Being a substitute teacher in a K-12 school is one of the most difficult jobs in education. Other than low pay like most educators, most substitutes are only paid for the days they work, if they are not “long-term” substitutes. Substitute teachers might be called upon to teach English on Monday, Dance on Tuesday, and Math on Wednesday.

There is a national shortage of substitute teachers.  But as the crunch continues, some schools are lowering their standards for substitute teachers, which were already lower than those for full-time faculty. The situation has become dire enough that within the last month, at least two states, Missouri and Oregon, temporarily removed their college degree requirements for would-be hires.

At Kellogg Elementary School, classes were taught by a rotating cast of seven staff members, including the assistant principal, who switched off every 45 minutes because they couldn’t find a teacher who was available to fill in for an absent teacher.

The moves have led to concerns by parents, educators, and policymakers over the quality of instruction. The this is leading to significant learning losses for students.

Substitute teachers are “a short-term Band-Aid that shortchanges students,” said Kim Anderson, executive director for the National Education Association, which represents millions of education workers across the country.

The problem starts with the need for more full-time teachers in many school districts. In Arizona, nearly 1,400 teachers left the profession within the first few months of the school year, according to one study. School districts are really relying on substitutes because there are many, many teachers who have left the field. 

Oregon once had 8,290 licensed substitute teachers, but by Sept. 18, that number had been cut in half. To create a bigger pool, the state, in an Oct. 1 emergency created a new license. These new substitutes no longer need to pass several tests or have a bachelor’s degree. They simply need to be at least 18 years old, sponsored by a participating district or charter school, and have “good moral character” with the “mental and physical health necessary” to teach. Missouri once required 60 college credits, the equivalent of an associate degree. Now, substitutes just need to complete a 20-hour online course on professionalism, diversity, and classroom management.

In Florida, Ms. Mitchell attended a three-day seminar, where she and others were trained by doing mock-teaching and classroom management. She works about three to four days a week for about $80 a day. It is less, she says, than what she would make working at Target, or as a babysitter.

And as schools continue to rely on substitutes to pick up the slack, some educators worry that this is what too many classrooms will become — some form of babysitting.

My book, “Who Will Teach the Children? Recruiting, Retaining & Refreshing Highly Effective Educators”available through Amazon, provides answers to the teacher shortage as well as making suggestions about getting more substitute educators into classrooms.

My last published book, “Who Will Teach The Children? Recruiting, Retaining & Refreshing Highly Effective Educators” addresses the ever-increasing shortage of educators. It proposes 3 strategies to eliminate the problem.

Here are excerpts from some of the reviews:

 If you are in education at any level, you NEED this book

If you look toward the future, education is by far the determining factor of where we go and how our nation will fare. The key to that future is the classroom teacher, as Franklin Schargel amply demonstrates in his latest book, “Who Will Teach the Children?”

This is both a frightening and at the same time reassuring book. Frightening because of the magnitude of the problem he explicates loss and thus shortage of teachers. Reassuring because Franklin identifies both root causes and solutions.

Wisely, Franklin discusses in detail three elements needed to have people to teach our children: recruiting, retaining, and (often forgotten or ignored) refreshing, i.e., supporting and developing the teachers who were selected and hired. For each phase, Franklin gives both the challenges (let’s not call them problems) as well as practical solutions to meet and overcome these challenges.


5.0 out of 5 stars Education is one of the most complex and challenging jobs today.

Who Will Teach the Children is a must read for any policy maker, teacher educator, k-12 educator, and anyone thinking about education as their profession. Schargel poignantly tackles current issues while offering up practical solutions to the ever-growing global teacher shortage. As a veteran educator Schargel situates questions in such a thought-provoking manner. He’s teaching and challenging the status quo at the same time. Backed with the most recent reports and data, the author challenges public assumptions about the education field while being refreshing honest about public perception of educators. Three quotes I found particularly interesting include:

Bold, compelling, and hopeful Who Will Teach the Children is a must read for anyone who cares about the future of our children. I recommend you read it today.

5.0 out of 5 stars Rx for America’s Schools

Reviewed in the United States on December 9, 2019

With many years of teaching and administrative experience behind him, Franklin Schargel is highly qualified to diagnosis and prescribe solutions to address a critical situation in public schools in the United States: a growing shortage of teachers. This situation is dire not just for the students currently enrolled, but for the country as a whole, as poor education is a drag on U.S. competitiveness worldwide. Schargel emphasizes the need to fund public schools, invest in education, and focus on recruiting and retaining good teachers by improving administrative support, school leadership, and school culture. His book is grounded in solid research and offers practical strategies and protocols for improving the situation. Schargel’s wealth of knowledge and experience make him a leading expert in this field.

It is currently being sold by Amazon:

Paper back $10.79

Kindle: $9.95

The mayor of New York City, Bill DeBlasio announced that the city will deploy additional metal detectors to school campuses. The city has identified 30 campuses that will immediately see metal detectors on an “unannounced” rotating basis. There are currently 79 campuses that have permanent metal detectors as well as seven roving metal detectors in operation, police officials said.

