An incentive program introduced to help fill substitute teacher jobs showed promising results in Fairfax County Public Schools last year, Virginia’s largest school system said.
Last year, teacher jobs had a substitute fill rate of about 83%, according to data obtained by WTOP through a Freedom of Information Act request. That’s a 9.5% improvement compared to the 2021-22 school year.
Fill rates for instructional assistants improved by 6.9%, according to the data, though the 2022-23 fill rate for those jobs was just over 60%.
Joanne Jackson, project administrator in the school system’s Office of Substitute Employment, said principals called the incentive program a “game changer,” explaining that it helped to ensure a substitute covered a class on a hard-to-fill day when the regular teacher wasn’t in school.
The school system introduced the incentive program last year, offering hourly pay plus an additional $80 for every high-volume day worked. FCPS identified the days it anticipated it would need a large number of substitutes and offered a $55 incentive for substitute instructional assistants who worked on high-volume days.
The school system also offered an incentive for the number of days worked. Substitutes who worked 50 jobs in a school year got a $200 bonus. Those who worked 100 days got a $300 bonus, and those who worked 150 got a $400 bonus. Substitutes are only required to work 10 days per school year.
Some substitutes, Jackson said, “would come in with a list of all the high-volume days and say, ‘Just find a job for me on these days, and I’ll work every single day in your school.'”
“We did see an increase in all of our jobs across the division,” Jackson said.
Fairfax County has a pool of over 4,000 substitute teachers, she said, but not all substitutes work every day. The school system averages between 1,500 and 2,200 substitute requests per day.
Fairfax County considered the incentive program after learning that surrounding jurisdictions offered some type of bonus or incentive, Jackson said.
One thing the county is working to address, Jackson said, is frustration from some substitutes who get reassigned within a school based on need.
It’s something the county is aware of and usually happens when there are multiple classes that can’t be covered, Jackson said. Nonetheless, the Substitute Employment Office administrator identified one of the top reasons the county loses substitute teachers: they become full-time educators.
“They’re being hired in instructional positions, in operational positions throughout the division,” Jackson said. “So they’re actually moving from an hourly employment focus to a contracted position, which we’re very excited about.”
All classroom teacher jobs that a substitute teacher didn’t fill were filled internally by schools, the county said.
The Fairfax County School Board has to vote on whether to approve the program again for the upcoming school year.
