With the 2023-24 academic year quickly approaching, the primary topic raised at the Aug. 22 Saucon Valley School Board meeting was concern over staffing, particularly its roster of substitute teachers.

A former district substitute, Ann Marie Greenwood, said she worked for Saucon Valley since 2006 as both a “dedicated” and “day-to-day” substitute teacher. In 2021, Greenwood said she noticed that she was earning $55 less daily as a day-to-day substitute than her counterparts, despite often spending more time in classrooms while the others found themselves performing administrative tasks.

In many school districts such as Saucon, dedicated substitutes are guaranteed work four days per week in exchange for their ongoing commitment. However, day-to-day subs could accept or decline work daily, which often meant that day-to-day substitutes received classroom assignments first. Meanwhile their counterparts found themselves answering phones and filing papers, Greenwood said.

Greenwood also expressed concerns that while dedicated substitutes are required to have a more formal collection of education-related degrees and Pa. State certifications, day-to-day substitutes’ prerequesites are less robust, despite their greater likelihood of being given instructional tasks.

Another former dedicated substitute who said she lives in the district, Stacy Wittenberg, criticized a new district policy that does not permit substitutes to work in the same grade-level building as the one where their child attends classes.

Wittenberg said the opportunity to work in the same building as her elementary-age children was one of two primary reasons she worked there for the previous two years. “It eliminates childcare issues,” she said, adding “I know [many other district substitutes] personally - they’re in the same situation.”

She said the new policy went unmentioned when she negotiated a position for the upcoming year, leading her to withdraw her application. “I know the district is short on staff,” she said, but added the district administration was “disingenuous” in its communications.

Approximately an hour later, when the approval of the year’s eight dedicated substitutes came up on the evening’s agenda, board President Susan Baxter and Vice President Shamim Pakzad asked Superintendent Jaime Vlasaty to elaborate further on the policy changes Greenwood and Wittenberg raised.

After nearly twenty more minutes of discussion, the board approved the dedicated substitutes list at a rate of $175 per day.