The mayor’s decision to deploy additional metal detectors to schools comes as the number of guns found in school buildings has ticked up this school year compared with the two years before the pandemic, leading some parents and advocates to pressure the mayor to act.

In a two-day stretch last week, school safety agents recovered five guns from students. Two of those guns were identified by metal detectors, NYPD officials said. Eight guns have been recovered from students this school year through Oct. 24, up from one during the same time during the 2019-2020 school year, and two the year before that, according to police data.

The recent spate of guns found in schools follow other incidents around the country, including in The recent spate of guns found in schools follow other incidents around the country, including in Newark, where a loaded gun was brought into school, and in Philadelphia, where a student shot himself in the leg inside a school building. The school building in Philadelphia used metal detectors; it was not clear how the gun got inside.

In addition to the extra metal detectors, de Blasio indicated that the city would send extra police personnel to school buildings at the beginning and end of the day and would create 20 “safe corridors” in which police are stationed between schools and transit hubs. 

I worked in a school which had a single metal detector. Despite this, an intruder entered the building, shot, and paralyzed a student. There are too many entrances and exits in a school. They cannot all be covered  because of limited resources and personnel. 

“Panic doors” which can be opened by students to permit intruders into the school are also a problem. Having metal detectors dispatched to schools on a rotating basis is like play “whack-a-mole” with schools, educators, and students. Hopefully, the detectors will be in the right places at the right time. 

Original Source: Chalkbeat, a nonprofit news organization covering public education. ckbe.at/newsletters.

My new book, Preventing School Violence: A User’s Guide, which will be published by the end of November will address the issue of preventing school violence by providing simple-to-use, easy-to-implement strategies.

I will be speaking at the 5^th National Student Safety & Security Conference to be held at Bally’s, Las Vegas on Tuesday, November 16^th.

My presentation is entitled, “School Violence Prevention: A Guide for Educators, Students and Parents”

If you happen to be attending, please stop by and say hello and get a small gift of appreciation.

I will be speaking at the 5^th National Student Safety & Security Conference to be held at Bally’s, Las Vegas on Tuesday, November 16^th.

If you happen to be attending, please stop by and say hello and get a small gift of appreciation.

An article in the New York Post, (10/20/2021) reported that School Safety Officers seized 3 guns from students at NYC schools.

All of the handguns were loaded. Three guns were confiscated from city students inside high school buildings in a matter of hours on Wednesday — two in the Bronx and one in Brooklyn, sources told The Post. In addition, an 18-year-old student refused to pass through a metal detector at the Mott Haven Educational Campus in the Bronx where scanners are installed on random days, according to law enforcement sources. He ran from the building and attempted to hide a .22-caliber pistol in his backpack, sources said.  First lady Dr. Jill Biden was in New York Wednesday for a visit to a public school in the Bronx. One of the schools did not have a metal detector but the vigilance of the School Resource Officers caught the individual.

A school staffer added that some kids bring weapons to school as aggressors, while others do so out of concern for their own safety. School sources told The Post that gang violence— especially in The Bronx — simmered on the street while schools were closed due to the coronavirus. 

A recent Post analysis of NYPD data found that at least 21 teens were killed by either knives or guns between January and Sept. 30, 2021.  That was more than three times the number for the same period in both 2019 and 2020.

I am in the final stages of finishing a book entitled, Preventing School Violence: A User’s Guide which will be published before the end of the year. 

One of the suggestions in the book is that anyone who enters a school (elementary, middle, or high) must use a clear plastic book bag. That would prevent anyone who attempted to bring a weapon (gun or knife) would be prevented from doing so.

I am indebted to Ann Edenfield of Wings For Life International for leading me to this story.

On April 2, I heard an amazing speaker name Jamie Vollmer, who is a former business executive and attorney who now works to increase support for America’s public schools. He has written a book called, Schools Cannot Do It Alone, and it is available at www.jamievollmer.com 

He gave me permission to reprint his “Blueberry Story” which follows: 

“If I ran my business the way you people operate your schools, I wouldn’t be in business very long!” 

I stood on the stage of a high school auditorium filled with outraged teachers who were becoming angrier by the minute. My speech had entirely consumed their precious 60 minutes of Inservice. Their initial icy glares had turned to expressions of open disdain. You could cut the hostility with a knife. 

I represented a statewide group of business leaders determined to improve public schools. I was also president of an ice cream company that had become famous in the mid-1980s when People Magazine chose our Blueberries and Cream as the “Best Ice Cream in America.” 

When it came to public schools, I was convinced of three things. First, they needed to change. They were archaic sorting mechanisms designed for the industrial age and out of step with the needs of our emerging “knowledge society.” Second, educators were the primary problem: protected by tenure, shielded by a monopolistic bureaucracy, they resisted meaningful change. And third, if they would just run their schools like a business, we would get the graduates we need. “We invented Total Quality Management,” I proclaimed. “We understand continuous improvement. Zero defects!” 

