A four-hour course being offered by Moniteau School District poses a central question to the people who attend: “Who was your best or worst teacher?”

The district's emergency substitute teaching certification class aims to not only certify people to substitute teach, but to help them recreate their best teachers and avoid becoming their worst teachers.

“We try to build it around their experiences and education,” said Dustin Thompson, principal of Dassa McKinney Elementary School. “We ask them to tell us about the best teacher or their worst teacher. Then we use the (Danielson Group Framework for Teaching) and look at what made them a good teacher or a bad teacher.”

According to Thompson, who helps facilitate the classes, Moniteau hosted these emergency substitute certification classes last year, to get more people on the rotation to substitute in the district.

While a low number of subs has been a headache in the district for years, Thompson said the coronavirus pandemic further propelled the issue.

At a Sept. 13 meeting of the Moniteau School Board, superintendent Tom Samosky said that the district had to move to remote learning from Sept. 1 to 7 because of a lack of available staffing.

“We did not have enough staff two weeks ago to be able to facilitate operations in school,” Samosky said at the meeting. “My administrative team worked really hard to recruit people, to get people in place so we could keep schools operating.”

The emergency substitute class is one of the district's responses to the shortage.

“We got creative in getting subs for our own unique situation,” Thompson said.

The first course this semester took place Sept. 16, according to Samosky, and the next one will be Oct. 14. They take four hours each, dinner is provided and participants are then certified to sub for any grade level and any subject in Moniteau School District. “Our team has taken an approach of what we can do in one evening,” Thompson said. “We have a handbook we have developed for substitutes.”

Thompson said the Midwestern Intermediate Unit IV hosts emergency substitute certification classes that certify people to substitute for the whole region. However, people outside the area of Moniteau School District don't often respond to substitute requests within, Thompson said.

According to a post on Moniteau's website, substitutes make $100 a day in the district. All a person needs to get certified to substitute through the emergency training is a bachelor's degree. The course will walk them through the rest of the substitute duties.

Thompson said a main topic taught at the trainings is how to use technology available in the district, which has developed considerably in recent years.

Thompson said the district appreciates those who sign up to substitute teach, and the people who attended the first training this month were eager to assist the students as well.

“These are people that love kids; they want to help our district and help our kids,” Thompson said. “They saw the need of our district. They saw an opportunity to help out.”

The next emergency substitute teaching certification course is from 4 to 8 p.m. Oct. 14, and registration is available by calling 724-637-2117, ext. 2001, or by emailing skirschner@moniteau.org.