001I woke up in good I saw some pictures am people more we had to move or to the media center we usually like to use this room because it's just a little bit moreal for some reason instead of the tables and you know but we had is that a professional technique thinking that that's pretty that's like the guy who taught me you hold your keys up to your head like this and it's just I don't understand I watched him do it it's like that makes it longer evidently somehow I don't know range of I'm missing something like when you're unlock car yeah you hold it up to your head makes them makes the range I don't know if I believe the science but I don't want yeah more of those I hold this to my
002head so all right do we have presentations there are yes that's right Margaret had ton of those see that church yeah that's in Croatia beautiful really no oh really is there selling me remember the old drink from the middle my first time trying but there's some other ones that right now so did you go there but the ones that I did trans right after I retired from so it's it's been a while we went the first week in November and the people on the bus were veterans they go on several vac year they always nov put in the first did there that I might just I love looking at I think everywhere now all right folks if you can we get a roll call vote please y um Sam alil here David Trader here Dan
003bolner here Craig Wartman here Mike Higgins Lorie Holland here Fred here Diana Johnson here Tina Johnson here all right anybody join me in saying the Pledge you very much I guess I did those in reverse order I didn't my glasses on sorry um so I'm hoping this doesn't have to go two hours but I want to give us time to talk as we can be a chatty Bunch um we have had a lot of discussion 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 kind of just talk about
004this uh I'm not looking put this together for us to make any board uh action on this that is not the purpose purp this is uh meeting is purely for the 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 with the community says hey what are we doing what is the staff um issue you know I know that I have in the last year
005I'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 move forward so all right so Jason and Margaret I'm gonna let 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 subub situation and to talk a little bit about what we've observed and so um included in
006board do is a a summary of that the 2024 sub bill rates January to March the last PDF one okay which shows that if you look across I mean we we can pull organization wide data as well but um we we know just from what we see that that F 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 fill 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 has been implemented that is uh you know
007it's a rolling rotation skill 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 volunteers the volunteers aren't sufficient to meet the vacancies and so then that that's when they resort to the mandatory rotation they uh staff are paid for that but the what what we know is that there's a level dis satisfaction 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 the approval to go ahead and raise
008our 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 a lot of new teacher sub 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 subs than 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 they're not as fearful of
009going 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 deterr in 2223 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 waca area with the exception of the super large districts um are paying about $140 to $150 a day for um shortterm Subs um we have uh I don't have any fresh data to work off of yet school year hasn't started yet so we
010don't know what we have um coming on De 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 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 sub 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 on the market um I think there's a a hand out there that
011talks 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 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 uh with uh 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 a super good source of uh potential substitutes we are prohibited from talking with any of them during the 75 day waiting period while they U meet their eligibility requirement for uh wrs but um one of the things that
012we'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 invitations all we can say is basically we know that a lot of wusd Educators like to come back after theyve met their 75 day 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 up you're eligible
013are you thinking about coming back great let's reactivate you um so that is one of the the strategies that will 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 ptit tudes being low enough to trigger eligibility for any incentive that is designed along those uh along those um lines and then set up 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 little
014bit of room to grow in in terms of uh some of these attempts like increasing even like I put 165 but it could be 155 and we could go with something like that and see you know is that drawing some of the these local uh Subs over from Johnson cek or from Dodgeland 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 so 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 difficult difficult thing was that okay so we're you know the Paris for example you know
015had 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 de 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 ladder there so the longterm 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 what I think it would depend on the amount of the
016increase 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 longterm it's usually to cover a person who is out on an Extended Medical Leave most often a 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 or things like that they're more or less
017to the extent possible folded in to the building culture and into the certified staff as best as we can I me we've included some of those long-term subs and 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 or 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 lot the earlier people put an absence in the sooner it 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
018rates so if people are crawling 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've heard 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 function of how quickly do we have to have turn around that in the can I switch topics a little bit are we still on okay um I'm curious two major things not major bigger things right now why are we only looking at January February March is that
019is there a sign no I just didn't know if there was a significance there well we can't it no that's okay I didn't know if that was a higher 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 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 I mean I don't know if those are things that are typically here so if those are all things
