Schools: No More Money For Subs

[Angel Tarragon]

Schools: No More Money For Subs
Substitute Teachers Are Looking For Their Paychecks

Jun 24, 2005 6:36 pm US/Eastern
NEW YORK (CBS) Substitute teachers are hired and paid by individual schools, which typically budget for a certain number of substitutes every year. But at the end of this school year, and some of these teachers say they’ve been told that the funds are simply not there.

Since Feburary, Connie Winston has been a substitute teacher at Brooklyn Academy High School. She's says its been steady work, and a steady paycheck until recently.

“June 1st came and went and I didn't get a check. I inquired of the payroll secretary at the school to see if there was a problem with my check and she said sometimes monies are exhausted for substitutes,” said Winston.

Over at Middle School 232 in the Bronx, substitute teacher Myra Pilgrim is also being told that the funds set aside for substitute teachers this year have dried up.

“I just didn't get a check. They said there was no funding, and we would not be able to get paid, or I would not be able to get paid until somewhere in July,” said Myra.

Both women say they're owed nearly $2,000 and they say other substitute teachers at their schools are in the same boat. For Pilgrim, who is a single mom, it's been especially hard.

“Everytime I look at my son I think OK, how am I going to juggle my expenses? What am I going to do? I need the money and I need it now,” she exclaims.

It is unclear how many substitutes across the city are affected. The teachers union said it wasn't aware of any problems.

The Department of Education would only say payroll issues are handled by individual schools and they are not aware of any system wide problems.

For Winston this was her first year working in the city school system, and now her last.

“I won't be going back. I'm done. I'm really, really disgusted with the system,” she said.

The Department of Education is working with the schools to fix the situation. Full time teachers, on the other hand, are able to receive emergency payments if their checks are delayed. Because substitutes aren’t full time employees they are not entitled to the emergency money.

 

[Arbiter of Wyrms]

That sucks. I'll remember not to move to NYC without some regular job lined up. Teaching, particularly subbing, is hard enough without doing it for free.

 

[EricNoah]

That sucks. I'll remember not to move to NYC without some regular job lined up. Teaching, particularly subbing, is hard enough without doing it for free.

Tell me about it. And then some school districts get "jealous" if you take jobs in other school districts -- Madison SD expected me to sit around waiting for them to call (maybe they would, maybe they wouldn't) rather than take the first job offered me. Bleh, even as it was I could only count on 3 days of work a week. But not getting paid on top of that? No good...

 

[Shemeska]

It is unclear how many substitutes across the city are affected. The teachers union said it wasn't aware of any problems.

In my experience you simply don't exist in the eyes of the teachers unions if you're not a contracted teacher and member of their group. A mother, an uncle and a cousin all being teachers it's been a sobering experience seeing the interplay between them, their union, and anyone not a member of those groups. Unions by their very nature should be self serving to their members, but for public jobs like school teachers there's a conflict of interest in many cases I find. In this case the substitutes are getting screwed and the union is turning a blind eye.

In their case I'd sue the school district. Let them find the money somehow if it's owed. Trim the expense budget of the superintendent of the school district, they're usually inflated all to heck anyway.