ACA affecting substitute teacher usage nationwide

Insurance benefits are a topic of discussion in many school districts today, as there's considerable debate about whether substitute teachers will be used more regularly as a result of the Affordable Care Act.

The employer mandate, one of the tenets of the ACA, is that places of business - more specifically, those that have at least 50 or more workers - are required to supply health insurance to their full-time workers. A person is considered full-time, according to the law, if he or she works 30 hours or more a week.

To help save on costs, some school districts have had to cut back on hours, local television stations have reported, such as in parts of Virginia.

"We've got a tough decision to make and this is new ground for us," Mark Lineburg, superintendent of the Bristol, Va. School Board told the Bristol News recently. "We're trying to figure out how to navigate some of our part-time employees and be fiscally prudent. Costs are going up for part-time employees with the Affordable Care Act and substitutes fall under that."

Substitute teachers may not need to be offered health insurance, according to the ACA, but that could be a different story if they work more than 30 hours in a given week, another issue that school districts must confront.