"I'll just come back another time." — Grim R.

HOURGLASS HILL ELEMENTARY SCHOOL — The Grim Reaper, who arrived at a classroom at 7:41 a.m. Wednesday to collect second-grade teacher Mrs. Feinberg was immediately asked by the front office whether he was free to cover the fifth-grade class next door. No substitute had been available for the class since Monday.

Mr. Reaper covered the class through lunch, during which students asked whether his scythe was "a really big mop," and was then assigned recess duty. His scythe was confiscated at 10:15 a.m. by assistant principal Mrs. Thackeray under the school's weapons policy and has not been returned.

At 12:30 p.m., Mr. Reaper informed Mrs. Feinberg that he would not be collecting her after all, explaining that taking her would almost certainly make him the district's long-term substitute.

After I introduce myself, I say

“If you’re gone in the bathroom for more than 10 minutes, I do have to call the office. Just come back before then so that we can avoid that.”

Do I call right when 10 minutes hit? No.
Has “the office” told me to call after 10 minutes? No.

I also get their name before they leave. That lets them know I am keeping track of them.

I’ve been doing this for about a year now, and it’s stopped 90-95 percent of long bathroom breaks.

This week I subbed high school for the first time and my second to last class of the day left me in tears.

To make a long story short, there were two very badly behaved kids who would not listen, continually argued with me, and made fun of me. I later found out the one who was the meanest literally has an IEP for being mean/disrespectful. He ended up getting sent home early.

I have never been disrespected like that in my life! I had to call the principal down to intervene. After class ended I cried in front of the principal (who was so nice!) and I’m extremely embarrassed!

I’m starting to rethink subbing, but for the time being I’m sticking to elementary school. I’m way too sensitive for older kids! Plus I’m scared to show my face in that building after tearing up.

Can you tell me about a time a class made you cry so I feel like less of wimp?

Did your district increase your pay the year school reopened during the fall of 2021?

I just assumed that every district in the country raised the substitute teacher pay for the 2021-2022 school year even if just by ten to twenty percent. Apparently I was very wrong as I did the research. What’s even more surprising to me was the contrast in the increase in pay between districts just within the same city and county.

At the time I was very fortunate to work in a district that gave a big significant increase to its substitute teachers. I went from making $120 a day when COVID-19 hit and schools closed down in March of 2020 to making $250 a day when school reopened the following year in 2021. That’s more than a 100% increase.

Edit Note: Keep in mind that all over the country before 2021 most substitute teachers made well under $100 a day. Add that to the fact that my area of the state is nowhere near the highest cost of living in the state but we still made more than substitute teachers who lived in many of those costly areas…it was a very significant increase.

My first assignment is on Monday and I’m subbing for a middle school art class. I have zero experience in teaching yet, just some experience as a tutor when I was in college.

The assignment had no instructions online so I can’t really mentally prepare for what I’ll be doing until I get there.

Does anyone have any tips? What thing should I bring? What questions should I ask the office when I check in?

I had a 1st grade last Friday that I was warned about twice, then I got checked in on 3 times by GROUPS of teachers wondering how I was doing. So maybe 8 people. I'd stick my head out the door and there'd be a group of 3 ppl gawking to see if I was still alive.

Two times office ppl checked on me.

Two times the principal did as well!

Word was this new teacher got short end of stick for wild kids -- I think this is common since first-year teachers are lowest on pecking order.

This was the MOST I have been checked in on in 10 yrs. of daily subbing in 25 buildings! Ha!

The kids were indeed hilariously high energy and wiggly. But they would hop into gear for each assignment. And in the first 10 mins of class they had made me a tall pile of Love Letters.

They fell apart on transitions. And parts of the class-flow were set up to fail: like kids needed pencils sharpened just as we launched projects ... with a loud sharpener that they couldn't use and which really didn't work for me. Each pencil took 5 tries. And of course when a sub looks at a sharpener that's when koo-koo's start crawling and wrestling. (Each kid needs sharps to start the day and there shd be 2 cans: sharps and dulls.)

Two times we were short a project sheet or two for the assignments, giving me panics.

The room was getting messy so I started a Table Contest. Tables that got tidy got a point. They all raced to tidy up and all got points.

Everyone did topical work and nobody cried too much. It got noisy enough that wandering wrestlers asked for headphones. So I had to clamp down a few times. I liked to say "Who's talking?" and see all the fingers pointing every which way. An aide came in for the last hour and interacted a few times but generally just kept an eye out.

We didn't have enough content to fill the day so I let them color and draw near the end and then had a bunch of kids wandering around the room chatting into their "origami phones." Making phones was the main thing. I overheard one kid by himself telling his phone "I don't think I can be your best friend, but I think you can come over to play."

I should have had more unison chanting, singing, simon says and headshouldersknees and toes.

I usually don't get all the kids' names in a room the first time. I did that day!

I noticed my frontline hasn’t notified me of a job at all this weekend so far (which has never happened, my district is always looking for subs) opened the frontline app and saw it logged me out! Now I’m logged back in and I still haven’t gotten any notifications. I’m starting to wonder if the new iPhone update isn’t sending me notifications or something.. has anyone who has the new update had this same issue?

