Substitutes made up the bulk of the list of new hires approved by the Pleasant Valley School Board at their meeting on Nov. 16.

Among the new hires were eight college students hired to be substitute teachers. Members of the community questioned why the district was hiring them.

Desiree Murray of Chestnuthill Township, who works as a paraprofessional at the elementary school, said, “The reason why we need the subs and there’s a shortage is because we furloughed so many staff members. If we had those staff members, we wouldn’t be looking for the substitutes. That’s the problem.”

Murray said the school district should be hiring more paraprofessionals and teachers, not substitutes.

Ron Reynolds of Chestnuthill Township said he doesn’t think the school district pays its qualified staff enough, so they look for higher paying jobs elsewhere. Instead they pay too much for busing.

“You won’t pay these people,” he said. “That’s why we’re losing people.”

Acting Superintendent Charlene Brennan said, “There is no intent in item 8B to use these people to replace any teachers. This is an allowable use of education and college students to substitute for our classrooms, and it will actually be a tremendous help to have them, so that we can call on them as substitutes instead of pulling our teaching staff to cover classes. I think you know there is a national shortage of substitutes. We are doing everything we can to get as many on board as we can.”

In order to shed more light on the subject, Director Susan Kresge asked Director of Human Resources Jessica Tomon to explain the requirements that the college students have to meet to be hired as substitute teachers.

Tomon said the college students must have at least 60 credit hours toward a degree in education, plus an emergency permit to teach as a substitute.

She said some of the newly hired substitute teachers are currently in the school district as part of their education, and some of them will be graduating from college in December.

“It’s been a number of years that it’s been difficult obtaining substitutes and it has become more difficult, it seems, each year,” Kresge said. “This board is committed. We don’t want to pull our specialists. I don’t want to see our specialists be pulled, especially since we don’t have as many as we used to, so this is the reason we are trying to do this.”

The new hires include:

• Professional staff substitute: Norma Smith and Donald Steffy, both at $110 per day;

• College students as professional staff day-to-day substitutes ($110 per day): Sarah Brodsky, Nani Dickerson, Keidy Mejia, Felicia Miller, Hailee Reinhardt, Jasmine Rivera, Ashley Stackhouse, and Michaela Susko;

• Support staff: Hope Glover, food service employee, $12.20 per hour, and;

• Support staff substitutes: Denise Doering, food service employee, $10.14 per hour.

Two resignations were also approved: Roxann Nicholas, a health room technician at the high school; and Mary Colon, a monitor at the intermediate school.