School Board Votes to Increase Rates for Substitute Teachers

ST. CLOUD -- Substitute teachers in the St. Cloud Area School District will be making a little more money in the coming school year.

At Wednesday night’s meeting, the school board approved an increase in the rates for teachers who work as substitutes in the district.

In their annual review, the district looked at how current rates stacked up to others in the state. They found their current rate of $105 per day for new substitutes, $125 for those with district training, and $135 for district retirees fell below the average of $122 for neighboring districts, and $136 for others of equal size in Minnesota.

Tracy Flynn Bowe is the Executive Director of Human Resources. She says they needed to adjust the rates to stay competitive.

Our rates are kind of right at the same point as our neighboring districts, but they are not competitive with districts our size. Like all districts in the state of Minnesota, we are experiencing a shortage of subs in this labor market. People have lots of employment options, so we are doing our best to remain competitive.

The board voted unanimously to increase the rates to $125, $140, and $150 for the different categories.

Over the last three school years, the fill rates have dropped from 90 percent down to 82 percent. Last school year only 7,778 of the 9,721 teacher absences were filled by a substitute.