020we've already enacted then I'm looking at okay is there a reason why the numbers are higher you know is there is I want to say a mental health or whatever because I know that there's 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 100 100% Bill 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 but if we're not fixing the Rook
021cause 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 Rook cause pieces to why is there a small sub pool 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 the teacher giving up their time
022that'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 it's a short-term thing investigate the problem whatever I don't want to stay things great I actually I agree with much of what Diana just said um I I think the but I also take a step back and I also wonder okay there's a lot of teachers in general we're going to look at at that from that perspective there's teachers that want to teach in the high school there's teachers that want to teach in the elementary and there's teachers that want to teach in the middle school that's what they're designed for that they they they know
023that 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 season 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 the H committee we heard um some steps in which the administration is trying to um take to to try to deal with some of those things I'd like to
024see how that works but um I I still support uh you know the the incentive pay that for the middle school until that improves um comment via email one said uh if it's truly about dollars then 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 I I want to make sure we don't get down solutionizing for them because I know Margaret's got a
025bunch of things 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 attended and the HR committee had endorsed the recommendation to increase and also impl a par par professional bonus program and we went live with that by the time the board meeting went by but my question is is if there um so I've had I have some background in public transportation industry and they have a theory the thing there they call variable pricing so parking at noon is more expensive than it is at 6 PM because it's that's the
026high 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 be the first step that we would have to put a little
027work 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 that she gets up at 5:30 every morning to you know verify how many vacancies we have 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 know this anecdotally I have a daughter who's a CNA at the May Clinic up in oir and she was just telling
028me 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 premium text and I said why and she said because if you go premium text they'll pay $50 bonus and double time and they won't float 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 manami or something like that something that is not satisf fire for CNA so so it like in 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 I'm I'm envisioning something something along those lines like we get to a
029certain threshold and a certain time period and we say yep premium pay and then the text and the auto the we have an auto caller that that is used through front line then that starts activating hey we've got premium pay assignments 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 need 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 incentivize kind of like what you were talking about will
030that 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 short term notice right uh spaces that open up but well I mean the risk to that is it's a role 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 the knee surgery somebody else might that'll stay out there vacant until somebody picks it up and somebody might pick it up and then that whole opportunity is gone so I mean you're you're it is something of like do
031I 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 monitor 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 uh gotcha yeah so it wouldn't be for those longterm it would be more of a day by day okay got okay second with what kind of
032pool uh do you have for um retired wusd teachers how big of a pool is that I don't have that off the top I had 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 you know increase the in 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 should first go look and see are all
033those are the majority of them at the high school already where there isn't yeah again that's why I said what does the pool look like yeah David Craig to your earlier Point um I'd love to sit here all night and talk about reverse op and bidding on 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 them it there's a dollar sign in the solution and and 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 referrals have we disc what
034our 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 lever 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 Fred I agree with Fred 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 sure we understand the problem
035yeah 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's I don't want to get too far down one radical but I love the idea of the bid the bid
036system is a great idea I just don't want to go there there are areas that we have I mean DPI did lower the C if ation 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 that 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 at5 or $16 an hour I mean that is a significant uh uh cash outlay for
037them 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 I qualified for a substitute license I myself who I would be kind of scary have a substitute license but you would not want me in a class room just to be very clear but um unless it was an HR class then unless it's 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 fixed after that one of the things that was a really big complaint out of both of the secondary schools was I
038can'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 a teacher 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' 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 who's on the ground review with our administrators at the building what is what is it that you're
039doing with your sub when 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 I mean I think it might be the best thought I guess that okay I'm going to only mention action steps one through three because um we're doing oh okay um but one one through no we're not doing four you aren't doing we are going to go ahead and do
040three I mean that's like a n 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 could be a challenge um so in in the in the in L 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 um 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 as far as you know like what
041kinds of feedbacks should 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 so sorry I cannot remember specifics there
