In an effort to better attract substitute teachers, the Massapequa Board of Education last Thursday approved a $9 per day pay raise for the alternate educators.

In proposing to hike the wage from $63 to $72 per day, Assistant Superintendent Charles V. Sulc noted that the per diem rate has not been changed in 10 years, and that the district is having increasing difficulty in finding substitute teachers.

"Long Island is in a full employment domain, and it is becoming more and more difficult to find people," Sulc said. He added that the Nassau School District median for substitute teacher pay is $75 per day.

The board approval of the raise came after some debate at a public planning session, as one trustee questioned the prudence of a wage increase that he said would add tens of thousands of dollars in spending to the proposed 1999-2000 school year budget - which already includes a tax increase. As of that evening, the draft budget had called for an approximately 8 percent tax hike.

When the trustee, Richard Sorvillo, asked Sulc to quantify the need for the pay raise, the administrator responded that school principals call him on an ongoing basis to tell him that they cannot find substitute teachers to fill in for teachers as they call in sick.

Trustee Diane Krakoff, the board vice president, expressing support for the raise, told Sorvillo, "In the high school, they have to call in security guards to be subs, because they don't have subs."

Sulc later clarified that those "security guards" are actually substitute teachers, but that they do not have teaching certification.

A Massapequa High School teacher who was present in the audience later told Sorvillo that the school is short by one substitute three days a week.

Trustee Arlene Martin said she supports the measure because the district cannot attract substitute teachers while surrounding districts pay them substantially better. She cited such surrounding districts' per diem rates as $89.67 in Farmingdale, $75 in Amityville and $70 in Plainedge.

The discussion of pay for substitutes also raised the issue of the qualifications of substitute teachers.

Trustee Martin said she opposes employing substitute teachers who do not have teaching certification, and others expressed similar concerns.

Richard Goldman, a teacher at the high school and senior vice president of the Massapequa Federation of Teachers said he would like administrators to take feedback from teachers about the performance of the substitutes. "I have subs whom I leave lesson plans for and they do nothing," he said. "Because of nepotism, there are certain subs who are called in who are terrible."

In other school district news, the board that evening approved an official name and class time schedule for the Ames building for the 1999-2000 school year. It will be called the Massapequa High School Ames 9th Grade Campus. The school will have a 9-period day, with teacher sign-in at 7:15 a.m., homeroom starting at 7:25 a.m. and teacher sign-out at 2:25 p.m. The district is in the process of completing a bond-funded renovation of the building in order to open it as a school for Massapequa 9th graders.

James Brucia, superintendent of schools, noted that after the recent removal of asbestos tiles in the building, the district's Ames Committee will soon complete a walk-through of the school, and that board members are welcome to join them. "We're on schedule to have the place open by Aug. 1," he said.

Also at the meeting, the board announced that because of conflicts in trustees' schedules, some trustees cannot attend the April 27 board meeting, and that therefore, the board's adoption of the 1999-2000 budget would be moved from that evening to April 22. The budget adopted that evening was to be presented to the public for a vote on May 18. The public hearing on the Massapequa School District budget will take place on May 11.

As previously planned, the board will adopt the BOCES budget at the April 27 meeting, which was not canceled.