Desperately Seeking Substitutes, Districts Are Becoming Creative

By Bess Keller

Superintendent Carol Grosse Peck can't do without her alias.

The schools chief of the Alhambra district in Phoenix takes a turn every year as a substitute teacher in one of her schools. So do about a dozen other administrators in the district's central office.

"We don't sign up under our own names," Ms. Peck explains. Teachers and staff members at the unsuspecting school "might be expecting 'Claudia Paxton,'...