Substitute Teaching During COVID-19
By Jakub Cernoch
I didn’t grow up thinking I wanted to be an educator. For a number of years as a kid I wanted to be a pro baseball player until I realized I didn’t have quite the drive to be the best I could possibly be just to have a small chance. Then I wanted to get into video game design, but I found I was pretty mediocre at coding. Ah, but in my junior year of high school, I had begun to accept that I was, surprisingly, quite a capable writer. I joined the school paper my freshman year of high school for exactly one reason: I desperately wanted to write an article about a video game (Halo 3) launching later that year that I was unbelievably enthusiastic for. But that was all it took. I got sucked in hard. Four years of high school journalism later, I went to the College of Southern Nevada (CSN) and then the University of Nevada, Las Vegas (UNLV), to get my fancy schmancy bachelor’s degree in journalism with a focus on print (which totally isn’t dead yet).
But something interesting happened while I was getting that degree. Part of the requirements for my bachelor’s at UNLV were 12 credits in what was called an “Outside Area,” or, anything not under the umbrella of journalism or communications. My mom had been pushing me for years to consider getting into education because she felt confident I could be quite capable in that field, so me doing my Outside Area in education was a way of placating her. I have to say that the whole experience was an eye-opener. In my three intro classes to education, I had to do an “observation.” This meant that three times throughout the semester I went to a designated classroom at a school in the valley, sat in the room, and shadowed the teacher as they taught.
My first time observing, for intro to primary education, was in a kindergarten room. What surprised me was that I had a phenomenal time just sitting there and digesting what was going on. Watching these kids do their best to learn sounds or simple math problems became a delight. I also think that even though I was technically supposed to JUST sit and watch, the teacher said I could assist if I wanted to. Engaging with the students and seeing how excited some of them were to show this stranger how well they did on their assignment and how amazingly they colored everywhere except for inside the lines was honestly adorable. I know there are also a lot of less-than-stellar components that come with the teaching package, but those little moments that I got to see are the sort of thing I know most teachers live for.
Well, after graduating from UNLV with my (totally not dead) print journalism degree, I ended up navigating towards being a substitute teacher alongside my tennis coaching gig as my method of supporting myself. I had been working with kids through tennis for almost a decade by that point, so I didn’t think the difference would be too great despite the change of scenery.
My first day was definitely a little nerve-wracking despite my overall confidence in my ability to eventually get it right. Incredibly conveniently, the very first school I subbed at, an elementary school, became a home for the next two years. Jobs at this elementary school were plentiful enough that I could get an amazingly consistent stream of sub jobs just from there. The staff at this school are all absolute delights. I love interacting with the staff every time I go there. The students themselves are also wonderful (even if some of them are knuckleheads sometimes)! Being someone who can help nurture that environment, even for just a single day, has been incredibly fulfilling. I wholeheartedly love working with these kids. That feeling I got observing that kindergarten room gets amplified quite a bit when I’m the one who gets to make it happen.
This is why it’s so disheartening to say that I let my sub license expire at the beginning of this August, just a few weeks ago.
COVID-19 brought much of the world to a halt, or at best left it wading through molasses. I can’t lie, I loved being able to spend so much time at home through the end of the last school year. A camp counselor gig I was going to have during the summer also fell through. As a result, I’ve had the past five months entirely to myself to just reflect and decompress and work through hundreds of hours in some video games. But reflecting has led me to realize that I cannot sustain myself on the income I’ve been working with for the last two years. My current living situation has been incredibly accommodating in this regard, but with new plans on the horizon, I needed to make a change.
Substituting in the Clark County School District currently pays $90 a day, roughly $12.50 an hour, with existing variables depending on the part of town the school is in, if you’re doing an aid position versus a traditional classroom teacher position, or if you’re doing a long-term gig (anything longer than two consecutive weeks in a single room). But by and large, the vast majority of subbing options in the valley are for $90 a day. In and of itself, it’s not a miserable number. It’s at least higher than minimum wage, but given that we’re at a point where the minimum wage is an insulting number no matter what work you’re doing, that’s not saying much. Perspective changes though once we take a peek at the requirements for the job. For one, you need 60 college credits. Regardless of what the courses themselves actually were, you need an associate’s degree worth of education to be able to substitute in CCSD. Having gone to CSN, I know that a college education here can be had for “relatively” cheap, but I still feel this is a large ask for a job that will most consistently pay $12.50 an hour.
