ST. JOHNS COUNTY, Fla. – St. Johns County School District leaders trying to fill open teaching positions are now offering extra money for substitutes willing to take certain jobs.
It comes as nearly 1,000 teachers, students and staff members are either COVID-19 positive or under quarantine.
According to a message from the district’s head of human resources, St. Johns County schools need to fill classroom teacher vacancies at specific times and specific places, like at Nease High School, and they’re now offering extra money as an incentive.
“We hope that by offering this incentive program, it will help reduce the number of unfilled vacancies occurring at our schools, while incentivizing you to substitute on days and in places where we need substitutes," said Cathy Hutchins, the school district’s associate superintendent for human resources.
Substitute teachers in the district normally get $100 a day. But the new program will dole out an extra $20 for those who work Mondays or Fridays, plus an extra $10 if the position is at one of these 13 different schools:
- Gamble Rogers Middle School
- Pedro Menendez High School
- South Woods Elementary
- Webster Elementary
- St. Augustine High School
- Sebastian Middle School
- Murray Middle School
- Crookshank Elementary
- Osceola Elementary
- Bartram Trail High School
- Nease High School
- Otis Mason Elementary
- Transitions/Gaines School
The message did not confirm why those schools were singled out.
The incentives will be in place for November, December and January.
The head of the St. Johns County Education Association says she believes the district needed this incentive program because the district was already short on substitutes and fewer are stepping in because of the coronavirus pandemic.
But having a strong network of substitutes was a key strategy at the beginning of the year school year, according to St. Johns County Superintendent Tim Forson.
“We are making a commitment to having it really anywhere from one to about three substitutes in a school depending on the size of the school and have them there for the first month so that whatever the need is, whatever the demand was, that we have that set of hands," Forson told News4Jax in an Aug. 25 interview.
Before the end of January, administrators are going to look at how many substitutes took part in this program to see whether it’s working.
News4Jax has reached out to the school district for more information about the program and the district’s vacancies.