here? And then also look at, you know, boots on the ground review with our administrators at the
040building. What is what is it that you're doing with yourself when they walk through the door? And um, you know, do they have to scurry around trying to figure out who do I talk to or or or is someone there expecting them? Thank you, Mr. Sub. We've been expecting you. Here's your sub plans for the day. Your room is right down there. I'm your contact person. those types of things. So, they're working with our groups on that type of culture dynamic that goes along with other cultural things that we're trying to um like in line. Craig, I mean, I think it might be the best thought. Okay. Uh I'm gonna only mention action steps one through three because um we're doing okay. Um but one one not we're not doing four. You are doing we
041are going to go ahead and do three. I mean that's like a non Okay. Um I then I personally like I like the action the the second action um simply until we kind of get an idea of what might or may not be going on. Uh especially in those times of times of the year where can be a challenge. Um so in in the in the in lie of us having answers um perhaps perhaps there needs to be a premium to get those particular positions filled for the short term uh or or an incentive for that uh so I I do kind of appreciate the effort that was put in place on on that thought. Tina, um, kind of on my list, um, were kind of some of the the intangibles that David had mentioned
042as far as, you know, like what kinds of feedbacks have you get, um, you know, from subs as far as that goes, you know, is there, you know, maybe like a mentor system, you know, set up like, oh, okay, you know, I'm the I'm the sub mentor for the day or for this person or whatever. Hey, just check wanted to check in. How you doing? when I was a substitute, I found that to be very valuable and welcoming. Um like, oh my gosh, people, you know, were so helpful. Um I think too as far as um you know, just kind of thinking of kind of just throwing other things out there. Um you know, as far as like student behavior is concerned, I mean, I totally get that. Um there was something recently, and I'm
043so sorry, I cannot remember specifics. There was something recently that we were going over and RMS had like significant improvements. I cannot remember what it was. Satisfaction survey. Okay. Is that what it was? Okay. But I'm like, okay, behavior referral, something like that. Okay. But because we don't pull out specific bullying building data, we had no way of knowing that or at least I didn't see that information. So, when someone just kind of made an off-hand comment about that, I'm like, you know what, that would be I mean, hey, okay, that gives me a glimmer of hope. Um, you know, and yeah, I I mean, I I get the whole, you know, pay thing as far as that goes. Um, I kind of have on my list like include lunch forum, you know, that kind
044of thing. Um, but I I know it's one of those, you know, small things. Um, just not to be negative about lunch because we'd like to give out free lunch, but there are USDA requirements as far as federal funding in terms of figuring out teachers have to pay for an election. Okay. Well, yeah. See, this is this is why I like this meeting because this is the stuff I don't know. That's good. Yeah. Who would have known? Um, seems a little rigid to me too. Well, but I mean, oh, administration could give them here's five bucks for your lunch or whatever. Like, you know what I mean? So, I mean, there's probably a workar around, I'd imagine. I'm just saying. Don't talk about Don't talk. Yeah, I'm gonna stay focused. I just I'm just saying,
045right, services? We heard earlier tonight that uh our district doesn't do punitive measures. Um a one day sub is different than a regular teacher. And so if u I think we have to treat subs differently and they need more administrative support and and what I've heard from uh subs recently is that uh they didn't feel like they got it at the middle school. In fact, it was just the opposite. And um we used to have a program called the blue slip program. And you probably heard me say that before, but it was a a program that worked and the subs were given a you know blue slips and they could uh give that to a kid or they could threaten the kid with it. And that usually stopped behavior because they didn't want to have
046to serve the punitive detention. And that was uh really the only recourse that they gave to subs. And and uh the teacher said that it did work. And we used to have Friday night after school detentions and that worked. And uh the teachers loved it and the kids hated it. you want to get out of school on a weekend, but you're sitting in a detention room and it's not just totally punitive. I mean, there's some relationships building between the whoever supervising it and talking to them. So, I think we need to treat discipline with subs differently. And I I like the thought of discipline, but also we started with is um support. Yeah. From the subs. Tina, um I don't know what this looks like or anything like that, but I mean, is there a
