Substitute teachers wait for count day

By Frances Vanderploeg

Thursday, Sept. 18, 2008 | midnight

For the past three years, Mike Detwiler has started the school year as a teacher at Bob Miller Middle School. Each time, the position lasted a couple of months at best.

With the new school year under way, Detwiler, who was a long-term substitute in previous years, has found himself in the same position, even though he is now a credentialed teacher. The Clark County School District didn't allow Miller Principal Tam Larnerd to hire him as a permanent teacher this year because of a hiring freeze. Instead, he will start the year as a long-term substitute again, with fingers crossed that he will be able to stay in the classroom the entire year.

Detwiler's fate will be determined by the School District after it receives the numbers from count day Sept. 12. Held at the end of the third week of school, count day is when the School District gathers an official number of students at each school.

Schools that have too many teachers will have some declared surplus, and those teachers will be assigned to different schools.

Schools that do not have enough teachers will be given new positions, which the School District will advertise to the surplus teachers. If a surplus teacher doesn't take the position, the school will be allowed to hire someone new.

Larnerd said he would like to hire Detwiler, who has also been the boys' basketball coach for four years, as a permanent health and P.E. teacher, but at this point it's out of his hands.

He is confident he will receive one or two more teachers. Miller, after all, has 110 more students than the district projected.

What he cannot control is whether a surplus teacher will claim the position he would like to offer Detwiler.

Detwiler said he knew when he accepted the job there was a chance it may be another temporary position.

"I am worried about it," he said. "The hard part is if they walk in and say they've filled the position, I have to go to my fallback plan."

While Larnerd was not able to hire Detwiler before the new school year began, he was able to bring on Erin Strait, an earth science teacher, the week before school started. The hiring freeze did not apply for high needs areas such as special education, math and science.

Strait, who lived in central Pennsylvania, had little time to pack her belongings and drive across country to be in her classroom by Aug. 21.

It is Strait's first year in what she hopes will be a long career as a teacher.

"My mom's a teacher and I always felt when I was growing up I didn't want to do it because she always worked so hard and didn't get anything out of it," Strait said.

It wasn't until she was in college studying science that she realized teaching might be for her after all. She couldn't bear to think of working the rest of her life in a laboratory with no human interaction.

She realized she made the right decision her third week in the classroom after the mother of Josh Stevens, who died Sept. 12 in a golf cart accident, thanked her for the positive influence she had on her son.

"She told me she appreciated what I did for Josh," Strait said. "I already felt bad, but it made me feel worse because I was actually important to him. … It was kind of a reassurance that I have picked the right thing to do in my life, and she told me that as well."

Both Detwiler and Strait agree they've found a family in Miller and plan to stay as long as they can. If something happens and Detwiler can't stay on, he said, he plans to remain the basketball coach and try again in the future. He expects to know for sure by the end of September.

Frances Vanderploeg can be reached at 990-2660 or [email protected].