ESS: Flexible Gigs for Teachers, Aides and Clerks

Love working with kids, but don’t want to work full-time? Check out ESS, a staffing firm that works with 900 schools nationwide.

What is ESS?

ESS specializes in providing substitute teachers, teacher’s aides and clerical employees to more than 900 school districts nationwide. This includes every level of staffing at local schools, from cafeteria workers to janitors, teachers to playground supervisors.

Workers are hired as employees of ESS, but will actually work at one of the site’s participating schools.

How it works

The requirements for working in schools vary significantly from state to state. Thus, applicants are asked to plug in their city, state or zip code to get started. That’s likely to bring up schools in your area that have openings.

If ESS has openings in your area, you’ll be prompted to fill in more information and select the type of job you’re seeking. At that point, you can see the specific requirements to apply.

If you are successful, you’ll be hired as an employee of ESS, and given the ability to select the school or schools where you’d like to work.

ESS Review

ESS provides flexible jobs for substitute teachers, aides, clerical staff, counselors, coaches, speech therapists and even custodial and food service employees at schools. The site says you can work as much or as little as you want.

And if you are taken on as a regular employee, you’ll qualify for some benefits, including a retirement savings plan. The site will also reimburse for a certain amount credentialing expenses for substitute teachers.

Requirements

However, there are a cacophony of requirements for working in schools, many of which are security related. Even school aides and custodians need to be fingerprinted and thoroughly background checked. All of these costs are typically shouldered by the applicant.

The ESS site includes a map, which shows where the site operates, as well as what the costs are to get background-checked and the costs to get necessary substitute credentials in each state where it operates.

Advantages

The advantage of working with ESS is a simple one: You get access to a wide array of jobs at a large number of school districts (in some, but not all, states) and have loads of flexibility. You can decide when you want to work and how much you want to work.

Although substitute teachers can generally do that too, to register directly with multiple school districts (as you do automatically with ESS) can be extremely ponderous. In many cases, you’d need to pass background checks with each district, for instance. Signing up through ESS eliminates that hassle.

The site also hires you as an employee, which can give you access to a variety of benefits, including health insurance and a 401(k) savings plan. It appears that you get some employee benefits, even if you choose to work just part-time.

ESS also encourages schools to directly hire it’s long-term substitute teachers. That could give you a leg-up, if you’re a young teacher — or teacher in training — looking for a full-time gig in the future.

Disadvantages

The downside to ESS is that you’re putting a third-party between you and the school district. And that means, somebody is taking a cut of your pay. As a result, you’ll probably earn less or get fewer employee benefits when working through ESS than you would if you worked directly for a school district.

Moreover, substitutes say that ESS demands that they participate in a full day of training before they start. And the training is unpaid. Unpaid training is unusual for companies that hire their workers. However, ESS makes it a “pre-employment” requirement. In other words, you’re not added to their staff until after you complete the training.

The job in general

Other than that, the only complaints we see about working with ESS are about the jobs themselves. Working as a substitute is particularly difficult. That’s because kids can be unruly and see substitute teachers as easy prey since they rarely stick around long enough to make good on disciplinary threats.

Jobs as a teacher’s aide, clerk, school nurse, janitor or cafeteria employee are also not particularly high-paying and can be highly physical. And, again, while that’s true for these positions in general, if you work directly with the district, you’ll probably earn more.

Pay

Pay varies by position and school district. However, the salaries are nothing to brag about. When we checked ESS salaries on Glassdoor, they ranged from a low of $28,000 annually (about $14 an hour) to about $48,000 (about $24 an hour) for a long-term substitute.

ESS workers are generally paid weekly via direct deposit.

Recommendations

The main benefit of working with ESS is the flexibility to decide when and where you want to work. If you have a compelling reason to need that flexibility, then ESS may be worth a shot. You can sign up with ESS using our referral code here. 

However, you may be able to earn more or get better benefits by working directly with a school, particularly if you’re willing to work full time. Be sure to compare pay and benefits at local schools in your area with what you’d get at ESS.

If you’re interested in teaching or jobs at schools in general, also check out HigherEdJobs. And, if you think you’d like to teach courses online, look into Outschool. If you’re interested in early childhood education, consider ChildCareCareers.

What their users say (from Glassdoor):

The pros for being a sub are flexible hours, variety, and gaining more experience if you’re heading towards being a teacher. But ESS doesn’t pay you for training. And it schedules an all day mandatory training/orientation session during school hours. It’s mandatory, and it’s for the job you will be doing. There are other methods for training delivery, but they choose the most inconvenient way possible. If you work for another district, that is a full day of not being able to take an assignment elsewhere, which wouldn’t be an issue if they paid you.

If you’re in school it’s nice because you can center your schedule around school and take time off in need be. But you’re dealing with behavioral issues and managing large classrooms. And it’s a new job every day so you have to constantly be problem solving. A lot of kids will behave poorly and it’s your job to de-escalate the situation, which can be very stressful.

No feedback

Pay is pretty low for what subs have to deal with. No support from ESS. I had subbed at one school almost exclusively for a few months with no problem, only to be told I couldn’t return to that particular school for classroom management. Assignments can be changed suddenly: Ex: Signing up for a particular class only to be a bathroom monitor or to fill in as a special ed aide. When I moved out of state, the representatives wouldn’t tell me what districts they serve in that state so I could potentially continue with the company.