Assistant Superintendent Thomas Oestreich  

What made the board decide to change those pays?

I did a comprehensive analysis of the pay rates of the school districts for substitute teachers, and school districts that neighbor us. Upon my analysis, what I found was that every school district around us had a higher pay rate than CCS. I approached our superintendent and our Associate Superintendent of

Business. I want to keep (subs) here in Carmel. That is why I made the decision to put the proposal in front of the board to raise the pay $5.

How will these changes affect the substitute teachers at the school or planning to come to the school?

Hopefully (our current subs) will continue to stay with us. We are trying to attract additional substitute teachers throughout the year. Last year, we were very successful. We hired well over 100 brand new subs, we had trouble finding substitute teachers to come in during the pandemic. This year, we’re continuing on building upon that success.

Permanent Substitute Michael Frausto

Did you know that CCS raised subsitute teachers’ pay by $5 a day?

No, I wasn’t, actually. There’s two different kinds of subs. There is what we call the regular subs. They show up if they have an assignment. As permanent subs we’re there every day, no matter what. So we are, staff so to speak.

How do you feel about being a permanent substitute teacher at this school?

“This is my 15th year. It’s always nice to see how great the kids do at school. And it’s also nice, if I can be a boost to somebody, be an encouragement, or be a listening ear, or just somebody who the kids will feel comfortable with and hopefully do their work and learn and grow in spite of the fact that the teacher is not there. I get to be here with lots of wonderful young people, smart kids that are growing and learning; they’re kind of my academic heroes, sometimes when I see what they do and are able to accomplish.”