The other huge hindrance is the limit on working hours and days. $12.50 an hour would be a little more reasonable if I had more hours in a day to capitalize on that. But since school days only run about six hours, it tapers off a little bit in terms of “value per day.” In addition, sub jobs don’t exist during the summer. Summer school exists, but only full-time CCSD teachers are permitted to substitute for those gigs. As a result, I have a very firm cap of 180 working days a year, giving me a maximum possible $16,200 annually. At the end of the day, I need a college education to get at best (approximately) $16,200 annually through substituting. And this… isn’t a great deal. I didn’t care as much when I hopped on because I needed work, and I was able to shimmy in, but given the time I’ve had to think on it, it doesn’t seem quite fair considering how necessary substitute teachers are for a functioning school district.
I’m dunking a lot on substituting in CCSD, but I do want to say that it does have the massive benefit of being phenomenally flexible. In CCSD, you only have to substitute four days a month to retain licensure. You get to pick your schools and your classrooms, and as long as you do four a month, you have completely free reign. This is not a bad thing inherently, but the job dynamic sets itself up almost intentionally to be a side-gig for someone who has a more stable “traditional” job. The issue with that setup is that subs do their best when they find atmospheres they can regularly exist and thrive in. I get to be so much better at my job because I spend a bonkers amount of time at one particular school. Familiarity leads to good and consistent quality in my experience, but when you intentionally set up this system to be favored by random folks making extra pocket money four days a month, you lose out on A LOT of potential. And it’s disappointing to have to come to terms with that.
Stacked on top of this, if I were to engage in subbing now, I would have to learn how to distance teach. This is because CCSD is currently having every student in its borders participate in distance learning, so that’s the only way I could manage a gig. Do I believe I could figure it out? Sure, I probably could if I did my due diligence. But to what end? Jumping through a bunch of hurdles just to be able to get the same pay? Half the fun of the job is getting to work with these kids directly. To be the one to personally help them grow little bit by little bit. Now I wouldn’t get to interact with the kids directly, which is how most of them perform their best, and there’s no “paid-for training” or pay bump to accommodate these new obstacles. Substitutes already get no benefits from the school district as is. The straw that broke the camel’s back and all that.
Don’t get me wrong, this whole pandemic is a no-win situation (what a surprise). Whether children stayed home or went to school under stringent protective conditions, there would be legitimately well-meaning people arguing against that situation. It’s hard right now. It’s hard even for the families with living situations that could accommodate having their kid(s) at home all day. But for the families that need multiple incomes to effectively operate? Now that the $600 federal assistance has run out -and at the time of my typing there’s been no push for Nevada to receive its extra $300 from the federal government in lieu of that $600- the need for multiple incomes in some homes is inescapable, and the balancing act of managing this all is absolutely brutal.
I don’t know that it’s fair of me to rant like this without really offering a clear solution. The truth is that I cannot in good conscience make any sort of blanket statement about what is the “correct” move. All I know is that right now, it’s hard for a lot of people, and it would continue to be hard for others even if the kids were doing their best with in-person classes held as safely as possible. That direct contact between the educator and the children is monstrously useful for so many on both ends of the exchange. But weighing that against the current global situation can become an impossible choice, and I don’t care to be in the chair of anyone who has to make those kinds of decisions.
All I can say is that I hope we get safe enough to go back to classrooms soon. What a great day it’ll be to say it’s safe enough to head back into classrooms and work together again.
Photo/Jakub Cernoch.
Jakub Cernoch graduated from the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, in Spring 2018 with a Bachelor’s degree in Journalism. He is an avid video and tabletop game enthusiast, tennis coach, and aspiring freelance writer. Before everything happened in March, he was also an enthusiastic substitute teacher, but hey, can’t win them all. He also enjoys obnoxiously colorful shirts and will unironically enjoy wearing Hawaiian button-down shirts forever.
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