047way like to utilize parent volunteers not as subs? Hey, let's not go there. Um but, you know, hey, there's a parent volunteer in the building this day. You know, maybe there's extra classroom support that the the volunteer can give in some way. We've recruited parents for some. We've sent out flyers home with kids and sent out Skylers to try and entice parents to join our celebrities. Sure. Oh, well, yeah. Which which I I totally understand. But I'm talking like when you just if you have a pool of volunteers, parent volunteers, and you know, like, hey, I'm going to go in and Okay. Yeah. Back in the day it was like, okay, I'll go in and I'll help, you know, Johnny with his math. he's got some corrections and we'll work together on that and then
048I'll make copies for this teacher and I'll do you know what whatever you know those kinds of things I just and like I said I don't know what that looks like but set of eyes on the kids if that sometimes it helps when you it's another form of support as parent volunteers it doesn't have to be every day they don't you know I don't know like I said I don't know what that looks like but that just kind of I don't know alleviate a lot of burden Yeah. Sega, when you talk subs, are you lumping Paris part of that or is that a separate discussion? So, for the purposes of this discussion, it was my understanding we're talking about teachers. Okay. All right. Good. Well, and um so I just want to see be did
049you have any other qu did you have any questions? No, I just wanted to kind of I have a comment off of I'm off of what Dan was saying. I'm actually surprised at the high school because from what I've heard from students is that the minute there's a substitute in there, these kids just act poorly. And so I was surprised that the high school is doing as well as they are honestly seeing that my son's a high school student and um it's very frustrating. So I agree that there is definitely more to making sure that we're getting some support. Correct. So I think that kind of hits on that maybe behaviors are still probably an issue not just at the middle school but also the high school. Um I like I like Tina's thought process
050though too where you know yeah maybe we aren't tapping into um parents enough in a way. Um and you know it also goes back to like the lunch situation. Sorry but um like maybe maybe that sort of thing could be like the PTO is going to buy you lunch today. You know it complements of PTO. Well, you got to talk to the PTO on that. Very specific where the money goes, right? and and but but maybe also getting that idea out there without without the other um the other idea with the um with after Friday after detentions or as a consequence of uh behaviors you know if if something like that were to materialize maybe the PTO can help us with um providing a transportation voucher if that's a problem you know uh I you
051know those are those of those little things that I think we can kind of try to help with those those solutions. So what I'm hearing here is um that we the board is open to fresh ideas on making solutions to this and and having that discussion um with you know Margaret's got a good start here with these four items and that you know coming at at this with ideas that are beyond pay increases. on ways to not only maintain subs but attract subs. And this would include, you know, different ways of, you know, novel ways of doing pay, you know, especially for those where we know that, you know, a when a teacher calls in at the middle school and you need someone that day, that's going to be the lowest, you know, or going
052to be the hardest one to fill, but is there, you know, is there a way we can make that the most enticing one? things like that. Is that kind of the general consensus I'm getting here? And that, you know, we we also understand that subs need more support because they're subs um and especially those that are do not have a history in our district and specifically support to administer consequences when students are not cooperating because that is a huge issue. most of the subs that I talked to over the past year, that's been one of the main focal points for them. So, Margaret, how much I'll give clarify. How much um how much interaction do the deans and I know we're putting a dean in at the high school interaction with the deans have with
053the subs because the deans are are, you know, lack for a better term, our enforcers at the schools. So, I mean, the high school is just our inter role. um the associate principles, I would really need to check with them in terms of what their role is as it relates to itself. Okay. Um just in the same way that I didn't want to jump on the dollar bandwagon, I'm but I believe that that's a significant contributor and also the culture and the support. Once again, we don't know all the solutions, but I believe that it's probably a significant contributor. Would that fall to Jenny and at services for an update to figure out how to support that? Uh where would you like that to reside because we don't have Jared here, we don't have Jenny
054here, we don't have Sarah here and yet somewhere that's got to trickle down, but that's tech. I mean, and I know he's here on behalf of and Sarah's online too and so is Margaret. I'm not saying we don't have top level staff here. I'm saying is that if we wanted to not add a position, but change a description and a focus of a group of people we already employ, I presume that would come through Jared andor through like you said the deans or the principles or the the team leads. I don't know if that's what they call them up in the high school, right, Dan? I mean like Dan Suski or whatever. That's a that's a team lead in the math department. I mean I I don't know. I'm just asking uh Fred when you
