DAVENPORT, Iowa — Eastern Iowa Community Colleges will be offering substitute teacher authorization courses this spring and summer.
Each course takes place over two Saturday sessions and costs $100 in tuition.
The first session will take place on March 23 and April 6 while the second session will be June 15 and 22. Both will be at the Scott Community College Urban Campus at 101 West Third Street in Davenport.
To substitute teach in Iowa, a person must be at least 20 years old and hold a paraeducator certificate, associate degree or 60 earned credit hours from a regionally accredited institution.
Those who attend EICC's courses will then be qualified to substitute teach in K-12 classrooms in Iowa starting this fall.
EICC hopes this will help address a national and regional substitute teacher shortage.
Across the country, substitutes are becoming harder and harder to come by. Fewer people are entering the profession compared with a decade ago. There has also been increased teacher turnover, which has contributed to a shortage made more acute since the pandemic.
A New York Times report found that in Des Moines, district officials can usually find substitutes for a little over half of the 300 daily absences. This issue is even worse in smaller, more rural school districts.
The 2022 median annual wage for those who teach students on a short-term basis was $35,250, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. The same report found in Iowa, that number jumped up to $37,980.
Jim Schneider, the instructor for these authorization courses, joined The Current on News 8 to discuss the need for substitutes in our area as well as what these classes will entail. You can watch the full interview in the above video.
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