Date of Award

Spring 2026

Document Type

Open Access Dissertation

Department

Educational Leadership and Policies

First Advisor

Henry Tran

Abstract

Since the return to full-time, in-person instruction following COVID-related school closure, our district, Madison County Public Schools (MCPS), has struggled with a consistently low substitute teacher fill rate. MCPS is a small, rural district with a student population hovering around 1,560 students, pre-kindergarten through twelfth grade, and just under 300 total staff members. The county borders and is within reasonable driving distance to several higher-paying districts. As a result, we struggle to cover daily teacher absences. While the national average for substitute fill-rates is 80 percent, our substitute fill-rate at times averages below 50 percent. Kraft et al.’s study of substitute coverage in Chicago Public Schools (CPS) found some success by introducing a financial incentive bonus-pay program. Substitute teachers were provided additional compensation for working in hard-to-fill schools. This dissertation-in-practice draws on the change strategy of that research through an improvement science process. Improvement science is a hands-on, inquiry-based approach to solving problems of practice in which an organization works to answer three fundamental questions: What are we trying to accomplish? How will we know that a change is an improvement? What changes can we make that will result in improvement? (Langley, 2009). Guided by this framework, this dissertation in practice seeks to address the following two improvement questions: To what extent could implementing a financial incentive bonus program for substitute teachers in our school district increase our substitute fill rates? Because higher substitute fill rates may reduce barriers to teacher absences, the need for substitute teachers may further increase. Could there be a relationship between offering financial incentives to substitute teachers and an increase in teacher absenteeism in our district? Teachers have expressed that they feel they cannot miss school due to the shortage of substitute teachers. They feel that their absence puts a burden on their colleagues to cover their classes. Increasing the substitute fill rate may cause teachers to feel more at ease with taking leave and, as a result, encourage teacher absences. Working with the improvement team, consisting of district teachers and staff, building-level administrators, and district-level administrators, we used the improvement science model to identify the root causes of low substitute fill rates and tested change ideas through Plan-Do-Study-Act (PDSA) cycles. During each stage, we measured the impact of financial incentives on substitute coverage and observed teacher attendance patterns.

Keywords: substitute teacher fill rates, teacher absenteeism, financial incentives, improvement science, educational staffing

Rights

© 2026, Anna Ruth Graham

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