ITHACA, N.Y. — The impacts of the Ithaca City School District’s (ICSD) new budget continue to unfold. Union leaders for the Ithaca Substitute Teachers Association said Tuesday they had recently learned the district would eliminate all 39 of the “building substitute” teacher positions — many of which are full-time. The change comes weeks before the first day of school.
The cuts go far deeper than initially expected. The district initially estimated it would only have to eliminate eight full-time substitute teacher positions under the now-adopted budget.
In ICSD, building substitute teachers work at the same school for the entire school year, most on a full-time basis. They are typically paid almost twice as much per day compared to conventional “per diem” substitutes, though neither receive health or retirement benefits.
Several dozen substitute teachers and their supporters showed up to Tuesday’s school board meeting to make a final appeal to board members. School board members thanked speakers for taking the time to attend the meeting, but appeared unwilling to reverse course.
“Building subs, you all are amazing and I hope you know how much we see you and how hard you work, and we definitely need more of you,” board member Erin Croyle said. “But the fact is that this year, we are in a crisis […] We’re grateful to have [this budget] but it does not even keep up with the price of inflation, and so it’s going to be a painful year.”
Several speakers described building substitutes as a “first line of defense” in their respective schools, sometimes responding within mere minutes to fill needs.
“We sometimes substitute for three, four, even five teachers in a single day,” former Lehman Alternative Community School building substitute Stanley Malinowitz said. “Sometimes in the afternoon we’re taking on jobs that, in the morning, no one knew would be needed.”
Malinowitz said he and other building substitutes take on a myriad of different, sometimes specialized roles that per diem substitutes may not be able to handle. Last year, he taught the school’s pre-algebra class for the duration of the school year and regularly works one-on-one with special education students.
“Many of us have a special relationship with the special ed kids, because we often work with them […] We’re with them in and outside of the classroom,” Malinowitz said. “They are going to suffer more than anyone from the loss of the building subs. We have strong bonds with them, and some don’t have strong bonds with many people.”
Some speakers said they felt blindsided by the additional last minute staffing cuts. If all 39 building substitute teacher positions are eliminated, the district will have cut more than four times the number of substitute positions initially estimated.
The teachers will still be able to take on per diem substitute teaching assignments in the district, but Ithaca Substitute Association president Mike Yerky said the day-to-day postings are not comparable to their former, full-time jobs.
ICSD introduced building substitutes in the early days of the pandemic in large part to aid the transition to the hybrid school day, Yerky said. Emergency federal pandemic aid helped to defray the additional wage costs. That funding has since dried up.
Yerky said building substitutes would frequently handle the in-person teaching during pandemic-era hybrid learning, when other teachers were unable to find childcare or didn’t yet feel safe teaching in person.
“We were there on campus instead of the [regular] teachers, exposing ourselves to COVID, potentially,” Yerky said. “We made it possible for the district to open school [in person] when they wanted to.”
Yerky contended that while pandemic related staffing strains are less acute, building substitutes have proven their worth and have become vital within the district.
“When [the school] can’t find a per diem substitute on short notice, that’s when we come in,” Yerky said. “We drop everything else we do, and we’re there for the district to plug these holes.”
Ithaca Substitutes Teachers Association vice president Jane Atkin said full-time, building specific substitute teachers can bring more stability for both students and staff.
“As part of the regular staff, building substitutes actually get to know the students, and the students get to know them,” Atkin said. “This undoubtedly improves student outcomes during teacher absences, compared to coverage by often unknown per diem subs.”
ICSD Superintendent Luvelle Brown said that while he had long advocated for the building substitutes program, it had become clear that the program would need to be eliminated in order to balance the budget before the school year began.
“As our board president has said, sometimes we have to make decisions that are not educationally sound,” Brown said. “We need to [make decisions] in a way that’s going to be sustainable for this organization and for this community that’s asked us to cut [costs] significantly.”