055give direction or when they listen to the meeting minutes who gets that action item it's not our written and that's not necessarily her department. So, I'm wondering if I could take these suggestions back to our central office team and when Jared gets back and that we formulate a plan that includes not only the compensation piece, but also how are we going to address what we believe to be a significant building culture issue and just get a little bit more information um at each of those levels like this is how we do it. This is where we need to set some best practices. What are those? What are we doing within each of our buildings to make sure that people that subs feel a part of the team are welcomed and have the resources and support
056that they need in order to feel like this is an assignment that I can handle and that I have the authority and the responsibility to effectively do my job. Yeah, I already read my mind. I was going to say that this is a cabinet discussion. Perfect. And then I would just want to say that it doesn't necessarily automatically come back to HR presume. I mean, I'm not going to say presumably it comes back to head services, but it could come back to policy. It could come back to a different I I don't want to let the ball drop and let it just fall back to HR and have the same issue a year from now. I I and I know that run to ground isn't something we even do that effectively and even the committees
057because a lot of things take a long time to get from A to B. But I want to make sure this has a home. And if it's culture, and if it's uh a buddy system, if it's, hey, if if uh you know, me and Lynn are both subs, and we both show up every single day that we're called, we get an extra $5 because we have a buddy system. I I I mean, I don't care what it is, but it may not just be HR and and somebody's got to own it. I will say that if we you know, we got eight people here. Um, Margaret's take this back to Jared and Jared's got to feel strong enough about a proposal, bring it to the full board. You don't, he doesn't have to give it
058to a committee. Bring it to the full board. And if the board decides, look, we think this isn't fully baked, then as a board, we can decide that it can go to a committee and at that point. But I figure, you know what, if you've got a plan, you want to put this in place, you think this is going to address the situation, come right to us. I mean, we're all here right now, so I don't see a reason not to. Well, I'm sure Marber's got direction. Yeah, I do. It hasn't. If it's mult that wrong, you could also send it to more than one committee, right? Yes, we could, you know, we could, you know, say, you know, we could create a subcommittee of members of those committees and and go from there, too.
059We can, we got a lot of different ways we can handle it. But my point is, you got a good idea and you think this is worthwhile, bring it to the board, right, to the next board meeting. So, all right. Other questions, thoughts? Margaret, you got other things for us? Nope. I think I think I understand the direction. Now, I'm going to ask you this. Do you because you know, Tina, we're good. She hit on time, so we're still here in our first hour on this. Do you um do you feel there is a need to have a similar discussion on Paris? I guess I would say that we should incorporate that in as a subsection of the work that's done because they they seem to go together and um some of our paras are
060and some of our subs are serving in both roles. So there's enough of a nexus between the two that I think we should just put them all out and and just if we have to differentiate we would do that within the terms of the plan. Right. And I don't think I mean for the most part the ideas that have been presented here tonight I think they can apply unilaterally. There's a few but I think most can do that. Correct and Tina. I I just wanted to say that I I appreciate the discussion. I appreciate that that this is something that administration has taken some time to explore. And um I think that's going to speak volumes to um to our staff that we're really concerned that we want actually um move forward with something that's
061going to be meaningful to fix this issue. So um I would encourage the uh um the hard work that to continue and and thank you for that. Gina, um two things. I also do I very much appreciate um that we're having this discussion because it's been a struggle and it's you know it's come up at HR committee and you know it's just like oh my gosh when we get in the thick of you know like the January to March or December to March you know I think is those you know just critical rates and like we have to have staff in there you know and so it's just been a you know suffering for you know a couple of years and so we noticed that that was a pattern so I appreciate us having that
062larger discussion Um, second item, um, I did not see on here, and I just kind of want this out there as like, okay, yep, this is this is what it is. Um, I did not see on here building subs. Now, I know that that is something that we had done in the past, but then it was brought up and it seems as though yes, it was effective, but it comes at quite a price tag. And so is the price tag is what's holding us back. like there's other solutions. I just wanted to put that out there as a discussion item so it's out there. And Margaret, jump in here, but the last conversation I had with Jared on that price tag is the biggest issue there that we could put building put a dedicated sub
