Staff Domain

Certified staff meeting one or more of the following must be reported:

• Teaching or supervising an instructional program
• Counseling or providing special instructional services in a public school or state agency
• Delivering Special Education services to students aged 3-21 at public expense
• Delivering services to students ages three and four
• Administering in a public school
• Serving as Business Managers
• Educational Assistants
• Coaches

Non-certified staff meeting one or more of the following must be reported:

• Supervising/directing business offices, data processing, facilities, food service, health and transportation
• Providing administrative support in the business office, clerical, data processing and secretarial areas
• Providing support to the teaching and administrative duties of the office of the principal or department chairperson
• Providing support in all other categories such as maintenance, security, cafeteria, bus drivers not on contract, etc.

Related service providers (also referred to as Instructional Support providers or Ancillary Service providers) includes anyone who provides services for a public school or state institution as a:

• School Counselor
• School Social Worker
• School Nurse
• Speech-Language Pathologist
• Psychologist
• Physical therapist
• Physical therapy assistant
• Occupational therapist
• Occupational therapy assistant
• Recreational therapist
• Interpreter for the deaf
• Diagnostician.

Long term substitute teachers are substitute teachers that are teaching students in a single class room for 4 or more consecutive weeks (not to exceed 45 days).

How to report LONG TERM Substitute Teachers:

1. In STAFF and STAFF SNAPSHOT, Staff Qualification Status Code = S (LONG TERM)
2. Report LONG TERM Subs in COURSE INSTRUCTOR (not Short Term Subs).  Primary Instructor will be Staff ID of Long Term Sub.
3. In the License Discrepancy Report, substitute teachers are considered properly licensed if a Substitute Teaching license is found (or if a teaching license is found) for their Staff Assignment(s)
   endorsements for courses are not checked (only valid licensure based on their Staff Assignment Code is required)
   For example, since a 502 Educational Assistant license is NOT considered a “Teaching” license, people holding this license must obtain a Substitute Teaching license to avoid a license discrepancy when reported as a substitute teacher.
4. In STAFF ASSIGNMENT, at least one TEACHING staff assignment code must be reported.
5. Location Codes must match between STAFF ASSIGNMENT and COURSE INSTRUCTOR.
   Typical Staff Assignment Codes to report for substitute teachers are:  20 Kindergarten Teacher; 21 Elementary Teacher; 22 Junior High/Middle School Teacher; 30 Secondary Teacher.  Note:  There is not a staff assignment code depicting Substitute Teacher.
6. In the Highly Qualified Teacher Report, both Long Term and Short Term Substitute Teachers are omitted.

Short term substitutes are teaching classes for less than 4 consecutive weeks.

How to report SHORT TERM Substitute Teachers:

In STAFF and STAFF SNAPSHOT, Staff Qualification Status Code = T (SHORT TERM).  These are the ONLY templates to be submitted for Short Term Subs.

• Typically, Location Code=000 (District Office) will be reported since teaching is sporadic between schools
• FTE will also be sporadic; therefore, won’t include short term subs in the STAFF ASSIGNMENT template
• Short term Subs will NOT be reported in the COURSE INSTRUCTOR template

Substitute Teachers FAQs

How to report Substitute Teachers in relation to their Teaching Years Experience:

• In STAFF and STAFF SNAPSHOT, there are two TEACHING YEARS EXPERIENCE fields.  Do not include “Substitute Teaching” years experience in these fields.
• It is not necessary to submit TEACHING YEARS EXPERIENCE for Substitute Teachers.  Therefore, value may be 0 for those people coded as Substitute Teachers

Should Substitute Teachers be reported as Exited Teachers?

• If a “Substitute Teacher” leaves your district, do not report as an Exited Teacher.
• Substitute Teachers aren’t considered “Active” teachers for purposes of 3-tier licensure.
• If a “teacher” RETIRES and returns as a Substitute Teacher, report as an EXITED TEACHER in the year they retired with Termination Code = 07 (Retired).  In this case, the teacher will be reported in the same year as both an EXITED TEACHER and a SUBSTITUTE TEACHER (Note:  Exited Teacher reports handle this scenario and will list the exited teacher as such and will not result in an error of STILL TEACHING.)

Please report the following data elements in the STAFF template for Exited Teachers:

• District Code
• Staff ID
• Middle Initial
• Location Code (Last worked Location Code)
• Gender Code
• Ethnic Code Short
• Exit Date
• Teaching Years Experience (Total)
• Birth Date
• Teaching Years Experience in District
• Highest Degree Earned
• Staff Qualification Status Code (Last reported value)
• Annual Salary(Last reported value in STAFF SNAPSHOT)
• Termination Code
• First Name Long
• Last Name Long
• Race or Ethnicity Subgroup
• Highest Degree Institution Code
• Baccalaureate Degree Institution Code

LOCATION is a mandatory field.  Please report 000 (district office) if the location code is unknown.  For retired teachers, please report their Primary Location Code, from their last STAFF SNAPSHOT record.

