Substitute teacher (on hiatus) here; been subbing since 2013, was full time from 2015-2021, even taught remote through the pandemic.

The sub shortage can be explained in one sentence.

‘We don’t pay substitutes enough’

That's it. That's all. I cannot emphasize this enough.

Right now, flipping burgers both pays more, and is far less stressful.

I'm in the Philly suburbs, and most schools are only paying $110-120 a day. Some are as low as $90 - which is below minimum wage for the 7-hour time commitment. And those schools are asking us to deal with the same worsening conditions as the other teachers have already complained about here, with a single break of 20-42 minutes (maybe. there have been days that I've been outright instructed to have a working lunch) because we have to be stretched to cover every possible opportunity.

What schools are demanding of substitutes is not worth the pithy compensation. Not remotely.

And instead of actually allocating funds to get qualified coverage at competitive rates, all that our school administrations are doing is complaining and downplaying the situation by claiming that it's bad everywhere.

It's bad because our Boards are making it bad. By choice.
This isn't the teachers. This is our elected Boards of Ed and upper management.

If staff were actually a priority, if faculty well-being were actually a priority, if the safety of students were actually a priority - if having basic coverage was actually a priority - they'd pull the money from somewhere else to make it happen.

But no, the football team that hasn't won a game in three years is far more important.