Scheduling Substitutes - Who Manages That?

Candace Chesler

We are a PreK-8th grade school with 108 faculty. Due to declining enrollment - and budget cuts - we are looking at shifting some job responsibilities among admin staff for the next school year. The Associate Head of School and Chief Operating Officer have told our Registrar that he is going to be responsible for managing the substitute process next year. Main responsibilities would be:

• Recruiting and training people for the substitute pool
• Maintaining a supply of laptops for substitute teachers to use
• Scheduling subs for planned absences
• Starting his day at 6:30 am (at home) to see what teachers have called in sick and will need a sub
• Securing a sub for each of the unplanned absences
• Making sure the teacher has entered sub plans in our shared Google Drive for subs
• Greeting the sub at 7:30 am at school to give them the laptop and direct them to the room
• Check in with the sub during the day to make sure they have what they need
• Giving feedback to the Division Heads if the sub reported any issues with students or curriculum

Currently this task is done by a member of the Operations Team. I work closely with our registrar and told him I would ask this group about this additional duty coming his way. It does not seem reasonable to either of us that subs would be handled by the Registrar.

Who handles subs at your school?
If you think the registrar SHOULD do this - give me some of the benefits of that job duty being with the registrar.
If you think the registrar should NOT do this - give me some arguments he can use with the AHoS and COO that will sway them. (It’s too much is not going to be an acceptable answer for them)

Vicky Lopuchowycz

@Candace Chesler - Our Executive Assistant to the Principal is in charge of subs. We use ReadySub, so that's where the teacher submit their absences and then our subs can log in and see what is available for the day and select what openings they're going to cover. Teachers can also request specific subs. Our Attendance Officer is the back up person if the Executive Assistant to the Principal is not in and our Assistant Principal for Academics will also assist if it's a heavy absentee day. We also have HR and our Director of Educational Technology who onboard the subs.

I'm the Registrar and can't imagine having this added to my plate. It should be someone who has a more personal knowledge of the teachers and more flexibility during the day. I think that a lot of people don't realize what Registrar's actually do and what's involved in their day to day. Not being familiar with the structure of your school, I can't give a better reason.

Shannon Krise

@Candace Chesler It took me a while to gather my thoughts because this just seems so crazy to me. We all know that at independent schools we have a tendency to wear multiple hats, but these things are really disconnected from a Registrar's expected duties. That would be the center of my objection. None of the things on this list have anything to do with student records, registration, schedules, grades or even the SIS/LMS. Managing subs is part of managing faculty, so should belong to the administrative roles that manage and support faculty, or are at least more connected to program rather than record keeping/database management.

At our school, the tasks on your list are handled by a combination division directors, front office staff, and teachers at our school, with the primary oversight falling to the division director.

• Teachers are responsible for sending a request for coverage to the sub list when they will be out. We are looking at EZ Substitute Management to help handle this in the future, but currently it's just an email distribution list.
• Division directors are copied on these emails and are responsible for dealing with unexpected absences where a sub has not accepted the job. Subs would also report any issues to the division director.
• We do have a couple subs who are regularly scheduled so that there is “floater” sub present each day. If they are not needed to step in to cover for an unexpected absence, they are available to do support work for teachers.
• Subs pick up a lanyard/key and chromebook from the front office when they sign in for the day. They will generally communicate with the front office staff if they have any questions or issues who will direct them to the correct staff member as needed.
• One of our three division directors is responsible for recruiting, hiring, and orientation for new subs. It happens to be the Early Years director, but if I were designing this from scratch I would probably make it our Assistant Head or the Head's Executive Assistant.
• The Business Office does assist with onboarding as they would for any employee. (background checks, payroll etc.)