042was something recently that we were going over and RMS had like significant improvements I cannot remember what it was satisfaction 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 building 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 of thing um but I I know
043it's one of those you know small things um just not to be negative about lunch because we'd like to give out lunch but there are us CA requirements as far as Federal funding teachers have to pay forch okay well yeah I don't think 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 here's a little rigid to me to I mean an Administration could give them here's five bucks for your lunch or whatever the you know what I mean so I mean there's probably a work around I'd imagine I'm just saying don't talk about don't talk yeah I'm gonna stay focused I just just say right Services L we heard earlier tonight that our district doesn't do punitive measures
044um 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 blues lip 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 to serve the punitive detention and that was uh really the only recourse that
045they gave to subs and and uh the chief 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 who's ever supervising it and talking to them so I think we need to treat discipline with Subs differently and I like the thought of discipline but also what you started with is um support yeah for the subs Tina um I don't know what this looks like or anything like that but I mean is there a way like to utilize parent volunteers not as Subs hey let's not
046go 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 Subs we' sent out flyers home with kids and sent out skyers to try and entice parents to join our CBR sure oh well yeah which which I I totally understand 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 I'll make copies for this teacher and I'll do you know what whatever
047you 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 a little bit more sometimes it helps when you it's another form of support as parent volunteers it doesn't have to be every day you know I don't know like I said I don't know what that looks like but that just kind of alleviate a lot of bur second 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 only about teachers okay all right good well and um so I just want to see did you have any other did you have any questions no I I just wanted to kind of
048I a comment off of um off of what Dan was 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 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 suppor correct so I think that and hits on of that maybe behaviors are still probably an issue not just at the middle school but also the high school um I like I'd like Tina's thought process though too where you know yeah maybe we aren't tapping into um parents enough in the way um and you
049know 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 lnch to dat you know complement of PTO well you got talk to the PTO on that specific where the money go right and and but but maybe also without without the other uh 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 know those are those are those little things that I think we can kind of try to help with those those Solutions so what I'm hearing here
050is um that we the board is open to Fresh ideas on making solutions to this and and having that discussion um with you know Market'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 uh 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 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 to be the hardest one to fill but is there you know is there a way to we can make that the most enticing one things like
051that is that kind of the general consensus I'm getting here and that you know we we also understand that Subs move more support because they're Subs um and especially those that are do not have a history 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 get there 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 the subs because the Deans are are you know lack for a better term are enforcers at the schools so I mean the high school is just stud in
052their Dean role um the associate principles have I would really need to check with them for in terms of what their role is as it ears okay just in the same way that I didn't want to jump on the dollar band wagon I'm but I believe that that's a significant contributor and also the culture and the support once again 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 here we don't have Sarah here and yet somewhere that's got a trickle down but that's Tech I mean and I know he's here on behalf
053of 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 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 principls or the the team leads I don't know that's what they call them up in the high school right Dan I mean like panuski or whatever that's a that's a team lead in the math department I mean I don't know I'm just asking uh Fred when you give direction or when they listen to the meeting minutes who gets that action it's not Mar and that's not necessarily her department so I'm wondering if I could take these
054suggestions 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 that they need in order to feel like this is a an assignment that I can handle and that I have the authority and the responsibility to effectively do my job yeah I
055already 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 presum I mean I'm not going to say presumably it comes back to at services but it could come back to policy it could come back to a 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 and I know that running to ground isn't something we even do that effectively and even the Committees because 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 buddy
056system if it's hey if if uh you know me and Lyn are both subes and we both show up every single day that we're called we get an extra $5 do 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 margus take this back to Jared and Jared's got to feel strong enough about a proposal bring it to the full board don't he doesn't have to give it to a committee bring it to the full board and if the board decides look we think this isn't fully baked and as a board we can decide that it can go to a committee
057and at that point but I figure you know what if you've got a plan you want to put this in place and 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 sure Mar got Direction yeah I do has if it's both that wrong you could also send it to more than one committee right correct yeah 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 to we 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
058to the next board gting so all right other questions thoughts Margaret you got other things for us no I think I think I understand the direction now I'm gonna ask you this do you because you know Tina was good and she hit on time 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 sub section of the work that's done because they they seem to go together and um some of our Paras are and 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 out and and just if we have