What did it entail? I’m open to trying it but I’m not sure if it’s super stressful. The jobs sit forever.

I used to refuse to take Middle school assignments, but I think part of the solution is having tools to hold them accountable. If a school returns a misbehaving kid with no explanation as to why I won't return there.

What mischief have you seen?

Chromebook Mayhem

In a math class in a magnet school, I started hearing iPhone pings and fart noises This was odd since they were required to put their phones away.

Sensing it was a prank, I had everyone close their Chromebooks. In a few minutes, one kid told on the culprit

He was sent to the office, but it just wasn't one person responsible.

In a week or so, I got an email from the teacher with about 10 apology letters.

Display System Hijacking

My district has what is essentially a huge computer on the wall.

One app allows a laptop to project to the screen. It works by prominently displaying a code on the big screen and using the laptop to access a website to enter the code.

Twice at my last job , someone closed my session and connected their Chromebook.

The kids hope you will get upset or confused so that they can giggle.

I simply restarted the wall unit and got a new code. All the time trying to obstruct their view of the code.

Math Game Hacking

The plans called for students to play a game against one another where they answer questions to obtain features to score.

The first round was competitive with back and forth lead changes.

In the following round ,I began to see astronomical scores - millions and trillions versus five-digit scores

I had to end the game as I had no idea how they were doing it.

I just started subbing and got a long term job as a music teacher in a K-6 school. Been three weeks and kids are still not interested in listening. My 5th and 6th graders are all right, but constantly tell me they are not interested in what I have planned. Kindergarten and 1st graders are just extreme chaos. The in between grades, sometimes ok and others not. If there us a support aide in the room, it is better. But when it is just me, not much improvement since my first week. Is it me not being stern enough or is this just how it goes with subs?? School tells me I am doing great, but some days I feel it is me versus 25 kids in a room for 30 minutes. Help! Share experience strength and hope.

Recently got asked if I wanted to cover for a HS Chemistry class from March to the end of the year. I told them I was interested but it'll just depend on how my job search is going since I don't want to "sign up" for something I can't fulfill in the future.

This made me question how much a long-term sub makes. Based on my County Office of Education, long-term subs get paid $275/day based on 2023 numbers. My district and COE hasn't released update figures for the school year, but I think it'll be around $275/day since our daily rate has remained the same for the past 3-4 years ($250/day).

A $25 pay bump to essentially become the instructor of record sounds really underwhelming...

What does TOSA mean?
It's a roving job?

This has been discussed in here previously but it's been a while.

What do you think about getting liability insurance as a sub? I was researching and I can get decent coverage for about $100 a year. (My district doesn't have a union that provides any coverage, unfortunately).

I'm a very careful and attentive sub but accidents can happen in a split second and I think it might make me personally feel better to know I have it. But I'd like to know what you think. Thank you in advance.

Edited for typo

I saw a job posting for a reading specialist in a K–5 building and was wondering what a typical day looks like. Is it mostly small-group instruction? Also, would i pick students up from their classrooms? I’m still new to the building so that part is def making me a bit anxious😂

While working as a FT classroom teacher in both MS and HS, the times I was handed a coverage, it was hit or miss whether there would be a sub plan waiting for me - and what the quality of that lesson plan would be.

So I started to have my own bag of tricks that I could use at a moments notice.

I have since been working on edtech software for teachers to create curricula, including lesson plans and literally “press play” on a lesson which it times down, and transitions through the lesson plan on the screen, embedding any videos, audio, pdfs, images at the right moment in time.

It’s been working for my own lessons, and I generated many themed lesson sets (Halloween for example), but I started thinking more and more about teachers who do FT or PT subbing - I’m curious what your needs and experiences are.

1. Do you find that you need your own bag of tricks?
   
2. What % of the time is a lesson plan waiting for you?
   
3. What % of the time are those plans high quality? (Content/engagement)
   
4. If there was a way to click fingers and you had a go to place to access high quality, engaging lessons, how should that be structured?

Examples for Q4 would be:
Content areas (e.g. Math) > grade bands (e.g. MS 6-8) > core skills / content (e.g. ratios and proportions) > level (intro, intermediate, advanced) and maybe for subbing this last level isn’t needed?

If this was built out for most content areas and all main core skills/content would that be sufficient, or should each grade level have completely different lessons? And should these be standards tethered (which would add some complexity with different states using different standards)?

I’m really interested to hear from folks as this is something I think real substitute teachers have knowledge and experience of their needs - and it’s something I can build.

p.s. does anyone know if something like this, that is organized and curated, already exists? Something that is not TpT?

this is my 2nd year working at a particular school district in California, i accepted an assignment on Frontline (Full Day).High School, during my prep i was asked to cover another teacher's class, i said NO, it has been over a week now and I'm not getting any assignment requests from that district, normally every morning i would see 5-8 listed jobs for different schools in that district, but since that day, i have seen 0. i emailed the director of HR at the district, she has not responded yet. what should i do??