Managing substitute teachers efficiently is a crucial aspect of ensuring smooth day to day operations. To directly address and simplify the challenges faced by school admins, we are launching our Swing Schools app (on both iOS and Android), a modern platform designed to directly address some of schools’ biggest pain points.  

The problem

Being a school administrator involves numerous on the go responsibilities, such as checking on substitutes in classrooms, addressing unanticipated class coverage needs, and engaging with teachers. However, traditional substitute coordination systems often require administrations to be tethered to their desks.

So when a teacher reports a new absence, the sub coordinator often waits to return to their desktop computer at the end of the day or wait for vendor office hours to open – resulting in a substantial delay from the time they learned about an absence to the time it was posted. This delay impacts the overall efficiency of the coordination process, potentially leading to unfilled requests and empty classrooms.

Our recent research shows that there is an optimal time window to post sub job openings in order to have the highest possible fill-rates. In general, giving plenty of advance notice (five or more days before the start of assignment) has the highest fill rate at 95%, while last minute openings (posting one or two hours before assignment start) often have the lowest fill rate – dropping those rates by up to 30% or more. 

While five days’ notice isn’t always possible, we’ve recently uncovered that the most critical time window for posting a job is 30 hours in advance. Once the 30 hour mark passes, the dropoff in fill-rates becomes significant, at times exceeding more than a 2% average drop in fill-rate per hour. In fact, if you’re a sub coordinator who waits to post a job the evening before it starts instead of that morning when you arrive at work, you may see a full 17% drop in your average fill rates just by waiting those additional few hours. 

But we get it — sub coordinators are busy, teachers aren’t always able to get their absences in on time, absence approvals fall to the wayside — life happens. And that’s why we’ve got a new solution for you.

Our solution

To address these challenges, we’ve created the Swing Schools app to enable sub coordinators to instantly book and edit requests while on the move, eliminating the need to be tethered to a desktop computer. The app is user friendly and offers a range of features that enhance and simplify the substitute teacher management process. With the Swing Schools app, schools will have:

• Effortless booking: Easily request and book substitute teachers for any job type across all your schools in just a few taps.
• Improved fill-rates: Start posting sub requests hours earlier, giving more substitute teachers time to see your positions and fill them.
• Real-time request management: Stay in control by viewing and editing active requests across all your schools from directly within the app — no calls, service requests, or support required.

What schools are saying

Our beta users have absolutely loved the Swing Schools app, and it’s now become their primary method for making sub requests:

“It allows me to be more efficient and really cuts down on the time spent creating requests. I get jobs in faster without going to the desktop; anything that saves time!” — Monica

“It’s straightforward and easy to manage. It’s so quick and easily accessible. I get almost all of my requests done in the morning and barely use the website anymore.” — Briana

“I like how easily I can post the request and check quickly what subs are coming to campus.” — LaBotta

Ready to get started? Download the Swing Schools app on iOS or Android today and continue improving your fill rates.