Horry County Schools searching for way to fill substitute teacher vacancies

MYRTLE BEACH, S.C. (WMBF) - New efforts are underway to get more substitute teachers into Horry County classrooms.

The district says right now, there aren’t enough subs to fill in even though there are enough people applying to be substitute teachers, they just aren’t showing up.

Horry County School’s Lisa Bourcier told WMBF News, “We have a pool of people, but when they’re actually called on a day-to-day basis or in the morning at five o’clock, they’re actually not taking those particular positions on those particular days. So, it’s any given day we may not be able to fill all of our substitute needs.”

The Board of Education is looking for other ways to make sure a sub will show up to work.

One of the options is to hire an outside company to hire substitute teachers.

This option was brought up last year, but instead of hiring an outside firm, the school district decided to increase substitute teacher pay and provide other incentives to fill those spots.

Horry County Schools holds a monthly substitute teacher workshop.

District leaders say between 80 to 100 people are attending, but the issue still is they aren’t accepting the jobs.

With the district finalizing its budget in just a few months, leaders are reaching out to some outside companies to fill the need.

District leaders say several other school districts across the state are seeing success from them.

“It’s something we want to research. We want to see if there’s any particular companies in the state contract, as well as whether we would need to go out for an RFP to retain potential costs for that,” Bourcier said. “So, right now, we’re kind of in a research mode.”

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