059to differentiate we will do that within the terms of the plan 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 Craig 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 to actually um move forward with something that's going 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 tinina um two things I also do
060I 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 will 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 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 larger 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
061see 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 it price tags the biggest issue there that we could put building put a dedicated sub at each building but that's going to be cost prohibited 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
062for 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 20 2425 so those would be additions to the budget so one of the other things that we did know when we had building Subs U 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 backfill those so it was really just converting people that had worked um a lot anyhow and they I mean to be clear they likeed I mean the three that were received that um we did
063also have one year where we had a building sub who was unfortunately out on a leave on the teachers own leave for most of the school year which um we tried to build us so great thank you uh I just kind of curious Sarah if if you had been able to run the numbers when it comes to this action number two add $190 a day for a sub premium pray pay so to speak over the course of the year because I don't see um in in the samples that we received that there was a single day that went by where there was 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 B come to I mean is
064it close to that 60,000 80,000 what were we talking about so you're saying if it was $190 $90 a day for one sub for like student 170 student days maybe is that what you mean correct yeah I mean that's that's $ 32,300 okay yeah but that's not just ours 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 so at 60,00 which you can you can concede that potentially a full-time sub can remain as a fulltime 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
065yeah but at a certain point we have to give them benefits I don't know well we do have to pay wrs I mean if people are are elig and then Jamie do we have ACA eligibility thresholds for teachers 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 fer is our payroll and benefits Guru and knows all thank you Jamie a good question well thank you for clearing that up though I appreciate that you're welcome other questions no I chose thought the building sub but then you look at where the biggest problems are one sub doesn't take care of yeah the problem
066yeah I'm thinking RMS one sub doesn't fix that whole at the elementary school one building 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 what are the other things that need because again sounds like each Elementary the middle in the high school they have um different needs at each one of those I mean let's not forget that it's 85% fail rate at the
067elementary and it's 100 at the high school there's still a 15% Gap there I know we're happy with what we've get into Elementary but there's still a 15% Gap there so so just like just from a a like bigger Universe sub Universe 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 Edy staff is one that's up in 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 help agency premium in order for them to fill their current service model says that they have met a satisfactory rate at 85% so that's like their deliverables to an organization so they will say you know we'll
068we'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% are better you know that's great and so he's happy with that so but but is that is that districtwide or building specific because I have not entered into discussions with those dunders 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 relationship with them so that we know they're ours and they know that we know they're our our employees you know whereas teachers call is more if Lake Mills and Johnson cek and Fort and everybody else is using
069them 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 contain terms of that opening so you've 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 it'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 able to um figure out the the best um perhaps incentive for them to want to be and it's said it's and had that count being competitive yeah can I switch the topic we've talked a lot about overall Subs
070they still had the issue of teacher 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 a p toward something I don't think we'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 through that up I will include that on the discussion so what so just as
071part of the discussion tonight um are there in is there anything else you can add to that so I mean we do know that when teachers essentially what they call sell their PR 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 foot feet so those that extra pay is reported through a reporting mechanism between each of the individual schools and Jamie Fisher but um that 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
072to change that I mean we could change it I me we could look at there's a couple different things we could look at what's the LLY rate for our um our starting teacher Pig 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 based 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 do that but I think I think Diana is getting to correct if I'm wrong here is this isn't necessarily about the money it's about the time and them giving up their time that they need for prep and they're being asked to do this who were told that they
073need to do this it's both I mean at $25 an hour that's I mean you think about what a regular sub gets we've increased regular sub pay minimum wage at Walmart you know at different places 1518 $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 park today so you know so but I'm not saying it has to be their hourly rate it'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 to say we're trying we're not there yet here's a little something it
074doesn't fix the problem until we have a ro 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 $ 47,1 183 twice at time if you reduce that to an hourly basis the hourly rate is 34.072631 well I mean they always say volunteers first okay I just want to be clear about that there are some people like at RMS that do like to fill in and and um the extra compensation as it is right now is enough to incentivize them give up their prep but then they will go if they cannot get volunteers then they will Implement a mandatory assign the mandatory
