Legislation
In the Oregon Legislature we have introduced bills affecting substitute teacher working hours, salary, unemployment, retirement, and due process.
SB 283 - Educator Workforce Bill - Regular Session 2023
HB4030 - Training Grants and Background Check streamlining - interm session 2022
House Bill 3130 (HB3130) - 2021 Regular Session
We urge you to consider reaffirming through this legislation that all Oregon substitute teachers who work in the public schools are public employees, regardless of whether their hiring and payroll have been delegated to a third party for a school district’s convenience.
A “Substitute Teacher” as defined in ORS 342.815 is “any teacher who is employed to take the place of a probationary or contract teacher who is temporarily absent.” The minimum salary and other requirements for these teachers are set in ORS 342.610. Substitute teachers are licensed by Teacher Standards and Practices Commission and work as a team with other teachers and their school principal to carry forth the school’s educational program on school property with school equipment on a schedule that is set by the school. They do not come in with a program of their own. Our “Comparison of Duties” chart shows how substitute teachers perform in the absence of regular teachers, often with students they do not know.
Many substitute teachers do not qualify for Public Employee Retirement benefits because they do not work the required 600 hours per year. Those who do are the long-term substitutes and the career substitutes who work nearly every day. The schools depend on these dedicated teachers. The law does not require their salary to include consideration for years of experience or graduate education courses, and they generally do not qualify for health insurance. Their one well-deserved benefit has been PERS, which qualifying substitute teachers have earned since 1971. The attached PERS Administrative Rules detail how substitute teachers qualify as school employees and not as independent contractors.
Some substitute teachers are still employed by their school districts, especially in the larger districts, but within the last five years, more districts have outsourced their substitute teachers. Many school districts have signed contracts with one or more staffing agencies: ESS (Oregon based), and EduStaff (Michigan based). These companies add layers of bureaucracy, making communication more difficult for substitute teachers and their school administrators. Courts have said that such companies (some of which have no understanding of teaching or of Oregon laws) have become the employer. Yet the control of the substitute’s work and decisions are still made by the school district, and if payroll is handled by the substitute teacher staff agency, it receives money from the school district to do so. It is hard to understand what advantage the schools gain by these arrangements.
This legislation would allow those outsourced long term and career substitute teachers who qualify under PERS rules to get benefits and restore access to those who have been denied application to Public Service Student Loan Forgiveness programs.
We have heard of school employees such as bus drivers or janitors being outsourced, but the educators who are carrying out the primary mission of the public schools should remain as public employees. ORS 341.610 applies to all substitute teachers who are not represented in a bargaining unit. This legislation is retroactive to January 1, 2015 so that eligible substitute teachers can recover benefits they earned by working in the public schools during the interim or earn benefits if they are starting in their teaching careers.
Thank you very much for your consideration.
Debbie Fery, OSTA Government Affairs Chair.