In retrospect, my speech was perfectly balanced: equal parts ignorance and arrogance. 

When I finally finished, the room was dead silent. Then a woman’s hand shot up. I looked at her. She appeared polite, pleasant. I learned later that she was razor-edged, high school English teacher who had been lying in the bushes for me for an hour. 

I nodded, and she started just as nice as you please, “We are told, sir, that you make good ice cream.” 

“Best ice cream in America, Ma’am,” I smugly replied.
“How nice,” she said. “Is it rich and smooth?”
“Sixteen percent butterfat,” I bragged.
“Your nuts, your berries, your flavorings, all Grade A ingredients?” she inquired. “No, no,” I said. “Our specification to our suppliers is not A. It’s triple A.” And a little 

smile shot across her face that I did not understand at the time.
“I see,” she said, leaning forward with a wicked eyebrow raised to the sky. “So tell me, 

Mr. Vollmer, when you’re standing on your receiving dock and a shipment of, say, blueberries arrives that does not meet your triple A specification, what do you do?” 

And in the silence of that room, you could hear her trap snap!
I knew I was dead meat, but I wasn’t going to lie. “I send them back.”
“That’s right!” she said as she jumped to her feet. “And we can never send back the 

blueberries our suppliers send us. We take them big, small, rich, poor, brilliant, confident, abused, frightened, gifted, and homeless. We take them with ADHD, head lice, no English, and an ever-growing list of mental and physical challenges. We take all the blueberries! Every One! And that’s why it’s not a business. It’s school!” 

Well. I would have gotten the point, but in an explosion all 290 teachers, principals, bus drivers, aides, custodians, and secretaries jumped to their feet yelling, “Yeah! Blueberries, pal! Blueberries!” 

And so began my long transformation. 

I have visited hundreds of schools since that day. I’ve shadowed principals, worked as an aide, and spent a warm Friday afternoon locked in a room with smelly eighth graders. And I’ve learned beyond doubt that a school is not a business, and no amount of glib free-market rhetoric can change that. 

Can we graft practices and procedures from the private sector onto the rarified culture of PreK-12? Sure. But that doesn’t make it a business. Public schools have no control over the quality of their raw material. Their budget is at the mercy of state and local politics. And they are constantly mauled by a howling horde of disparate, competing “customer” groups that would send the most seasoned CEO screaming into the night. 

None of this negates the need for change. We must change what, when, and how we teach to give all children the maximum opportunity to thrive in a post-industrial society. But educators cannot do this alone. They need the understanding, trust, permission, and support of the people in the communities they serve. Everyone has a role to play because the truth is we all have skin in this game, whether or not we have children in school. We must all come together to help unfold the full potential of every child. It’s moral. It’s practical. And it’s the most important enterprise of our time. 

Jamie Robert Vollmer © 2019 

School violence is unfortunately on the increase. Last week there were 5 school shootings in America. In my presentation for Wings For Life International. I will be using the following Violence Prevention Quiz.

Wings For Life International will be hosting the presentation on Zoom, Facebook as well as their website, www.WingsFLI.org

Next week I will post the answers to the quiz.

EVERYTHING YOU THOUGHT YOU KNEW ABOUT SCHOOL VIOLENCE

The following quiz can be used with staff in professional development to create awareness for them to discuss violence prevention in school. I suggest that it be used by classroom educators, school counselors, school administrators, school boards political officials and parent organizations and anyone else interested in preventing school violence.

School shooting have only taken place in a small number of states? True or False

The “weapon of choice” in schools is …………………………

The “drug of choice” in schools is   ………………………………

1. The most violent school incident in American history took place in ……………………………………

• Schools are safer or more dangerous than they have been in the past?  True/False   …………………………….

• The #1 cause of male youth death in America is ……………………

• According to the FBI’s School Shooter’s Report, what is the number of students who are afraid to come to school every day?  …………………

• According to the FBI’s School Shooter’s Report and the Secret Service’s Threat Assessment Report, what do the latest group of school shooter’s have in common?  ……………………………………

• More males die from suicide than females. True or False

• According to the U.S. Department of Justice, what percentage of violence against young people takes place in schools?  A) Less than 1% B) 5%  C) 25%   D) 50%

• Most school bullying occurs in elementary, middle, high school. ………

• True/False. Males engage in bullying more than females.
• Most school violence occurs in elementary, middle, high school. ………
• True/False The majority of sexual abuse of children takes place in schools.
• True/False.  Most students who carry guns to school do so for personal protection.
• What percentage of American teenagers has sent nude pictures of themselves electronically?  10%     20%     50%    70%
• For every 100 people in America, there are ____ guns in society.  A. 20  B. 50  C. 75  D. 90
• Gangs exist mainly in urban areas.  True or False
• School bullying begins in elementary, middle, high school.
• Most of the guns used in school shootings are illegally obtained. True or False.

Copyright, 2021, Franklin Schargel.