Fresno teachers get pay boost for extra duties as schools struggle with staff shortages

Fresno Unified teachers that take on extra teaching duties beyond their regular classroom work will now receive more money.

Fresno Unified announced an agreement with the Fresno Teachers Association to give teachers an additional hour of “per diem pay” for every class they work as a substitute and when extra students are deployed to their classes.

Fresno Unified Teachers will receive the extra compensation retroactively to the beginning of the school year, Aug. 12.

The rise of the omicron variant of the coronavirus has school districts across the nation scrambling to find staffing solutions to keep classrooms open.

Local school districts are offering more pay for teachers and incentives for qualified individuals to become substitute teachers.

Clovis Unified is using COVID-19 relief dollars to offer stipends to teachers that take on extra duties and has authorized overtime pay for teachers.

Central Unified is also compensating teachers for the extra work they are putting in.

Fighting to keep schools open

Schools across the nation have struggled with teacher and staff shortages since before the COVID-19 pandemic.

However, the rise of the omicron variant has made the issue worse.

Due to staff shortages, districts like Sierra Unified had to return to distance learning for one week.

“We’re suffering with teacher outages, but we’re making it,” said Jeanette Blunt, the Sierra Unified superintendent’s assistant.

Schools across California’s central San Joaquin Valley are all dealing with the same issues.

“In both our certificated and classified ranks, we have seen an absence rate of around 10-20% resulting from isolation or quarantine requirements,” Clovis Unified Chief Communications Officer Kelly Avants told the Education lab.

Since the omicron surge, Central Unified is averaging between 50 to 70 COVID-19 related absences a day, according to Central Unified Assistant Superintendent of Human Resources Jack Kelejian.

And Fresno Unified is also experiencing a shortage of teachers and staff personnel.

On average, per day, Fresno Unified has 332 teachers out due to illness or personal necessity, which is 77% of the total number of absences, according to Fresno Unified’s Director of Pipeline Programs Traci Taylor.

On Jan. 21, Superintendent Bob Nelson announced on social media that he expected nearly 600 classroom vacancies that week.

“Obviously, the word ‘hard’ doesn’t convey how difficult the times in our schools are right now. We have extreme staffing shortages. This big wave of COVID-19 and the omicron cases means we have to have all hands on deck,” Nelson said in the video.

Nelson has said Fresno Unified schools would remain open unless staffing shortages force classrooms to close again.

Newsom executive order gives more flexibility for hiring teachers

Gov. Gavin Newsom signed an executive order on Jan. 11, making it easier for schools to hire more teachers and substitute teachers.

The order remains in effect till the end of March.

Locally, school districts are taking advantage of this opportunity.

The Newsom order extends the amount of time some substitute teachers spend in a single classroom from 30 days to 120.

Fresno Unified has also taken advantage of the fact that they can now recruit retired teachers sooner to come back and substitute, Taylor said.

Clovis schools are also working to take advantage of the new order.

“The Governor’s executive order has also allowed us to accelerate the process of on-boarding substitute teachers and allowing student teachers to take on additional responsibilities for class coverage,” Avants said.

Incentives for substitute teachers

School districts are also offering more money to substitute teachers.

At Fresno Unified, a substitute teacher can make $214.56 a day, and the district is also offering an additional $200 for every 20 consecutive days they work, according to Taylor. Previously, substitute teachers at Fresno Unified made $163 a day.

Central Unified has also increased their daily pay from $125 to $165, and if a substitute teacher stays longer than 20 days, that pay climbs to $185, according to Kelejian.

Sierra Unified has also boosted their daily pay for substitute teachers to $175 to be on equal ground with Fresno and Clovis Unified.

Clovis Unified substitute teachers were previously paid $155 per day, which was increased in November to $165 per day, and long-term substitute teachers are paid $175 per day.

Fresno and Clovis Unified have hired more substitutes over the last year than previous years.

Avants said Clovis Unified normally has a roster of over 800 substitute teachers; this school year, the district bumped that to about 1,000.

During a non-pandemic year, Fresno Unified hires about 360 substitute teachers per year.

Taylor said Fresno Unified has hired 400 substitutes since the beginning of the school year and hopes to hire at least 200 more.

This story was originally published January 29, 2022 at 5:00 AM.