There is no summer vacation for the human resources department for the Buffalo Public School District. The district is busy working to recruit substitute teachers for the upcoming school year and a ‘hiring fair’ is set for this Saturday.
93-people have already applied and will be interviewed Saturday at the waterfront school downtown. You must have a bachelor's degree to apply.
The district needs substitutes not only when a teacher calls in sick or is on leave, but mainly so teachers can attend pre-planned professional development.
District assistant superintendent for human resources Jamie Warren tells 7 Eyewitness News their substitutes work at a variety of city schools.
“And so people get to go from school to school to cover absences of our teachers and eventually they find the schools they really are attracted to working in. And they can indicate those are the schools they prefer to support. They get a lot of chances to work with our students,” Warren explained.
Warren tells us the challenge in retaining substitutes is all local school districts are competing for the same pool of candidates.
“We find that it is a very transient populating because all the local school districts are competing for the same pool of candidates. So they can just choose to sign up with us, but that doesn’t mean they will work with us all the of time - they are usually working for multiple districts,” noted Warren. “Making them feel like a part of the school community and feeling attached to the work we are doing is one of the challenges - so to know us is to love us.”
If hired as a city school substitute you would be required to work a minimum of 20-full days each school year. The starting pay is $112 daily with potential to earn $137 a day.
The school district is also hiring in all areas right now. There's a billboard at corner of Niagara and Mohawk streets promoting the district with the slogan "to know us is to love us."
And in an effort to meet demands of an overall teaching shortage, the city district is now teaming with Niagara University. The college is offering students with a bachelor’s degree in any field of student to take a one-year master’s degree program and teach in a Buffalo classroom at the same time.
If you would like to apply to for a Buffalo schools substitute teaching job go to this link to the city school district's webpagefor more information.
Once hired as a substitute, the district will be holding training days on August 7th and August 20th. They will learn about classroom management, Trauma Informed Training and state mandated sexual harassment training.
