New Kensington-Arnold School District officials hope a $30 per-day pay increase will attract more day-to-day substitute teachers to the district.

School directors this week set the substitute teacher rate at $130 per day.

Previously, substitute teachers made $100 daily for the first 30 days they worked. That would increase to $120 per day thereafter.

“To be competitive with other districts, we decided to increase the pay,” said Superintendent Chris Sefcheck.

New Kensington-Arnold’s new pay rate is effective this school year.

Burrell School District’s daily substitute teacher rate is $135, said its superintendent, Shannon Wagner. The pay rate for substitute teachers in the Fox Chapel Area School District, according to its website, is $100 daily for general substitutes, increasing to $125 after 25 days; $130 a day for building substitutes and $100 a day for long-term substitutes increasing to $130 daily after 21 days in the same assignment.

Daily substitute teachers in the Kiski Area School District make $150 per day, which increases to $175 after 60 working days, according to its website. In the Allegheny Valley School District, substitute teachers make $110 to $120 per day.

Staffing substitute teachers has been a challenge previously, Sefcheck said.

“There’s times throughout the year there’s days we are short subs,” he said. “We’ve been using a multitude of ways to cover that, but it’s not efficient and not sustainable.”

Another contributing factor to a reduced substitute teacher pool is that people who had worked as substitutes eventually become hired by the district, Sefcheck said.

“We had a number of retirements, and people that had been subbing for us were hired in their spots,” he said.

In addition to trying to attract more day-to-day substitutes, school directors also hired full-time subs for the school year. They include: Elana LaPiana, Brianna Eckenrode, Rachel Odrey, Brayden Hageter, Emma Ruby Ward, Christopher McConnell and Bethany Tomes.

Their salaries weren’t immediately available.

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