'It's Brutal': Summit School District Teacher, Union Representative Describes Current Staff Shortage Across Colorado
SUMMIT COUNTY, Colo. (CBS4) - Liz Waddick loves to teach her students at Summit High School, but she does not love the position the job puts her in daily.
"If you're an elementary school teacher and you teach second grade and another second-grade teacher is absent and there's no one to fill the job, they're going to ask you to take the other teacher's class," Waddick explained. "The work doesn't stop, the kids don't just go away. We just assume more responsibilities. We assume more jobs, so that part, that part's hard."
Waddick is a member of the Colorado Education Association, a statewide union for educators.
Waddick said because of a lack of substitute options in the district, when a teacher calls out, there's a real possibility no one will be available to cover their class. Then it falls to a coworker to do twice the work or for the educator to simply come in anyway.
"How do I make doctor's appointments? How do I take kids to their doctor? So that sort of like stress and that guilt compounded on top of the fact that I'm covering for my friends has been a lot," Waddick said.
Teachers in Summit County are compensated for the extra work, but the district said it knows this is an unsustainable model. It is making serious efforts to fill vacancies for teaching positions, sub positions, and several support positions like paraprofessionals and bus drivers and custodians, but the high cost of living in a tourist economy is creating a difficult pinch for employees.
"Our sub pay is like $17.25 an hour. I mean, Target pays more," Waddick said, frustrated.
She believes the education board has done what they can to help make salaries more competitive, and the district boasts they pay educators some of the highest out of any Colorado public district.
Coupled with greater expenses here and an additional housing crisis negates any serious benefit. Waddick believes some of her coworkers have left because of that very reason.
"Looking for jobs with less stress, with better pay," she said.
Waddick believes full funding from the state would be a good step to help mitigate a lot of the shortages they're seeing, although the Colorado Educators Association told Mountain Newsroom Reporter Spencer Wilson this shortage has been a battle for years now.
In the meantime, Waddick is asking for people to give extra patience and understanding to an educator or school staff that might be taking on additional responsibilities to make sure kids are getting the education they deserve.
"I would definitely say we're in a crisis, that's there is no doubt in my mind that we're in a crisis."
