NORTHFIELD — Pioneer Valley Regional School District teachers are concerned about a decision to stop using substitutes through the end of the school year, said Ariel LaReau, president of the district’s teachers union.
According to an email Superintendent Ruth Miller sent May 3 to all district employees, the district will stop all spending except payroll. The email also said purchases will not be reimbursed unless they are covered in the union’s contract or had been approved by Miller beforehand.
Regarding the new lack of substitutes, Miller wrote in the email: “I will be working with the administrative team to come up with a solution to many of the concerns I know you will have. When a final plan is in place we will communicate this plan to you.”
At a School Committee meeting April 12, Miller said the district had been spending money on substitutes at a rate that, if it continued, would lead the district to overspend its budget for the year.
Miller could not be reached for this article Wednesday evening.
In the following weeks, administrators began investigating ways to save money. Bernardston Elementary School Principal Bob Clancy said two weeks ago that he cut a part-time custodian and stopped all spending on supplies through the end of the school year. At an April 26 School Committee meeting, Northfield Elementary School Principal Megan Desmarais said she had replaced a librarian who resigned with a substitute working fewer hours, and Warwick Community School Principal Elizabeth Musgrave said she had reduced spending on supplies.
At the April 12 meeting, Miller said there had been a trend of teachers using more sick days in the last months of the school year. LaReau said there have been conflicting reports on whether two long-term substitutes have been being paid out of the substitute budget, and she submitted an information request on Monday to clarify this point.
“The question has come up repeatedly: Are those two salaries coming out of the sub line? Ruth (Miller) has said different things at different meetings,” LaReau said. She is leader of the Pioneer Valley Regional Education Association.
LaReau also said Miller has instructed the principals to reduce the budget line for substitute teachers “multiple times” since the beginning of the school year. Miller denied this.
Miller’s announcement was the most drastic measure yet in the district’s efforts to meet its budget for the year. The new lack of substitutes has forced principals to seek creative alternatives. LaReau said “one of the principals” at an elementary school suggested that when a teacher calls out sick, his or her students can be sent to the classroom of another teacher of the same grade level. At the high school, teachers have been asked to use their free periods to supervise large study hall sessions of students who would otherwise need a substitute, LaReau said.
“I know the principals are working to figure this out as best as they can, but it may be something that violates our contract, so we’re keeping an eye on that,” LaReau said.
“Things are changing every day,” she said. “I don’t know what’s going to happen. We’re pausing to see what the issues are that we need to address most imminently.”