Substitute Teachers

Dear Teacher,

I have years more teaching experience than you. Hell, I have more experience teaching in your own country than you. I know that teachers can be bad teachers after decades of teaching. I also know that in the first couple of years of teaching it can be difficult to let someone into your precious class because they are not you and they will do things differently.*

However, there is one important thing you should remember: DO NOT speak to me like I am a child in your class. Especially not IN FRONT of your class.

Sincerely,
Your Cover

/rant

*this is not to imply that all new teachers are like this, which isn't true at all

How many school districts would you recommend registering with? I live in central IL, and the largest community in our county is only 30,000. There are 5 public, 2 private school districts as well as 1 adult and 1 special education school covered by our Regional Office of Education. Aside from the town I currently reside in, each of the other districts only has 1 school per age group, or less.

Should I start small with just the more local schools to see how often I get called? The small-town schools are approximately 5, 15, 20, and 30 minutes away. (The 5-min one has the added benefit of being where my stepchildren attend.) I'm contemplating if I want to restrict myself to Elem & JH, because I remember how I was in H.S. - that and I'm not much older than those kids. I'm currently talking to an academic advisor about getting a 2nd bachelors in ELED and becoming officially certified, although with working 2-3 PT jobs and going to school I expect that to take a while.

Hey fellow substitutes,

I'm dynamite_xi (or Bryce to my friends), and I'm the new maintainer for the community. If you have any questions regarding this changeover, or if you just want to say hello, feel free to send me a PM. Just remember, the same rules for posting in this community still apply:

1. Post anything you want regarding substitute teaching, getting jobs, issues with lesson plans, general advice, etc.
2. NO SPAM!

Have a great day!

I'm interested in becoming a substitute in Philly. If anyone is currently a sub, how often do you get called? What has your experience been like?

I just remembered I belong to this group too!

I am going into my second year as an Occasional Teacher (for those of you in the States, that is a Substituite Teacher). In Canada we are fully certified teachers, generally working towards our own classrooms. I do want my own class but due to the teaching situation in Ontario right now I am going to be "subbing" for awhile since it's so tight.

I am surprisingly upbeat and want to put 100% of my effort into this because I do love teaching, no matter what kind it is.

So, last year I tended to accept more of the K-3rd Grade phone calls and avoided 4-8 because I had a few bad experiences with those ages.

Going into this school year I'm setting a goal for myself to accept phone calls from all grades, not just the younger kids.

I am a male and for kids and people who don't know me I could appear to be one of those intimidating male teachers if I tried - I am actually a super happy, friendly guy.

So! TIPS! Anyone have any tips on how to effectively manage Grade 4-8 classrooms as a substituite teacher. I know that some days will generally suck but I don't want to have the attitude that I'm only there for a day, I'd rather try my hardest to make each day as good as it can possibly be. Many 4/5/6th grade classes I've been in have turned out to be fantastic but I'm looking for tips for the more difficult schools I will be getting calls for.

Thanks so much in advance!!!!!!!!!!

Hello,

I'm doing some research for my graduate program on teaching in a bad economy. We're focusing on what to do if you don't find a full-time teaching job - mostly subbing. i'm writing a section on ways to supplement your income as a substitute teacher if, like many subs in my area, you aren't getting enough shifts. If you've subbed in the past or currently subbing, what other types of gigs have you taken to make ends meet, without preventing your ability to take subbing jobs? I'd particularly like to hear about things you've done that have involved children or stuff that has enhanced your resume!

Thanks in advance,
Julie

P.S. Sorry if you've seen this 4 times on your friends list!!!

I always do this to myself. I haven't substituted for another school in a while and today I am doing a half day in elementary either 4th or 5th and I am over analyzing everything. I am such a control freak sometimes that I worry about the tiniest thing going wrong. Im just trying to think positively and hopefully I will have a challenging but a exciting day. Im just over myself being so anxious about situations I have little control over. I just want to be a teacher so badly that I forget that im not perfect and that I still have a lot to learn. This is my last substitute assignment until the fall. I just hope that if is not the best experience in the world that I can take a positive approach to it. 

I've been a member of the teaching  community for several months, but only just found out that there's a dedicated community for subs. Having just finished my degree in December, I've been subbing since the beginning of April, for a school district small enough that all sub calls are made the old-fashioned way, by a single person at the District Office.

I've been averaging 2 days of work a week, which is not ideal but not bad either; The Sub Office Lady was quite thrilled when she saw both French and music on my application. I was also given a basic rule to follow, by a friend of the family who is a full-time teacher in the same district, which is "Never say no to The Sub Office Lady." (even when she calls 15 minutes after the school day begins to send you to the junior high school down the street when teenagers scare the hell out of you! -- it only happened once....)

In elementary school, I'm starting to feel like I know what I'm doing. In fact, yesterday I got to teach a French immersion grade 1 class that I've taught twice before (and is, to date, the ONLY class that I've taught more than once) and I was delighted to see that the teacher has my business card tacked up on the little bulletin board right next to her desk!

At the end of last week, I got to teach high school for the first time, home economics. I was apparently the second sub they'd gone through that week. Apparently, based on observations made by one of the other home ec teacher, the teacher I was in for had called The Sub Office Lady to specifically request a DIFFERENT sub than yesterday. The same other home ec teacher was impressed enough with me that she requested me for the following day. Even though she had actually *heard* me swear at a kid (full report here, if you're interested.)

I just thought I'd introduce myself. Lurking commences now.

In my long term sub job as SpecEd teacher I've put together some summer projects for two of my Kindergarten kids with austism. This is actually good for any child ready to enter into Kindergarten, though.
One in particular is not neccesarily just for kids with autism.

Almost everyone has Excel nowadays and almost all versions can be configured to speak.
If your kiddo can type, then they can practice high frequency words on Excel.
This way will hit audio, visual as well as textual needs at the same time.

First configure your program to read out loud in My Computer, then go into Excel and
add the text to speech function to the toolbar. After typing in the words, highlight them
then hit the speech function and it will read it back.
I think this could be probably be altered to fit different needs in many lower grades such as spelling words, etc.

I have been subbing for over a year now, and I almost always have great, easy days.  Every now and then I get a tough class, but usually things go pretty smoothly.  But last week.. oh wow. Last week my week went as follows:

Monday: Middle School Drama (which WAS drama.. these kids did not have a permanent teacher for all of first semester, and their current teacher was only recently hired.) The teacher's plans were to "work in their improv groups".. ya uh huh.. sure that will happen.
Tuesday:  2nd Grade (see previous post!)
Wednesday: Early Release so I did not get a job.
Thursday: 5th Grade (class from hell! The office told me very explicitly how to call them if I needed me, and told me they expected me to call within the first 10 minutes of class) 
Friday: 2nd Grade (this class was actually great, a nice end to the week.)

So far this week I have had a great week!

The 2nd graders I subbed for today for were so sweet.  The school is in a rough area, so I was apprehensive at first, but I tried going in with an open mind.  The plans the teacher left, were pretty good, although a bit vague.  The school has an 18:1 teacher to student policy, and 6 kids were out sick (OMGswineflu) so I only had 12 kids.  This policy surprised me, since most of the schools in my district have at least 25 kids in them. The day went great.  They were really sweet and mostly followed directions.  A girl even gave me a pink My Little Pony key chain, YES! Yesterday I subbed in a high school where there was a Student Teacher, so I just got to read all day.