As a shortage of Kansas substitute teachers is expected to continue into the 2022-23 school year, the Kansas State Board of Education is considering permanently expanding eligibility for most anyone with a high school diploma to receive asubstitute teacher license.
The state board on Tuesday heard an update from Mischel Miller, director of teacher and licensure for the department, on the status of the board's Temporary Emergency Authorization Licensing program.
That program, which the board passed in January, was intended as a stop-gap measure that allowed anyone 18 or older with a high school diploma, in addition to passing a background check,to substitute teach in the state for just this school year. Regular substitute teacher licenses require holders to have earned at least 60 college credits.
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State education officials at the time said the program was probably the lowest they wanted to move the bar for Kansas substitute teachers, but they said it was a necessary move to address a substitute teacher crisis in the state's classrooms.
More than 900 Kansans received emergency substitute licenses
In the four months since the TEAL program started, the state education department has issued 906 of those temporary, emergency substitute licenses, Miller said. Since the licenses essentially required applicants to have a school district sponsor them, most, if not all, of those 900 licenses have likely been in active use.
A survey of a little over half of Kansas school districts found that most districts only had a handful of TEAL license holders, although one district, Garden City USD 457, used the program to hire 72 emergency substitutes.
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While there were initial concerns that the program could put recent high school graduates in charge of classrooms of students not much younger than them, only 14% of licenses went to applicants younger than 21. Only one 18-year-old even received a license, Miller said.
More than 80% of the surveyed school districts said in the survey that they were in favor of continuing the TEAL program, Miller said. One unexpected benefit of the program was that paraprofessional teacher aides were able to apply for the emergency substitute licenses, and that inspired them to begin pursuing their full teacher credentials.
"It wasn't a ton, but it was some, and that's more than we had before," Miller said.
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Altogether, the 900 TEAL licenses this spring semester were a fraction of the overall substitute pool. Just over 12,000 people held regular substitute teacher licenses over that same time period, in addition to 3,100 "fully licensed" substitute teachers who had completed a teacher preparation program.
"For the most part, (TEAL) did help fill those emergency substitute teacher gap opportunities," Miller told the board. "It was never meant to be a permanent solution. It was meant to allow teachers in an already stressed situation an opportunity to take care of themselves and their families— to go to dentist appointments or care for sick children."
TEAL substitute licensing program will expire this year, but concept could continue
The TEAL program will only continue through the end of June, as had originally been approved, Miller said.
But one of its key provisions — expanding substitute teacher eligibility beyond just those with 60 college credit hours under their belts — could be merged into the regular substitute teacher licensure program, Miller said.
The proposal would allow people without 60 credit hours to apply for and receive a regular substitute teacher license after completing an online training module. Additionally, the broader proposal would continue to waive, for a third year, a limit on the number of days a substitute teacher can remain in one assignment.
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Applicants who choose to apply for a substitute license without 60 college credit hours would still need to have a school district sponsor their application.
The online training component, however, would aim to give those applicants about four to six hours of instruction on classroom management and successful strategies for substitute teaching. Miller said the training could even be offered to any substitute teacher license applicant, and that it could especially benefit smaller districts that don't have the resources to offer their own training.
Miller said the education department developed the proposal after conversations with groups like the United School Administrators of Kansas, the Kansas Association of School Boards and the Kansas National Education Association teacher's union.
However, she said KNEA was "not quite 100% on board" with the proposal, likely because of the removal of the 60-college credit hour qualification.
'Nothing magical about 60 college credit hours'
Education commissioner Randy Watson said that was his understanding, too. But he pointed out that "there is nothing magical" about the 60 college credit hour requirement, and that those college credits may even be in fields totally unrelated to education.
Still, he said the 900 TEAL license holders helped with a substitute teacher shortage this spring, and taking them out of the equation next school year could further complicate Kansas schools' efforts to staff their classrooms.
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"It's incumbent on all of us in the education community to figure this out in a way that upholds the profession and yet does provide some relief," he said.
Board member Ann Mah asked Miller and Watson if KNEA had brought any alternative solutions to the table in the discussions leading up to the education department's proposal. Neither could specify exact plans, and a KNEA spokesperson did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
In any case, Watson said the department is "still in the process of tweaking what (the proposal) could look like." Miller will return to the board in June with a final proposal on potential expansion of the state's substitute teacher license eligibility.
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"But we need to tweak it pretty quick," Mah said. "Otherwise, by August, we're going to have a substitute problem again, and we'll be back in an emergency."
"We're going to have a sub problem," Watson told Mah. "It's just about how we can mitigate the impact somewhat."
The board also discussed if a third year of waiving the limit of days regular substitute teachers can be on one assignment might indicate a need to just permanently remove that requirement.
Board chair Jim Porter said he was not quite at that point. But he did agree that some of the proposed short-term solutions are indicative of bigger problems.
"The long-term solution is to figure out how to get people in the profession," Porter said. "That's the big issue. Let's get people in the profession who are qualified. And that's a multifaceted thing — it's going to take a lot of people, not just us, in order to do that."
Rafael Garcia is an education reporter for the Topeka Capital-Journal. He can be reached at rgarcia@cjonline.com. Follow him on Twitter at @byRafaelGarcia.