063in each building, but that's going to be cost prohibitive. Okay. Well, Sarah, did you do the costing on on that? Yes, I did. And there is a range depending on what benefits somebody would elect, but for a building sub, it would be roughly $60 to $80,000 per building sub. So that really is the main um factor is the cost, and that is not something that's been built into the budget for this year for 2024-25. So those would be additions to the budget. So, one of the other thing that we did know when we had building subs, uh, was that we took three of our subs that were, you know, heavy attendees off the sub roles and we put them into um um, you know, regular full-time positions with benefits, but we did not necessarily immediately
064backfill those. So it it was really just converting people that had worked um a lot anyhow and they I mean to be clear they liked I mean the three that were received that um we did also have one year where we had a building sub who was unfortunately out on a leave on the teacher's own leave for most of the school year which um we tried to fill the Um, thank you. Uh, I just kind of curious, Sarah, if if you had been able to run the numbers when it comes to Liza action number two at $190 a day or a sub premium pay pay, so to speak over the course of the year because I don't see uh in in the samples that we received that there was a single day that went by
065where there wasn't a sub needed in the building. If you're able to run that uh $190 per day through the course of the year, what does that dollar amount come to? I mean, is it close to that 60,000 80,000? What What are we talking about? So, you're saying if it was $190 a day for one sub for likeund student 170 student days, maybe? Is that what you mean? Correct. Yeah. So I mean that's that's $32,300. Okay. Yeah. But that's not just RMS. That's district wide. Correct. So we're looking that's just RMS. 190 is just RMS. Right. Well, and and the the question is geared toward does it make sense to offer uh a sweetened package like this versus a a full-time sub at 60,000, which you can you can concede that potentially a full-time sub
066can remain as a full-time sub without additional benefits as well. So, I don't know, maybe that idea can still be explored. Um, that we can offer a full-time sub position, but potentially without benefits. Yeah. But at a certain point, we have to give them benefits. I I don't know. We do have to pay WRS. I mean, if people are are benefit eligible. And then Jamie, do we have ACA eligibility thresholds for teachers for your I see you on the line. Yes, there would be the a uh the FLSA rules for the teacher subs as well. So, they would have to be benefit eligible because they'd be working more than 30 hours a week. Okay. Jamie Fischer is our payroll and benefits guru and knows about Thank you, Jamie. Good question. Well, thank you for clearing
067that up. I appreciate that. You're welcome. Other questions? No, I thought the building sub, but then you look at where the biggest problems are. One sub doesn't take care of Yeah. the problem. Yeah. I'm thinking RMS. One sub doesn't fix that whole at the elementary school. one buildings that are are outstanding, but we've got a bigger problem right now. Maybe that's a conversation down the road we can explore. And again, that's and I think that's part of the conversation that Margaret wanted to have with, you know, the cabinet staff and Jared with is that whole discussion on is it one person? If we put 10 people in there, but they're not getting the support, they're not going to last. We're back where we are. You know, what are the supports? sort of the other things
068that need because again it sounds like each elementary, the middle and the high school they have um different needs at each one of those. I mean let's not forget that it's 85% fill rate at the elementary and it's 100 at the high school. There's still 15% gap there. I know we're happy with what we're getting at the elementary but there's still a 15% gap there. So, so just like just from a a like bigger universe subuniverse perspective. So there are a number of private contractors that will you know solicit our business for like if we go to teachers on call or edges staff is one that's up and coming where essentially the subs are considered employees of that individual agency and then we pay a premium like a you know like a temporary health agency
069premium in order for them to fill. Their current service model says that they have met a satisfactory fill rate at 85%. So that's like their deliverables to an organization. So they will say, you know, we'll we'll fill your sub vacancies and we'll we'll commit to an 85% vacancy rate or fill rate. And Jared has said as much in conversation with him is that you know 80% or better you know that's great and so he's happy with that. So right but but is that is that districtwide or building specific because they have not entered into discussions with those denders because we um there's some drawbacks to entering out to teachers on call because then they get to see a lot more vacancies that are all over you know these like we cultivate a a onetoone employer
