How Cajon Valley USD Created a Winning Professional Development Program

The Challenge: Covering Teacher Absences During PD

Cajon Valley USD didn’t have enough substitute teachers to cover all of its teacher absences, especially those associated with professional development days.

“We previously had to limit the amount of PD that our staff had access to because of a shortage of substitute teachers to cover absences,” says Michelle Hayes, Cajon Valley’s Assistant Superintendent of HR. “At the last minute we were having to call back the teachers that had completed sub plans and prepared to attend the PD workshops,” Hayes says.

“This also was a negative for our substitutes, because we’d pull them from one assignment to another, which was kind of upsetting the apple cart on multiple levels.”

Cajon Valley USD serves 18,000 students in 29 schools near San Diego, CA, and is a member of the Digital Promise League of Innovative Schools.

Increased Fill Rate to 94% with Swing

“Swing has been very, very accommodating, very thoughtful in their approach, very understanding of our needs,” says Hayes.

Getting Up-and-Running with Swing

“Swing has been very, very accommodating, very thoughtful in their approach, very understanding of our needs,” Hayes says. “They were very patient in helping us through the process, alleviating our concerns. They’ve been very responsive to what we needed and how we wanted to make it work.”

The Benefits of Strong Substitute Coverage

Cajon Valley USD’s partnership with Swing has since expanded to help them cover absences related to professional development as well as IEP meetings.

Cajon Valley’s administrators have also gotten a boost thanks to an improved administrator designee program, which ensures principal absences are covered by an administrator-in-training, a full-time teacher at each of Cajon’s school sites. Strong substitute teacher coverage allows the full-time teacher to assume administrator duties for the day.

“It gives the principal peace of mind that somebody is on campus managing the campus while they’re out, and it affords the designee the opportunity to step in the principal’s shoes and gain valuable experience,” Hayes says. “That’s something that was very, very difficult before because we didn’t have the coverage."