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SALT LAKE CITY — Jade Krause has always had a passion for education, so much so that she's studying to become a teacher. When the Orem resident saw that there was a shortage of substitute teachers in Utah's schools, she quickly jumped into action.
"I used to substitute back when I lived back in Georgia, and then coming here and seeing that there was a shortage of subs made my heart really ache and I was like, 'Oh, I have to get back in the classroom and help those little kids,'" Krause said.
At the beginning of January, Alpine School District was only filling 60% of substitute teacher requests. This low fill rate was part of the reason that the district last week voted to shorten the school day for all elementary and secondary schools by a full hour from Jan. 31 to Feb. 25 to address teacher fatigue, before walking back that decision and putting the idea on hold.
Now the substitute fill rate has spiked to 88%, one of the highest fill rates for substitutes that the district has had the entire school year.
Alpine School District is still conducting teacher surveys to assess the fatigue that comes from a low fill rate, but say having enough substitutes is key to providing relief to teachers.
As the state's largest school district, Alpine put out a call to community members asking for more substitute teachers and the community responded, with more than 200 individuals signing up to work in its schools. Additionally, district personnel have been rotating into schools to help alleviate the substitute fill rate.
"Having the 88% fill rate today, we are definitely celebrating and we are very optimistic of the future with these 200-plus new substitutes that we have in place," said David Stephenson, executive director of communications for the district.
"I think sometimes people overlook how fun being a substitute is. You're able to kind of get the best of both worlds," Krause said. "You get to feel like a teacher for a day and you get to go through and get to know students and their names and what's going on in their lives and just how involved that is, and how much more it makes me a better person to be able to help those students."
The district said that it welcomes Utah Gov. Cox's executive order issued last week that allows state employees to take approved leave time from their jobs to work as substitute teachers or in other school positions to help staff Utah's public and private schools.
"We appreciate the support from the state and the announcement by Gov. Cox. We look forward to reviewing the possibilities of state employees in our schools," the district said in a statement Monday.
The executive order grants state employees up to 30 hours of paid administrative leave to work as a substitute teacher or other school staff member between last week and the end of June 2022.
As of Wednesday afternoon, 205 state employees indicated that they would participate in the substitute leave program, according to Michelle Watts, human resource director at the Utah Division of Human Resource Management.