075rotation and that's kept in the office office and updated on a daily Bas how does that get chosen it's basically the whole staff including the administration they have big wheel they have a big they have a very large spreadsheet that tracks everyone it's called I don't know I will go over tomorrow and 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 it's the random wheel spinner yeah that doesn't put you on a rotation that's just chance that's still Craig that might be on topic I mean that's important stuff important conversation to have but um there were my understanding there were times where uh this year where you would find an administrator in the classroom as well and that concerns
076me 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 you know just regular administrative work I I I you know that's we got to fix the problem most of them just to be clear administrators do administrators AR on a regular rotation they're emergency no they are on a regular on regular pretty regular I instructional coach are um are also they're all folded in assistant principls everybody's folded in at RMS at RMS yes all right um I think whs uses a more informal approach to build theirs and for 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
077it's different at each Elementary too um yes and it depends 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 is much more variable at the elementary I was going to say is it is it demonstratively 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 this kids all
078day as opposed to secondary where it's per per they can break out per period subing okay a little bit that easier but I I would need to defer to the instructional people learn their expert assessment of that yeah I think at hel you traditionally see like a class in 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 schedule at the middle schools do 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 Prett pure of you're you're doing all call for you know by uh by period who's who's available looks very different but I think there's some commonalities of of processes that would other
079questions discussion Margaret you hold on marget do you have anything else no I appreciate the I appreciate the discussion this has been good discussion like I said this is kind of what I wanted to get here tonight 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 and Jared will come back and tell me hey no I need you to tell me pick a day but um we know that this is a priority so this is something
080that you know the board thinks is important to look at but I I don't want to give you a specific dating you know at this point but if you come back to us in June and tell us that soing was horrible all year we'll say well we had the meeting in August so I he you you know I I don't want to I know we're kind of trying to wrap things up as a close but no if we're going to if the discussion continues it continues I just uh the the one other thing that might be interested in finding out is how those sub shortages cor correlate with um with um the transportation shortages uh and sports teams because if we're going to uh look at that we need to also understand okay if it's
081a matter of our transportation needs um 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 or a a relatively local game like in Johnson Creek uh whereas normally they would be leaving U 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 what you're
082saying is that the the drive we had a driver you would you could they could leave at the end of the day they 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 I thinks was the biggest problem RMS was B because the high school I mean there were times that
083kids were leaving at noon for a five o'clock and seven o'clock game that didn't happen at all last year unless you're in go and you're Gulf is typical golf is typ that's part of the regular SCH like even baseball if it was a 5:00 game they typically would leave about 225 230 very consistently where previously volleyball went previously you never knew so that was exactly right two years ago last year M or I don't know middle school but I know high school was 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 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
084many how many other types 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 and bunch of needed Subs um and and how perhaps maybe that could be um adjusted so that that are we're still supporting our staff for 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 cover well in the it I mean in the scenario that Craig
085is describing we usually have a pretty good idea a little bit in advance but yes that is an area that you have heard periodically concerns about what coaches are needing and then we have to build um with Subs but we do hire we do post for half to the vacancies too I I mean we have that capability those aren't the most favorite assignments people like like they're here they're going to they like to stay here for the day they don't like coming in L into the middle of the day but brings us back to varal CR 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 ke to see like how how quickly is he getting those Transportation
086schedules um but I think it's fairly well known kids are getting getting out of class quite early know several hours in advance of at what the actual need because that's one Transportation that's not and that's not just a sub they're losing instruction you know that's 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 at 8:20 uh can have motion is there a Item B on there volunte volunteer discussion oh volunteer discussion I didn't know that we we kind of WRA that J Margaret volunteer discussion what I thought that was I thought that was the idea ofte um I do know that like there are some areas where volunteers are not uh as heavily recruited right now especially as we
087get act 20 training underway and we figure out what we're doing there and how to best use uh 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 AR AVID program to place individuals and we do we have had volunteers comeing to Avid and work with our kids at and that's what's keeping us from a districtwide AVID program right now is we don't work on that mentoring piece yeah I'm gonna be honest I think the communication on that could be a little bit more R yeah because I've been to some of the family meetings but I've never once heard any discussion my
088niece is in commun invol never heard that I probably would I mean last year we were paying like college students Ser us yeah I mean even at their family meetings that they had 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 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 son had gotten into I think it was fourth grade and he had just graduated this past year and boom they
089like 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 to volunteer for you know like PTO or you know different groups but as far as classroom volunteers I mean Mur maybe that's there would be a discussion with Melissa too as far as communication process for that it's if there is one that's a thing that have's interested RMS I could see where it could be helpful we have a motion um I Heard over here David made the motion got a second
090from Sam all in favor we journey thank you folks I appreciate thank you