Early childhood substitute teachers are hard to come by. A private funder is changing that in New Hanover County

This May, New Hanover County’s first early childhood substitute teacher from a new centralized substitute pool worked a shift at The Learning Tree, a licensed child care center in Wilmington.

Marquita Williams has since filled in several times in different classrooms at the center, providing coverage for teachers who called out sick or needed time off from the taxing work of early care and education.

The child care field, with low teacher pay and high stress, has struggled with burnout and teacher shortages, especially since the pandemic. The lack of a reliable, centralized pipeline of substitute teachers makes it harder to keep classrooms open and take care of teachers, said JC Elrod, director of The Learning Tree.

“It’s just as needed here as it is in schools,” Elrod said. “If we don’t have teachers, we can’t provide care.”

A two-year $600,000 grant from Live Oak Bank is funding the county’s first local substitute pool through Wonderschool, a national venture-backed company focused on providing technology and business support services to early care and education providers.

“The idea that a child care provider shouldn’t have an easy way to take a day off, or to take a sick day, or whatever it may be, is crazy,” said Jason Moss, director of new government initiatives at Wonderschool. “There needs to be a solution for that.”

Williams is one of 10 onboarded substitute teachers in the pool so far, said Jenna Talbot, a spokesperson for the company. Thirty-seven more teachers are going through orientation. Thirty licensed programs in the county are signed up to participate.

Wonderschool has created a statewide substitute pool in Mississippi, but the New Hanover project is its first local version. They hope to spread the model across the state, Moss said.

“Our goal is to demonstrate that this is a great local solution so that others can form their own conclusions and say, ‘This now needs to be like a great statewide solution,'” Moss said.

The company provides a digital platform where licensed programs list jobs and where qualified area teachers apply. Wonderschool onboards the teachers, including an interview and orientation process. Candidates answer a screener on their experience and skills, and then complete a phone interview, Talbot said. If chosen, candidates then go through an orientation that includes basic information on job expectations, classroom management, child health and safety, and platform usage.

Wonderschool employees ensure that the individuals meet state requirements and have appropriate documentation. A provider can then easily access those documents through the platform.

‘A win-win’

During the pandemic, many of the center’s more seasoned teachers retired as the job came with higher health risks. There were days when Elrod and Amber Dyson, the program’s assistant director, closed the office and filled vacancies in classrooms themselves.

“We’re gonna make it work, somehow,” Elrod said she remembers thinking. She said she didn’t want to close classrooms or turn parents away at the last minute, as some programs had to do. So it was all hands on deck to ensure sufficient teacher-to-child ratios were met.

“That’s how we functioned for many years,” Elrod said.

Elrod and Dyson said that in the past year, it feels as if they have started to turn a corner in terms of staffing. For now, they are almost fully staffed.

“We only have some afternoon part time positions available,” Dyson said. “But even then, we still find ourselves with holes every day.”

The two have begun tapping into the substitute pool while planning for the upcoming week. When they notice a day where staffing might be tight, they post the jobs a few days in advance.

When the day arrives, even if there are enough staff to make things work, there is always someone who deserves some time off, Elrod said.

“That’s a win-win, because we’re utilizing the system, the substitute is getting their hours, and our regular staff is getting a breath of fresh air,” she said.

Dyson and Elrod said they occasionally call on some of the center’s former full-time teachers to substitute. But that doesn’t fill the program’s full need, they said.

The pool also saves them time and administrative costs, they said. Onboarding a new substitute themselves usually takes two to three weeks, they said, and includes coordinating and sometimes paying for background checks, physicals, and medical tests. The pool provides them with quick access and teachers who have already taken care of the required steps.

Williams said she has had a smooth orientation process and positive experiences subbing at The Learning Tree. In the mornings, she works with autistic children. She used to work in child care full-time, but said substitute teaching gives her some variety in her work and flexibility in her schedule.

“I love being able to pick my hours and not being tied down,” Williams said.

‘A deep bench to pull from’

Moss said there are “personas” they are looking for in potential substitutes, like retired school teachers, mothers, and college students. They’ve used a mix of marketing strategies to find potential substitutes.

Once the teachers are onboarded and start working, they receive bonuses to reward them for certain milestones: $75 after completing their first job, $150 after working their first 40 hours (and an extra $100 if certain trainings are completed at that time), $200 after completing 200 hours, $250 upon completing 150 hours or more in a single month, and $250 for referring other teachers who are signed up and work at least 40 hours. Wonderschool sets a minimum rate for the programs to provide depending on the local market. In New Hanover, the minimum pay for participating programs is $14 per hour.