070relationship with them so that we know they're ours and they know that we know they're ours our employees, you know, whereas teachers on call is more if Lake Mills and Johnson Creek and Fort and everybody else is using them. You just go in, you get your menu, pick your pick your district, pick your school, and with us it's a little bit more um contained in terms of opening. So, you mentioned in the past that there's an app that they can use. Is that teachers on call? Is that the app? Yeah, because they can, you know, it's like Uber. I can take whatever one I want's going to give me the best price. Yeah. And and that I guess that's my other question is I mean regardless of that tool, we still probably want to be
071able to um figure out the the best um perhaps incentive for them to want to be and it's that it's and had that conversation being competitive. Yeah. Can I switch the topic? We've talked a lot about overall subs. We still had the issue of teachers subbing during their prep hours and I don't I think that warrants some conversation around this table. What I mean they're coming back to school here in two weeks and it is a real problem as they come back in two weeks. So are we going to have a potential solution? Are we going to be in movement toward a solution? um it was clear they weren't very happy with where they were before and so I'm just hoping that we can at least move down the pathway toward something. I don't think
072we're going to decide something tonight but at least can we start that discussion now um to see potential possibilities. So Margaret you want to chew that up? I will include that on my discussion. So what so just as part of the discussion tonight um are there any is there anything else you can add to that? So I mean we do know that when teachers essentially what they call sell their prop then they are paid at what will come out to $25 an hour which is our curriculum pay rate. It goes in increments of 12 minutes up to 90 minutes. The maximum that you can get for giving up a period is 37 feet. So those that extra pay is reported through a reporting mechanism between each of the individual schools and Jamie Fiser. But um
073that is right now the rate that has been specified as special compensation within the certified staff handbook. If we were going to change that, we would need some type of board action to say that we were able to change that. I mean we could change it. I mean, we could look at there's a couple different things. We could look at what's the hourly rate for our um our starting teacher pay, you know, and I can calculate that real quickly. Or we can say each individual teacher is contracted at a base salary rate. We can reduce that annual base salary rate to an hourly basis and um we can pay based on your your indiv individual hourly rate. I mean, we have the capacity to contribute to that. Yeah. But I think I think what Diana
074is getting to, and correct me if I'm wrong here, is this isn't necessarily about the money. It's about the time and then giving up their time that they need for prep and they're being asked to do this or told that they need to do this. It's both, you know, I mean, at $25 an hour, that's I mean, you think about what a regular sub gets. We've increased regular self pay, minimum wage at Walmart, you know, at different places, 15, $18, $20 an hour. Yet, this is time, like you said, this is time that they're giving up for preparing for their day. They don't know it until the morning they get there. Oh, by the way, you don't have to pay. So, you know, so, but I'm not saying it has to be their hourly rate.
075It's just 25 to me is minimal. If it went up to 35, if it went up to if it was something, at least here's a it's showing a step in our direction. say, "We're trying. We're not there yet. Here's a little something." It doesn't fix the problem until we have a root cause to fix the problem. We need solutions to fix the problem, but at least we can show somehow that we're appreciate. So, the minimum rate, the hourly rate for a new teacher, the minimum of our teach certified teaching schedule, which is $47,183.26. So if you reduce that to an hourly basis, the hourly rate is 34.07. So and and we're paying 25 to to add to your plan. Thank you. So just a suggest, you know, just to talk about what can we do
076as how much time do they get to prepare? Like what what's their notice? They walk in that morning, they go, by the way, you're out out there. And they don't get to they don't get to make that decision. who makes that decision. Well, I mean, they always say volunteers first. I just want to be clear about that. There are some of people that get RMS that do like to fill in and and um the extra compensation as it is right now is enough to incentivize them up their prep, but then they will go if they cannot get volunteers then they will implement a mandatory assign the mandatory rotation and that's kept in the office and updated on a daily basis. How does that get chosen? It's basically the whole staff including the administration. They have
077big wheel. They have a big They have a very large spreadsheet that tracks everybody. It's colorcoded. They might use the bill. I don't know. I will go over tomorrow and find I can give you a website. You put everybody's name in and it gives you a big wheel. You push the button and it'll spin. Get the random bill down. That doesn't put you on a rotation. That's just still Craig. That may be a dollar. I mean that that's important. a important conversation to have, but um there were it's my understanding there were times where uh this year where you would find an administrator in the classroom as well. And that concerns me in the sense that there are other aspects of the district work that's not getting done whether it's um behavioral issues or or
