The Saucon Valley School Board approved higher starting pay for substitute teachers Tuesday, after superintendent Monica McHale-Small recommended boosting pay due to the difficulty the district is having attracting subs.
“We’re going to hypothesize that [the difficulty] is related to money,” she said, adding that the starting daily rate for a Saucon sub is $75.
“It’s been a very difficult problem, especially for [the] elementary [school],” she said.
McHale-Small recommended that the district’s substitute teacher pay schedule be adjusted to more closely correspond with those of many other nearby districts, where subs can earn $100 a day or more right off the bat.
In the Saucon Valley School District, subs had to work for 46 days in order to earn $100 a day.
“We’re not increasing the maximum pay,” which will remain at $100 per day, McHale-Small said. However, paying a flat-rate of $100 starting from Day One will hopefully increase the attractiveness of substitute teaching in Saucon Valley, she explained.
School board member Charles Bartolet said he thinks it’s preferable to use certified teachers as substitutes.
“I could not agree with you more,” McHale-Small responded. Increasing the starting pay rate should help attract more certified substitute teachers, she said.
“There’s a cost to not having a fully certified teacher in front of our students every day,” she noted.
Board member Susan Baxter asked McHale-Small about the budgetary impact of increasing the starting pay for subs.
McHale-Small said that although she did not have that information at hand, she would provide it to the board.
A motion to increase the pay for Saucon subs to a flat $100-per-day was approved by a vote of 8-1, with Bartolet voting against it.