In Mississippi, Moss said, some substitutes have ended up becoming full-time teachers.

“A sub pool can be this sort of launch pad for a more permanent role in child care,” he said.

Wonderschool is now onboarding 37 teachers, Talbot said. She said 30 to 40 teachers will give the 30 participating programs “a deep bench to pull from, to ensure consistent support for families.”

The model requires monitoring to make sure there are not too many or too few teachers for the number of participating programs, Moss said.

“You’re trying to find perfect harmony,” he said. “We’ve got to make sure there’s enough substitutes. Otherwise, providers push jobs and nobody responds, and then they get disincentivized. They don’t want to push jobs. So then you get enough substitutes, and you’ve got to get your providers back up.”

‘Developmentally, age-appropriate ratios’

Wonderschool has been lobbying at the legislature this session, Moss said. Since providing some North Carolina child care programs with its digital platform in 2020 through pandemic relief funds, the company has grown in scope and in the services it offers. 

Providers in such states as New Mexico, Florida, and Indiana use the company’s platform to connect with families. The company also creates substitute pools, as in Mississippi, and recruits and helps set up new child care programs, as in Michigan, Idaho, and Missouri. 

“It’s all based on sort of what are the greatest needs that states are facing to support child care,” Moss said in an EdNC interview in March.

Sen. Jim Burgin, R-Harnett, a co-chair of Gov. Josh Stein’s Task Force on Child Care and Early Education, said he has met with Wonderschool representatives multiple times and heard of their success opening family child care programs.

Both the House and Senate budget proposals include pilots to increase in-home child care capacity and set up substitute pools in localities through outside vendors that meet certain requirements and are chosen by local councils of government. Burgin said those requirements could be met by multiple vendors.

“I want to make sure children are safe, number one, and they’re being educated, number two,” Burgin said.

In February, Wonderschool received backlash from advocates, providers, and families in Idaho after a lobbyist who was working with the company advocated for a bill prohibiting the state or localities from setting child-teacher ratio standards. 

The company has since fired that lobbyist, Moss said. He said the Wonderschool team was unaware of the part of the bill that would have eliminated state and local ratio-setting. The legislation was later amended to include ratios but to loosen them.

“We always have and always will support ratios and support developmentally, age-appropriate ratios,” he said.

In a March 4 blog post after the pushback, Wonderschool CEO Chris Bennett wrote:

“I am a proponent of policies that detail age-specific ratios for different types of programs, including center-based, and small or large family child care homes.

Although we never have and never will recommend or advocate for the elimination of child-to-staff ratios, we know that – regardless of our view – states will pursue different approaches grounded in both their unique geographic, demographic and political realities, and the broader set of policies and tools at their disposal.”

The blog post goes on to state that, when helping providers set up their businesses, the company coaches them on the benefits of low ratios.

“In fact, feedback from providers working to keep ratios low while maintaining high quality and safety standards is what led us to build our substitute teacher pool and acquire a teacher recruitment platform,” the blog post reads.

‘Workforce development is our bull’s eye’

Kate Groat, Live Oak Bank’s director of corporate philanthropy, said she is excited about the potential of the pool. Wonderschool is collecting data to learn what does and does not work, she said.

At the end of the two-year grant, the cost to operate the pool will decrease, she said. At that point, there are many options on how to split the cost to keep the pool up and running. For example, she said, the foundation could cover half of the cost, and the other half could be split among the participating programs. Employers might also be interested in covering some of the cost, she said. So might state legislators.

“Best case scenario, it’s a wild success,” Groat said. “We can take data to the General Assembly and say, ‘Look, this is a really easy way to dip your toe in the water of confronting the problems facing early childhood educators. It’s a proven program. We’ve tried it. We’ve done it. All you have to do is write a check.'”

Child care investments are a priority of Groat’s, she said, because she knows they are key to economic mobility and development.

“Workforce development is our bull’s eye — that’s the center of the bull’s eye,” she said. “And I’m trying to get people family-sustaining wages, benefits, and upward mobility. That’s what I wake up thinking about. But I can’t do that without the concentric rings around it, the closest one of which is child care. You can’t work if you have a child on your hip.”

Though she hopes the model will provide relief to early childhood professionals, higher quality for children, and more consistency for families, she said that substantial outside investment to increase teacher wages is needed to ensure accessible, affordable, high-quality care.

“The main problem, the root cause, is wages,” she said. “Until we address that, we’re just kind of dancing around the problem … If I had all the money in the world, I would tonight double the salary of every early childhood educator in this town.”