078you know just regular administrative work. I I I you know that's we got to fix the problem. Also just to be clear administrators do not get this this do not get and administrators aren't on a regular rotation. They're emergency. No, they are on a reg. They're on a regular regular instructional pretty regular. I know that deans are instructional coach are um are also they're all folded in. Assistant principles. Everybody's folded in at RMS. At RMS. Yes. All right. Um, I think WHS uses a more informal approach to build theirs and or um, lack of a a better description, it's Katie Perl's influence and persuasion. So that is so we don't we don't have a unified process for this across all of the different facilities. So it's different at each elementary too. Um, yes. And it
079depends on the type of absence and the staff that's available at the elementary. It might be somebody filling in to cover a couple hours in a classroom or it could be that they split a class and and um they assign a class to another teacher is the it really is much more variable at the elementary I was going to say is it is it demonstrabably different between the different even if it's elementary middle and high is it is it different enough that we can't have a process that is the same you know like everybody uses the same kind of rotation. I'd imagine it would be a little bit more diff difficult at the elementary level to have the same model because they are with the kids all day as opposed to secondary where it's period.
080They can break out period subbing. Okay. A little bit that easier. But I would I would need to defer to the instructional people for their expert assessment of that. I think at elementary you traditionally see like a class with half so you split classes and you rely on your elected teachers to help and that's different at middle school depending on the schedule. you know, our our schedule the middle schools did it's part uh elementary part high school that's the schedule model and so that provides some unique challenges and then high school is pretty pure if you're you're doing the all call for you know by uh by period who's who's available different but I think there's some commonalities of of processes that would give you give Other questions, discussion? Margaret, you have Hold on. Margaret,
081do you have anything else? No, I appreciate the um I appreciate the discussion. This has been good discussion. Like I said, this is kind of what I wanted to get here tonight to just get this out. I mean, I've learned things and that was kind of the intent of this. It wasn't necessarily for us to do anything. One thing I will say is um we know that this is I don't want to say I need an answer by October or the September board meeting or anything like that. Um but we know that this is a this is a uh and Jared will come back and tell me hey no I need you to tell me pick a date but um we know this is a priority. So, this is something that, you know, the board
082thinks is important to look at, but I I don't want to give you a specific date, you know, at this point. But if you come back to us in June and tell us that something was horrible all year, we'll say, "Well, we had the meeting in August." So, I hear, you know, I I don't want to I know we're kind of trying to wrap things up as a close, but just No, no, no. We're gonna if the discussion continues, it continues. I just um that the one other thing that might be interested in finding out is how those subsh shortages correlate with um with um the transportation shortages uh and sports teams because if we're going to um look at that, we need to also understand okay if it's a matter of our transportation needs
083um then we really need to start Maybe we need to be looking at that as a possible solution that needs to change also. But I would think are you talking bus drivers? Yeah, because if uh if for instance uh what would typically happen is during like a regular sports season uh the if there's a lack of transportation drivers, that particular uh sports team would have to leave at noon for a a relatively local game like in Johnson Creek. uh whereas normally they would be leaving uh closer to the end of the day. Um and that also requires an additional sub to fill in for that coach earlier in the day. So I guess I'm just kind of curious. The coach would be leaving though, wouldn't they? Anyway, you're saying is that the the drive we
084had a driver you would you could they could leave at the end of the day. They would. Yeah, that's correct. All right. because a lot of the a lot of the my understanding is that a lot of the uh drivers are transporting them to the event and then coming back to run the route and then coming back to pick them up. So that also requires um a lot of downtime of that sports team at that school uh in the short term. So just a comment to that. That was a huge issue two years ago. That was about 80 to 90% fixed last year. Oh. So that wasn't it still happened. Yeah. Not at RMS. I think RMS was the biggest problem. RMS was because the high school I mean there were times that kids were
