CHAMPAIGN — Those interested in being a substitute teacher for the Champaign or Urbana school districts will now need to go through an interview.

Both districts are changing the way they select substitute teachers, while the state has changed the way substitutes are authorized to work in schools.

The state now requires substitutes to go through Regional Offices of Education for their certification and background checks, rather than through school districts. Substitute teachers must also pay for their background checks themselves now, at a cost of $60, rather than the districts paying for them.

With the changes in how substitutes gain authorization to teach, the Champaign district decided to exercise more control over who ends up on its list of qualified substitute teachers. It will hold recruitment fairs for substitute teachers, with the first scheduled for this week, and the substitute candidates will go through interviews at the recruitment fairs.

"This is a chance to change our procedures," said Beth Shepperd, assistant superintendent for human resources. "We want to actually interview (substitutes) so we can have a better handle on the quality of instruction in our classes."

Because the Regional Office of Education is conducting background checks, districts won't automatically see the results of the check, only that the candidates passed. There may be information in a background check that would not disqualify someone from substitute teaching but that would influence the decision of whether to hire that person, Shepperd said.

"We want to be more selective," she said. "We think adding this layer where we conduct interviews and determine whether applicants are a fit for our district will give us a stronger pool."

The Regional Office of Education provides substitutes a form that says they meet the certification requirements and have completed the necessary background checks and physicals to be authorized to substitute, said Regional Superintendent Jane Quinlan. Districts can look at the background checks for substitutes they are interested in hiring, Quinlan said.

"The district has access to the background check and we strongly encourage them to get a copy of it and look at it," she said.

The Urbana school district has been tweaking its process for hiring substitutes, said Gayle Jeffries, assistant superintendent for human resources. Last year, it began doing more reference checks than it had done previously.

Urbana will also be doing more in-depth interviewing of substitute teacher candidates this year than it has in the past, Jeffries said, with principals participating in the interviews.

"In the past ... we never really had the opportunities to hand-pick" substitutes, Jeffries said. "We want the best subs possible, because they are an extension of the teacher while the teacher is absent that day."

Those who are currently substitute in either district will not have to reapply or go through an interview.

The Urbana school district has about 150 substitutes who are returning for the 2011-12 school year, and Jeffries hopes to have about 200 subs available for the coming school year. Soon it will be seeking new applicants, who will apply online.

Shepperd said her office "took a very aggressive look at the substitute teaching force this year." It removed any substitutes who didn't seek out or accept positions and those with negative assessments from principals. The Champaign school district has a list of about 183 substitute teachers, and Shepperd said she'd like to identify 35 more from the recruitment fairs.

As the Champaign district looked at its substitute list over the past year, it discovered about 140 people who never accepted a position.

"We were trying to figure out why we had an influx of people signing up," Shepperd said. "My assumption is that signing up on our website fulfilled a requirement for receiving unemployment.

"That doesn't help principals who are seeking substitutes, and it doesn't help our students. We want people who really want to do the work," she said, adding that having those people on the substitute list cost the district about $50 each for the background checks.

Now that potential substitutes will be paying for the background checks themselves, "we feel we will be getting people who are really more interested in doing this," Shepperd said.

The Urbana district has not experienced a similar problem, Jeffries said.

"We try to make sure all our subs are used," she said. "There may be people who sign up for both districts, and they may tend to be called more in one district than another. Individuals always want their options open."

Jeffries noted the rules from the state's teacher retirement system have changed so retired teachers are allowed to substitute teach for only 100 days per school year, rather than the 120 days allowed in the past, so some of the district's substitutes may have to reduce the number of days they work.

The pool of substitute teachers has been increasing significantly in the past few years, Quinlan said. She wonders whether the change in making substitutes pay for their own background checks will decrease the pool.