COMMENTARY
Substitute teachers are still being abused
By Paul Alston
On May 23, Gov. Linda Lingle hosted a ceremony at Washington Place to sign Senate Bill 1250, which sets a new three-tier pay scale for substitute teachers.
This bill supposedly shows the Department of Education's commitment to treating substitute teachers fairly. This sort of spin is important: The DOE needs about 1,000 substitutes every school day, yet many are quitting. As it is, there are so few "real" substitutes that the DOE uses security guards to baby-sit classes and puts students in unsupervised "study halls."
It is wrong to applaud Senate Bill 1250 as a good thing. In truth, because money was short this year, at the DOE's urging, the Legislature used SB1250 to cut substitutes' pay, thereby undermining the ability to attract and keep highly qualified substitute teachers. Saying this bill helps substitutes is the same sort of delusional thinking that leads DOE leaders to say they can "rescue" the 26 failing schools that they allowed to decline and fail in the first place.
In 1996, the DOE asked the Legislature to pay all substitutes a single daily rate of pay based upon the annual pay for new "Class II" teachers. At the time, this equated to $100.94 per day — without sick leave, holidays, health insurance or any other benefits.
Equal pay for equal work, the DOE said.
As the same time, the DOE promised that the new rate of pay would increase as the pay for teachers increased. Since that time, Class II teachers' pay has risen nearly 50 percent — the HSTA has done a great job for its members. Based upon the 1996 law, substitutes should be paid nearly $160 per day.
At that rate, a substitute who worked every single school day would earn about $29,000 per year.
Instead of honoring the law, the DOE used a series of schemes to manipulate substitute teachers' pay to avoid paying the promised raises. They changed job labels and manufactured new pay scales that applied only to substitutes. Under oath, the DOE has "justified" these acts by saying it was ignorant of the 1996 law it urged the Legislature to pass.
In this way, the DOE limited substitutes' pay raises to barely 11 percent over the past 10 years — at present, a full-time substitute teacher makes less than $20,000 with no benefits at all.
During this past session, substitute teachers worked hard for legislation that would set things right. They asked for back pay and future pay adjustments. In response, the DOE lobbied hard for lower rates.
They won; there was not enough money to fund full pay adjustments. As a result, SB1250 sets pay rates far below the level set in the 1996 law. Instead of paying more than $157 per day under current law, substitutes will only receive $119 to $140 per day — no equal pay for equal work, and no parity with Class II teachers, as was promised.
Next time your child comes home from school complaining that he or she was "taught" by a security guard — who should have been doing other important work — you will know why: The DOE is still mistreating substitute teachers.
That is why you will find experienced substitutes screening bags at the airport where they get decent pay, decent benefits and some respect.
Paul Alston is an attorney for substitute teachers in class actions seeking back pay for substitutes. He was invited to attend the May 23 ceremony. He declined.