085leaving at noon for a 5:00 and 7:00 game. That didn't happen at all last year. Unless you're in golf then you're Well, golf is typical. Well, golf is typical. That's part of the regular schedule. Like even baseball, if it was a 5:00 game, they typically would leave about 2 20:5 2:30 very consistently where previously volleyball went previously. You never knew. So that was exactly right. two years ago last year. I don't know middle school, but I know high school is pretty much and that will also pull staff from everywhere in the district because the coach doesn't necessarily have to be, you know, at the school where the team high school team could still have an elementary coach, you know. Yeah. All right. That's a good thought, too. I don't know how many how many other
086types of activities also require um a sub to to um pull in like for instance you know we we've gone through a lot of other changes like curriculum wise where where um all of a sudden that schedule requires uh you know professional development during the day which wouldn't pull in a bunch a bunch of needed subs um and and how perhaps maybe that could be um adjusted so that that we're still supporting our staff with the needs that they have. Um but maybe it's broken up differently. I don't know. Margaret, when we have like a midday need for a sub, do we pull are we able to pull in a sub or do we typically have the staff covered? Well, in the both I mean in the scenario that Craig is describing, we usually have
087a pretty good idea a little bit in advance, but yes, that is an area that you have heard periodically concerns about where coaches are leaving and then we have to fill um with subs, but we do hire we do post for half the vacancies too. I I mean we have that capability. Those aren't the most favorite assignments. Um people like like they're here they're going to they like to stay here for the day. They don't like coming in maintenance in the middle of the day. But brings us back to Bargo cris. But I mean I don't I don't know enough about how the short is it short-term transportation. I mean I would have to check with like Jamie kept to see like how how quickly is he getting those transportation schedules. Um, but I think
088it's fairly well known kids are getting out of class quite early, you know, several hours in advance. So, what the actual need because that's one of the transportation. Well, and that's not and that's not just a sub. They're losing instruction, you know, as part of that, too. All right. Good point. Other items. All right. Well, then uh thank everybody for the discussion. Uh we'll call it here. 8:20. Uh do we have a motion? Is there something volunteer discussion? There's there item B on there. Volunteer discussion. Oh, volunteer discussion. I didn't know that the we kind of wrapped that. Jamie, Margaret, volunteer discussion. What is that? I thought that was I thought that was the idea of their dog dear. Um I do know that like there are some areas where volunteers are not um as
089heavily recruited right now, especially as we get act 20 training underway and we figure out what we're doing there and how to best use u volunteers. The AVID program at RMS would love to have more volunteers. So, um those are two areas that if um if we work on any type of um enhancement of our volunteer programs, we would we would look at particularly at the RMS Abbott program to place individuals and we do we have had volunteers come into AVID and work with our kids at RMS. And that's what's keeping us from a district-wide AVID program right now is we don't we're on that mentoring piece. Yeah. I'm going to be honest. I think the communication on that could be a little bit more rigorous. Yeah. Because I've been to some of the family
090meetings, but I've never once heard any discussion. My niece is it comes down to pretty involved, but I've never heard that. Yeah, I probably would. I mean, last year we were paying like college students who are those two. Yeah. I mean, even at their family meetings that they have, that would be even a great time to remind those those parents and get the word out, siblings, whatever. I didn't put that on there as many, you know, I would remember that. You know what I mean? I think it is something I I know and I don't know where parent volunteers or grandparent volunteers or whatever. I don't know where that falls right now. I know um a number of years ago now when my when my kids were in elementary school, I could volunteer until my
091son had gotten into I think it was fourth grade and he had just graduated this past year and boom, they like cut out volunteers. They like didn't want any more volunteers. So, I don't know if that has changed. I don't know if that's communicated to, you know, like you said, as far as like communicated to people. I don't think they asked for volunteers at the high school or when I was even a parent at the middle school. I was I mean they want you to volunteer for you know like PTO or you know different groups but as far as classroom volunteers I mean and murder maybe that's would be a discussion with Melissa too as far as a communication process for that if there is one that's a thing that was interesting especially at RMS
092I could see where it could be helpful. We have a motion. Um, I heard over here David made the motion. Second. Got a second from Sam. All in favor? I. We're journey. Thank you folks. I appreciate Thank you. British tax.