Most school districts have one substitute teacher job posting. One onboarding process. One training program. And one communication strategy. Nothing changes for each person who walks through the door, whether that person is a 67-year-old retired educator with 30 years of classroom experience or a 24-year-old career changer who just decided they want to become a teacher.
Velia Verdiguel has seen the limits of that approach up close. As Senior HR Manager for Gwinnett County Public Schools, one of the ten largest school districts in the country, she oversees everything related to substitute experience, and a few years ago, she and her team made a deliberate choice to stop treating those groups like they were the same person.
"One size does not fit all," she said. "And really making sure that you're keeping a pulse on what's going on — how substitutes are feeling, the support that schools might need — and accounting for those changes. What we did two years ago may need to look different this upcoming school year."
The first step in Gwinnett's approach was simply acknowledging that the substitute pool is not one uniform group. It is a diverse workforce made up of people with different backgrounds, different needs, and different motivations. The 2026 Red Rover National Substitute Survey, which collected responses from 18,328 substitute teachers across 46 states, puts hard numbers behind what Velia has observed firsthand.
Nearly 60% of substitutes nationally are 46 or older. The largest single age group in the survey is the 62-80 bracket, at 29.7% of respondents. Most of them are retired educators — people who came back to the classroom for flexibility, supplemental income, and community connection, not because they are building toward something new.
The remaining 40% of the pool, ages 18-45, tells a different story. Many are career changers, recent graduates, and aspiring teachers actively evaluating whether education is the right long-term path. Among this group, nearly 35% hope to pursue a permanent teaching credential.
The difference in what those two groups need from a district, according to Velia, starts the moment they're onboarded. "For our older substitutes, if we're referring to those that are retired educators, they really don't need a lot of that engagement from our office. They're seasoned, they're experienced. Our younger pool — those are going to be the ones that we definitely engage with more, specifically when it comes to professional learning."
Recognizing those differences, Gwinnett made a structural change: they separated their substitute job postings into certified and non-certified tracks. Retired Gwinnett educators bypass the application system entirely, since the district already has everything it needs on file.
The result has been faster onboarding for qualified candidates and a better overall substitute in the classroom. "We've been able to onboard a lot more certified teachers faster," Velia explained. "They don't have to complete all of the requirements that a regular substitute teacher has. It's allowed us to have not just a qualified substitute, but a quality substitute in our classroom."
And quality matters. The survey data backs this up clearly: 88.6% of substitutes say reliable lesson plans are important or very important when deciding whether to accept an assignment. Friendly office staff ranked fourth. The experience a substitute has in a school, from the moment they walk in the door to whether they feel set up for success, directly affects whether they come back.
The district has formalized that reality into what Velia calls the GCPS Substitute Experience framework, a set of guidelines for schools on how to receive and support substitutes. It covers the basics — a welcoming check-in, a point of contact throughout the day, clear information about where to find lesson plans — but the intent behind it is bigger than logistics. "Substitutes are still team GCPS," Velia said. "They're not just subs. A lot of them are here because they want to be here. They want to make an impact, and they're looking to transition into permanent roles."
Segmenting the pool does not end with hiring. Gwinnett uses targeted communication to make sure the right message reaches the right person. When a long-term position opens up and they need a certified substitute, that communication goes to certified subs only. When career pathway events, job fairs, and certification information sessions come up, that communication goes specifically to the subs who have signaled interest in making the transition. GCPS even stations recruiters in the professional learning room during breaks and lunch, so substitutes can ask questions about upcoming opportunities and next steps on the spot.
"We want to make sure that they're the ones getting that message when we are hosting professional learning," Velia said of the career-builder cohort. And the professional learning itself is tailored too — not a one-size-fits-all session, but content designed around what substitutes at different experience levels actually need.
That matches what the survey data shows. Younger substitutes, those 18-29, are significantly more likely to cite classroom management as their top training need at 41.9%. Seasoned subs in the 62-80 bracket are more likely to need technology support at 36.3%. A single training program cannot serve both groups well.
In a metro area like Atlanta, where multiple large districts are competing for the same substitute pool, pay matters. Velia is candid about where Gwinnett stands. "We don't offer the highest rate of pay across the metro areas," she said. "We're kind of right there in the middle."
Rather than trying to win on base pay alone, Gwinnett built a retention incentive structure designed to reward substitutes who work more days and keep fill rates healthy. Subs who work 45 or more days in the first semester receive a $500 incentive payment in January. Work 45 or more days in the second semester, and another $500 follows in June.
It is a practical approach to a challenge the survey data makes clear is only growing. Pay as a job factor among substitutes nationally reached 85% in 2026, up from a flat 79% since 2022. Healthcare benefits importance jumped 13 percentage points in a single year. Substitutes are paying closer attention to the full value of what a district offers, not just the daily rate.
Perhaps the most compelling part of Gwinnett's approach is what happens after a substitute signals interest in a permanent role. During onboarding, Velia's team asks directly: who here is looking to transition into a permanent position? From there, those substitutes are folded into a broader pipeline effort, connected to job fairs, certification information sessions, and relationships with recruiters.
The results are meaningful. About five percent of Gwinnett's active substitute pool transitions into a permanent teacher role each year. When paraprofessional and other classified roles are included, approximately 35% of the district's substitutes, parapros, and miscellaneous staff transition into permanent positions over the course of a year.
"We want to make sure that we're doing some targeted efforts," Velia said. "The messaging definitely looks different for those that we know are looking to transition into substitute teaching."
The survey reinforces why that investment matters. Among substitutes who are working toward a credential, 76.3% say they would prefer to accept a permanent position at the district where they currently sub. The pipeline is not just a concept — it is already in the room, waiting to be activated.
Gwinnett is a large district with significant resources, but the core lesson from Velia's approach does not require scale to apply. It requires intention.
Know who is in your substitute pool. Recognize that a retired teacher and a 24-year-old career changer are not the same person with the same needs. Build the onboarding, the training, the communication, and the experience to reflect that. And treat every substitute like the potential future employee they might be.
"You don't want to just treat them as subs for the day," Velia said. "At the end of the day, if you don't have that substitute, our students are not being serviced and their needs aren't being met."
Ready to dig deeper into the data?
The 2026 Annual National Substitute Survey is one of the most comprehensive looks at the substitute teacher workforce ever conducted. Here are a few ways to explore the full findings: