My name is Lesli. I am 59 and I live in Omaha. I am divorced, live by myself and have 2 sons who are in their 20s.

I just began my 9th school year as a substitute teacher in Omaha Public Schools. During that time I have not worked anywhere else, except for $225 worth of tutoring that I did in 2023 through Huntington Learning Center. I haven't job-searched except with a resume tailored to education-related jobs in 9 years.

I was paid on June 13th for the 12 consecutive school days that I subbed during May. I was not hired to teach during summer session this June (see more details below) nor did I work anywhere else. School started a couple of weeks ago and Friday I worked my 1st day of the new school year. Subs will now be paid biweekly on alternating Fridays. I received a small check for $239 on Friday, 8/29. I will be paid on 9/12 for the days I work during the next 2 weeks, then on 9/26 for the following 2 weeks and so on.

UPDATED ON 8/26: Thanks to the generosity of those who have donated since I created this GFM Friday morning added to those who sent money to my bank account directly through Zelle during the week prior, $1,368 was deposited to my bank account today (Tuesday) and I have turned a cashier's check for $1,144.90 in to my manager, which will remove me from the eviction list. I've been able to make several small minimum payments on a few accounts, my car insurance payment withdrew today and I got gas Saturday. More donations are being processed that have come in since Monday night. I will acknowledge donors individually later.

I could see Sunday that I wouldn't have enough left after the car insurance payment to GEICO to also pay Verizon, which was due Sunday, so once again I was able to postpone Verizon's payment for both my July and August bills and now have that combined amount due 9/8.

I do not yet have the money either to pay several other bills that were due over the weekend or Monday and I didn't pay them at all in late July. That includes my electric bill, which I can usually skip as they don't threaten a disconnect until you're more than $200 or so overdue. At the moment, it's up to $205 so I want to pay some or all of that amount so I can stay on top of it. I didn't pay my medical insurance premium at the end of July with the intention of catching it up this month. I still have coverage because I technically have until 10/31 to pay that $48.

I already renewed my license plates in late June ($147) and my teaching certificate in mid-July ($65), which are not part of my usual monthly expenses.

I did post a request for help on Facebook about 10 days ago and have had a few people send me Zelle transfers plus another friend brought me a nice amount of cash, which is much appreciated. Thanks to Ginny for suggesting that I create a Go Fund Me. I had already been considering it, but didn't know how. Thanks to those who have shared it too.

Because I have been paid only once a month, on or just before the 15th, for the past 8 years, I have set the payment due dates for virtually all of the bills (car and renters insurance, medical insurance, electric bill, several credit cards, phone/internet/TV) to be due during the last half of the month. Now that I will be paid biweekly, I may try to change some of those due dates.

Here's more of my background for those who might not know:

I began working for OPS in 2017, then took some graduate classes at UNO which enabled me to become recertified as a teacher. I moved to Omaha from Kansas City in 1994 and subbed for Westside and Millard school districts and at my synagogue from then through the end of 1998. My older son was born in 1999 and having been married at the time into a family which owned a large business, I allowed my certification to expire in 2001 because I'd chosen to stay home with my children. In Nebraska, you have to have a bachelor's degree in education in order to subsitute an unlimited number of days per school year and to work in long-term assignments. I have worked a number of long-term assignments and I taught full-time at Omaha North HS for 3 school years from 2019 through 2022 filling special education vacancies, both during and after Covid. I began each of those years as a long-term sub for the 1st semester and my "temporary, nonrenewable" contracts began December 1st so that I could have health insurance and other benefits and a monthly paycheck from January 1st through August 31st. I am not certified in special education so was not eligible to be hired on a more permanent basis. My teaching certifications, which I have just renewed into 2030, are social studies, speech and theater.

I lived in a 2-bedroom apartment with a roommate from September 2016 through January 2023 and then stayed at a suites hotel for 50 nights until I found, was approved for and moved into my current apartment that March. My initial rent for this 1969-built, 3rd-floor, 1-bedroom apartment with 756 square feet near 114th/120th and Dodge was $865. In March 2024, I began a 15-month lease and locked in a rate of $895. I was sent notification in March of what my rate would be to renew. My lease was to be up on June 16th and they quoted me $945 to $950, a $50-$55 increase depending on how far in advance I informed them of my intent to renew. They require 60 days' notice., which was mid-April, but I didn't want to move in the middle of summer session and didn't yet know whether or not I would be working it full-time during June.

I had submitted 2 apps for summer school teaching positions within OPS, for general education and for special education, as I had done the past several years. The past 3 years (2022-2023-2024) I was hired to teach at $40/hr. I was paid biweekly for the summer work plus received my last check of the regular school year on June 15th, so my earnings were really good, but I had a short time each summer between late July until mid-September with no paycheck. Like all of the contracted teachers in OPS, subs were, until now, only paid once a month on the 15th or the preceding Friday. I worked 12 school days in a row during May and was paid for them on June 13th. However, this summer I wasn't hired; at my request, they kept me under consideration for special ed, English as a Second Language and similar openings untl mid-May. I heard that student enrollment numbers declined and they apparently didn't hire as many staff for this summer as they had in the past.

I did research apartments, but honestly wasn't seeing anything at a price up to $1100 or so (I pay water, sewer, gas, trash, pest control in addition to rent plus, if I haven't had approximately half of that cost at the beginning of the month so I can pay via the Flex app (which pays my landlord in full, but lets me pay $500 after I get my formerly-monthly paycheck), a $75 late fee , which comes close to that amount, that had even close to the same amount of square footage and closet space and uninterrupted wall space that I have here. I did ask my manager about available 1-bedrooms on a lower floor here, but I would have had to pay an additional $500 deposit (as opposed to an immediate transfer of my existing deposit to a different unit) plus my rent would have gone up to the $975 that they charge new residents and I would have had to pay the additional $200 month-to-month until something became available. I signed a new 15-month lease on June 30th that began on July 1st and my rent is now $950. That's an $85 increase from when I moved here in 2023.

My regional manager and the 2 previous property managers have been aware of my previous pay schedule and that I work on-call and get paid for the number of days that I work. They have put the necessary notices on my door and sent them in the mail, but until now I have always paid in full no later than the 15th including the late fee when necessary. I have requested financial assistance from Jewish Family Service on occasion, but the last time or two that I asked, I was denied. I got a new property manager in May and she is aware as well. I have let her know that beginning now, we subs will begin getting paid biweekly, every other Friday, which will make my life a lot easier. Our daily pay this school year is now $260/day and $270/day for a long-term, which is a minimum of 10 days in the same position. I haven't yet submitted an app for the new school year into the applicant pool, but I plan to do so once the new listing is posted on September 1st. I also have found out just in the past few weeks that Nebraska now issues certifications and endorsements based on your results of PRAXIS tests. I want to ask the analyst at the Nebraska Department of Education what this would entail and whether I might be able to pass it. I have never had any coursework in the legal and financial/eduational funding and compliance aspects of special education, so I'm not sure if I know enough to be able to pass the test.

I do monitor job listings, including for part-time, seasonal, remote and full-time daily on LinkedIn. However, I haven't yet found anything that I meet the advertised qualifications for that also would work with my availability during the school year, which I feel is more fair to a prospective employer. I prefer to keep my weekdays open because I make such good money subbing. The secondary schools that I work in dismiss the students at 3:05 and I work at different locations every day unless I'm in a long-term, which makes it a challenge to be at a certain location at a specific time. The sub coordinator is aware that I'm always interested and willing to accept one. There just isn't anything yet. Tutoring after school and/or in the evenings is definitely a possibility.

Any assistance will be much appreciated and anything in excess of paying my August and September rent, Verizon and other bills, I will use to pay down balances to open up available credit, which will restore my credit scores to where they were about 2 months ago. You're doing a mitzvah (good deed) and I thank you from the bottom of my heart.

Lesli Shrago

Lesli Kocherov Shrago (Facebook)

Message me if you need my email or phone number or my QR for Zelle, which you can access with either bit of information.

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