The Warren County School District is looking to entice retired teachers to come back into the classroom as substitutes by raising substitute pay for retired teachers.

A single day can pay a substitute teacher $110, with the rate going up to $150 a day if the substitute works 15 consecutive days and $180 if the substitute works 60 days. Those rates haven’t been enough to fill the district’s classrooms, so the school board decided to increase the rate for retired teachers from $125 a day to the rate they earned when they retired from full-time teaching.

This is a good move by the district that we hope eases the staffing crunch the district — and districts across the state — face each day.

It’s also worth noting legislation signed in December by Gov. Tom Wolf that makes it easier to use retired teachers as substitutes on a emergency or short-term basis, doubles the amount of time people with inactive teaching certifications will be allowed to substitute, allows student-teachers who need only to take their PRAXIS exams to work as day-to-day or long-term substitutes and expanding the use of classroom monitors through the end of the 2022-23 school year.

These are all good ideas worth trying, but what’s the next move if there still aren’t enough substitute teachers? At that point, it may be time to look at the atmosphere the state has created in classrooms and the state’s requirements to get into teaching in the first place as reasons why people don’t want to teach.