School District is Handling Issues with New Substitute Teachers, Superintendent Says

Parents of some have been expressing doubt about substitute teachers being brought into the district by an outside firm subcontracted for the job.

The charges have run the gamut from substitutes who can barely speak English, to subs who have engaged in corporal punishment. 

Most of the rumors aren't true, and the ones that might be "have been dealt with," said Woodbridge Schools Superintendent John Crowe.

"Anytime we have a substitute we are unhappy with, those subs don't come back," Crowe said.

Some parents and teachers have been complaining about the substitutes being installed in Woodbridge since the school district stopped their own in-house sub program and outsourced substitute work to a company called Source4Teachers.

Based in Cherry Hill, Source4Teachers provides substitutes for a wide variety of school districts in the area, such as Highland Park and Piscataway, said Woodbridge Schools Director of Personnel Joanne Schafer.

The company took over Woodbridge's substitute teaching duties in September, Crowe said.

Cost-Saving Strategy

It was a cost saving move because "Woodbridge continues to be underfunded."

"Each year while districts like Hamilton get their fair share [of state funding], we're unfunded," Crowe said. "We've had to cut our budget."

Since substitute hiring has been farmed out to Source4Teachers, "we're seeing a significant savings," the superintendent said.

Crowe estimated that the district will save as much as $350,000 by oursourcing substitute teacher employment, but he regrets that such a cost-saving measure is necessary in the first place.

"The state has traditionally given us a number of what we should receive if we were to receive full funding, which we don't get. It's $43 million below what the state says we should receive," Crowe said, citing the state's 2007 figures from the School Funding Reform Act.

"Two years ago, the formula said that our full funding would be $69 million, and we only received $26 million," the superintendent said. "My argument is not that we demand the full amount when the state is in financial difficulty. We know they can't fully fund the formula." 

"We want them to be equitable," he said, pointing to Hamilton Township which Crowe said gets almost all of the amount the state says is due them.

Problems with New Subs

Some of the complaints about the Source4Teachers subs have some merit, although Crowe said he couldn't comment specifically because of personnel issues.

The complaints have included teachers who have issues making themselves understood in English, and teachers who call children names in the classroom, such as "stupid" for not doing their lessons properly. Some of the complaints have come from parents of children.

"If anything has come through, it's been addressed. We take that very seriously," Schafer said. "We have complete control over who enters our buildings and who subs in our classrooms."

While neither Crowe nor Schafer would confirm the nature of the complaints, the superintendent did say that none of the issues with the substitute teachers involved corporal punishment.

"No, nothing with that," Crowe said. "We've had nothing at that level."

Crowe said that they've discussed problems principals of various schools have had with the new subs, and addressed those issues.

"There are always some bumps in changing over. We met with principals on the subject, and they were all fine with it," he said. "They know if they have any problem with a substitute, we don't have to have the person in their school."

Former Subs Want to be Hired 

Another allegation has come from substitutes who were employed directly by the township school district. Some have said that they haven't been hired by Source4Teachers, a charge that Crowe says isn't true.

"They are being hired by the company, and they do get first shot at the jobs as they open up," Crowe said.