All STAFF template data related to Exited Teachers should remain as originally submitted with two exceptions:

1. Add the Termination Code (Field 54).
2. Add the Exit Date (Field 36).

Exited teachers are reported at the next snapshot after they exited.  It is best to review the Exited Teacher reports during the 120th day submissions and correct the data at that time.  This will allow teachers who have left your district or charter, but are still inadvertently being submitted in the 120th day Staff Snapshot and Staff Assignment templates (as TEACHERS), to be removed at this point in time.  Waiting until the EOY to clean-up exited teachers may create inaccurate data in STARS because the 120th day cannot be reopened to delete these records at End-of-Year (EOY).  The Exited Teachers are determined between the 120th days; therefore, the Exited Teacher cutoff date ends YYYY-03-01 of the current school year. The reason exited teacher rates are based on the 120th day is because if a teacher worked 3/4s of the year or more, then their Exited Teacher Rate will apply to the following year, and not the year they worked most of the year (such as the case with retirees).  The Exited Teacher Rate is determined by Number of Exited Teachers/Number of Teachers found between the 120th days.  If the Exited Date of teacher falls between the “actual” 120th day (2nd Wednesday in February) and 3/1 (120th day Snapshot Date available in STARS), then these will inadvertently appear on the Exited Teacher-Exception report as STILL TEACHING on 120th day.  These may be ignored and won’t be able to be picked up on the Exited Teacher-Verified report.

Dummy Staff IDs have meaning in STARS and are used in the program logic to bypass Licensure checks.

Valid Dummy Staff IDs:

• 555555555 = Religious Studies
• 777777777 = Dual Credit/Concurrent Enrollment
• 888888888 = Distance Learning/Computer-based/BLB (NMPED Blended Learning Bureau)

Business Rules:

• Dummy Staff IDs are only to be reported in the COURSE INSTRUCTOR template in the Primary Instructor ID (field #8).  Because this field requires the Staff ID of the Primary Instructor exist in the STAFF template for the related District Code, PED preloads all dummy Staff IDs in STAFF for all district codes (including State Charters).
  Dummy Staff IDs will not be reported by school districts (charters) in ANY templates other than COURSE INSTRUCTOR.  They will not be reported in STAFF, STAFF SNAPSHOT or STAFF ASSIGNMENT because they are NOT employed by your school district as teachers.  They are reported as such because the COURSE INSTRUCTOR template requires a Primary Instructor ID.
• Dummy Staff IDs are unlike a “teacher of record” who must be identified for verifying licensure and assigning Teacher Effectiveness ratings.
• When Dummy Staff IDs are used, the teacher is unknown to PED, and must only be used in certain situations.
• NEVER report Staff ID 999999999 to STARS.  This is not a “valid” dummy Staff ID.  It will result in a Licensure Discrepancy or not HQT (not Highly Qualified Teacher) if associated with a Staff Assignment Code or Course Code.  999999999 is only used in PED’s Licensure Database when SSNs are not provided on applications.  These SSNs do NOT get transferred to STARS since they are not unique to staff.  If hired at a school, HR will need to contact The PED Licensure Bureau to have their correct SSN entered to avoid a Licensure Discrepancy.

Calculating Caseload Maximums for Special Education Staff:

For teachers with Assignment Codes:

• 94 – regular education teacher of gifted
• 95 – speech-language pathologist caseload manager
• 95S – preschool speech-language pathologist caseload manager
• 96 – preschool teacher
• 97 – special education teacher

Each “A or minimum” level student = 1/35 or .029 FTE (receives sp ed service 10% or less of the day = level 1 on STARS)
Each “A or minimum” related service student = 1/60 or.017 FTE (must be under staff at code 95)
Each “B or moderate” level student = 1/24 or .042 FTE (receives sp ed service less than half of the day = level 2 on STARS)
Each “B or moderate” related service student = 1/35 or.029 FTE (must be under staff at code 95)
Each “C or extensive” level student = 1/15 or .067 FTE (receives sp ed service half a day or more = level 3 on STARS)
Each “D or maximum” level student = 1/8 or .125 FTE (receives sp ed service all day or approaching a full day = level 4 on STARS)

The FTE generated by the students cannot exceed the FTE for their caseload teacher unless a waiver is granted. These caseload waivers are granted by the Secretary of Education on a case-by-case basis, and are available on the PED website.

GUIDELINES FOR SUBMITTING EXTENDED CONTRACT DOCUMENTATION FOR STAFF DELIVERING SPECIAL EDUCATION SERVICE

• a. Tell us how many paid hours per day in a standard contract Tell us how many days in a standard contract.  We need both of these pieces of information to verify the extra FTE you are claiming
• b. For Special Education Teachers: submit the page from a signed written agreement that specifies the extra hours before or after the normal school day (or school year) they are providing service to students. If the teacher’s prep period is being purchased, we will divide 1 hour by the number of paid hours in a day in order to calculate the extra FTE, unless you specify the length of the prep period.
• c. For related Service Providers: submit a signed written agreement that specifies the extra hours and / or days for each provider.
• d. The first time you submit your staff file on the 40th day, you will NO LONGER receive a warning message. We encourage you to submit your staff files before the 40th day and if you have an OVER FTE situation, we also encourage your staff to complete the caseload waiver documentation and get approval before the 40th day. After your caseload waiver documentation has been approved by the PED staff, continued approval will be automatic when you submit your staff file (80th& 120th count days) unless the FTE record exceeds the approved level or there is a new OVER FTE situation.
• e. On the 80th and 120th day entry counts: staff with extended contracts previously approved will not require re- approval documentation unless the FTE exceeds the approved level. New staff OVER FTE will require submission of caseload waivers and extended contract approvals. NOTE: STARS will accept FTE’s > 1.0 input from the LEA without PED approval. This does not relieve the LEA from following up with the caseload waiver and extended contract approval requirement. The 5, 7 & 10 day documentation rules detailed in the “Guidelines for Submitting Caseload Waivers” instructions apply to extended contracts also.
• f. PED staff will contact special education directors about any extended contact documentation that is not approved.