A company that employs substitute teachers unexpectedly shut down operations in Michigan on Monday, leaving several school districts around the state scrambling to find solutions.
The Professional Educational Services Group sent a letter to all its Michigan employees that they were terminated on Monday. The letter states that the company has been "actively seeking capital to keep operations going."
Dearborn Public Schools is one of at least 110 districts in the state that employed substitute teachers through PESG.
David Mustonen, the director of communications for the district, says the district contacted the subs who have worked in its schools once it was aware of the situation.
“What we’re going to be doing is temporarily employing them through the Dearborn Public Schools,” Mustonen said.
More from the letter:
We have been actively seeking capital to keep operations going and have been in good faith negotiations with a competitor to sell the business in a manner that would have prevented your terminations and allowed Professional Educational Services Group to continue operations. The urgency of the shutdown was exacerbated, however, when those negotiations broke down over the weekend due to unforeseen developments outside of our control. Without operating funds to stay open, therefore, the company is now forced to close immediately. Under the circumstances, we believed our only serious option was to notify you as soon as possible.
The letter states the company employed as many as 2,000 subs in Michigan.
Mustonen says the district was already keeping track of which schools needed subs before PESG shut down.
“And we’ll do that internally here for the next couple of weeks and making sure that there are subs in the classrooms,” he said.
Representatives from PESG couldn’t be reached for comment.
