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By JENNIFER L. HENN; Times Leader Staff Writer
Thursday, December 17, 1998     Page: 3A

HELP WANTED!
   
Substitute teachers badly needed for area school district lest students be
herded into mass study halls for lack of supervision.
    An advertisement like this one might soon be placed by any one of Luzerne
County’s 11 school districts as the pool of available substitute teachers
dwindles.
   
“Right now we have 10 substitute teachers signed up to work in the
secondary schools,” said Wilkes-Barre Area School District Superintendent Jeff
Namey. “That’s 10 to the 250 secondary teachers employed at the district. And
on any given day there might be only five of those 10 available.”
   
The shortage has become so bad districts such as Wilkes-Barre and Greater
Nanticoke Area have had to fall back on makeshift methods in dealing with
teacherless classes.
   
“We do everything we can with the personnel we have,” Namey said. “Grouping
the kids together in a big area like the auditorium or cafeteria and having
one staff person keep an eye on them is a last resort, but it happens and it
happens too often.”
   
In other instances, teachers cover classes- sacrificing planning periods
and lunch duty- when a substitute cannot be found.
   
“Sometimes our guidance counselors and even our principals will take a
class,” said Greater Nanticoke Area Superintendent Tony Perrone. “Pretty soon
it’ll be me in there.”
   
One of the most disheartening things about the shortage, which has been
getting worse every year according to administrators, is the apparent lack of
a solution.
   
“The state Department of Education recently told me they’ve been inundated
with calls about what our options are,” Namey said. “Sadly, our options are
severely limited.”
   
State law forbids substitute teachers from teaching classes outside their
area of certification. School districts can issue local emergency
certifications to teachers in three additional subject areas, but those
certificates allow substitutes to teach only 15 days in each subject.
   
School districts also can apply for emergency certifications from the state
for new teachers as soon as they have earned a bachelor’s degree, but have yet
to receive regular certification.
   
None of these approaches has been much help.
   
“There are just so many bodies,” Namey said. “That’s the problem. Not the
qualifications, the actual number of people out there willing to do this.”
   
Another idea, to dip into the about-to-graduate-from-college-pool, was
rejected by the state, Namey said.
   
“Frankly, I’m running out of ideas. I don’t know what more we can do.”
   
Namey and Perrone balk at the suggestion low substitute pay discourages
many people.
   
“We raised the rate to $60 a day this year, which is above average, and
still we can’t get substitutes,” Namey said.
   
The Wilkes-Barre Area School District has advertised for substitutes three
times since September. Each time, district officials consider themselves lucky
to get one or two applications.
   
Though Nanticoke’s list of substitutes is slightly longer than Wilkes-Barre
Area’s- 14 to their 10- their success rate is about the same.
   
“We called 14 people the other morning and all of them refused the work,”
Perrone said. “A lot of times they’ll send their names in to five or six
districts so it’s a matter of who gets them first, first come first serve.”
   
The most commonly accepted theory as to why there aren’t more substitutes
seems to be a matter of economics- budding teachers simply cannot afford to
sit around waiting for the occasional call t