Parents don't exactly want the requirements lowered for substitute teachers.
Some parents say they don't mind subs from time to time, but they worry about it being longer term.
"Having a babysitter in there to carry out a teachers plan is one thing, but our teachers are also sometimes long term subs and to have a teacher teaching our children for up to three months at a time without a proper education isn't okay," explains a mother whose children go to school in mid-Michigan.
But there's aren't enough people with that proper education and superintendents across mid-Michigan, like Holt's David Hornak, see the need to change the standards.
"Across the nation fill rates are between 85 and 90 percent," states Dr. Hornak. "In Holt we're better than the national fill rates, but we have days in any given week where we do not have a substitute teacher for any given classroom."
Clark Galloway, the president of EduStaff, which finds substitutes for schools in Michigan, says the law, if passed, won't require schools to take just any substitute. Schools will still be able to choose what level of qualifications they want.
But right now, schools need any kind of help.
That's why EduStaff is pushing for two other bills in the state legislature. One that would allow more retired teachers to substitute and not interfere with their benefits, and another that would let people with real-life experience sub in vocational programs like shop or woodworking, if it's applicable to their career.
