Who else is a Substitute Teacher?

[lovetoscrap]

So how do your districts do their daily hiring? Do you have a real person that calls, or does each school call or do you have an automated system?

When I started way back when it was a real person that did the calling for all the subs, every morning and evening. If you refused too many jobs or ticked her off in any way you didn't work much!

I love the automated system we have here. We can even check in online and see if there are any jobs posted and "claim" them right there. There are set calling times so if something is entered into the system outside of those times you can get the job before it is even called out.

 

[MushyMushy]

So how do your districts do their daily hiring? Do you have a real person that calls, or does each school call or do you have an automated system?

When I started way back when it was a real person that did the calling for all the subs, every morning and evening. If you refused too many jobs or ticked her off in any way you didn't work much!

I love the automated system we have here. We can even check in online and see if there are any jobs posted and "claim" them right there. There are set calling times so if something is entered into the system outside of those times you can get the job before it is even called out.

Is it Aesop? That's what we use. You can get calls from the system, but I choose to just go online to pick and choose what I want. The high school secretaries will call subs they know to come in when a teacher calls off last minute (they can't report an absence later than 6 a.m. on the system, so the job won't be online).

 

[tonilea]

I'm about to start subbing! I'm actually pretty nervous about it. Any tips?

Always go in firm. Depending on the students, you can relax if warranted, but once you have lost control - you can't un-ring the bell.

Hopefully, the teacher will leave a note advising which students you can count on. Eventually, you can tell.

If you sub in middle school - don't trust them.

I recently subbed on a day they had a "Drug Free" rally for seventh grade. We left the middle school campus via bus and went to the district arena. It was an all day affair, afterward students were told to go back to their homeroom classes. I don't sub over there often, so I don't know many of the kids. Anyway, I decided that I would take roll again when we got back to class. I wouldn't have been a bit suprised to find a kid or two "missing". Imagine my suprise when I had a "spare"! lol Of course, I sent him packing.

 

[NotAmused]

I will be starting to sub within the next few weeks. I finished my student teaching in May and haven't been able to find a teaching job since so I think subbing will be a good opportunity to try different grade levels and get my foot in the door.

Do any of you have your own behavior reward system you use? I know many classrooms have their own to follow (flip a card, marbles, etc) but I have been in classrooms where that is not the case. I want to have my own system in place incase either the particular classroom does not have one or if the students are not cooperating with it.

With younger students, I figured maybe giving stickers to my students would be a nice pat on the back. Or I was thinking of making/laminating tickets and giving them to students when I catch them doing something good (working, walking quietly, helping another student, etc) and the top 1-3 students with the most tickets at the end of the day get free time or something of that sort? Does anyone do anything similar or is this not such a great idea? I'm just thinking of new ideas so please feel free to share any with a newbie

 

[Disney Hot Mama]

and I am a sub too... I have been doing it for three years- this is my 4th. I mostly do my daughters school but can/wll do any elementary school in our district. I have not ventured to middle school or high school. I prefer K's - 3rds but do all grades too.

In our district I have been lucky. Most jobs are preassigned by request and there are complete lesson plans. If not I am familiar with the Language Arts program and math books to make up my own. I can ask the kids where they are in their books and teach the next lesson plus a workbook or two. Add in teacher read aloud, PE and social studies/science and your day will fly.

I use points for tables who are prepard and let them know at the end of the day who 'won' and make sure to tell the teacher in my end of day summary.
I also use signal is on, one-two-three-eye on me, blow a whistle, turn the lights off etc to get their attention....

Looking forward to reading other ideas too...

 

[flying_babyb]

uggg- BAD sub day today. So were doing art and playing when all of a sudden we hear the helecopter (were behind a hospital). So the kids are excited and practally RUN down the hall to the front door (we do this alot). SO were wacthing and soon the whole centers down there. THen 6 fire trucks pull up and two cop cars. My kids are begging to go outside and sit but I tell them no (saftey first). We must have stood there for a half hour watching. SO when the crime scene tape comes out we all panic. Come to find out (told by a parent) that a pipe broke in the boiler room at the hospital leaving two mantince people in critical condition. Oh and they figured it was a gas leak, we're less than two hundred yards away from a possible gas leak. Makes me nervious

 

[Ms.Grumpy]

I am a Cadre substitute at my sons school, where I also did my student teaching this past April. I have worked two days at his school and I loved it, BUT on Thursday I was sent to a school where I did some of my observation hours. This school represents everything that a school should not be. The students were respectful, but the interaction with eachother was heartbreaking. I had a security guard in the class with me because one of the students is hard to handle and he sits with him all day. I would ask them to lower their voice and they would for awhile, but soon the voice level would rise again, The security guard would yell, SHUT UP! All of you are hard headed! I could see the dislike the students had for him. I do not want to be in that type of environment again. I will stick with DS school and schools close by.

 

[flying_babyb]

when I was in high school we had one of those "mean" subs. She just had a attuide but she was favortie cause in our very "Relaxed" art class she would let us watch tapes of circus de sol. Then again our art teachers used to let us wacth any claymation we wanted (as long as it was pg or under) and for holidays...... We got to pick any movie to watch. Gosh, thinking back that was my favoirte class (and not just for the movies, my teacher was really sweet and spent alot of time just talking to us. I mean I knew more about her than any other teacher.)

 

[wdwgirl03]

So how do your districts do their daily hiring? Do you have a real person that calls, or does each school call or do you have an automated system?

When I started way back when it was a real person that did the calling for all the subs, every morning and evening. If you refused too many jobs or ticked her off in any way you didn't work much!

I love the automated system we have here. We can even check in online and see if there are any jobs posted and "claim" them right there. There are set calling times so if something is entered into the system outside of those times you can get the job before it is even called out.

I sub for a couple different districts and I've had both automated systems and people call. I like the automated ones because you can call and see if there are any jobs available.

 

[wdwgirl03]

I am a Cadre substitute at my sons school, where I also did my student teaching this past April. I have worked two days at his school and I loved it, BUT on Thursday I was sent to a school where I did some of my observation hours. This school represents everything that a school should not be. The students were respectful, but the interaction with eachother was heartbreaking. I had a security guard in the class with me because one of the students is hard to handle and he sits with him all day. I would ask them to lower their voice and they would for awhile, but soon the voice level would rise again, The security guard would yell, SHUT UP! All of you are hard headed! I could see the dislike the students had for him. I do not want to be in that type of environment again. I will stick with DS school and schools close by.

That is bad! Last year I subbed in a middle school for 7th grade and the kids were so rude to each other, did not listen at all....it was horrible. It was probably the WORST subbing experience I ever had. I was so tempted to write a letter to the school telling them how bad it was.

Oh yeah, and there was also the time I subbed in a 5th grade class. First thing in the morning the principal comes into introduce himself and told me how they had a police officer coming in for some class they do with the 5th graders (it was kind of like DARE). He told me how some of the kids knew the police officer for various reasons. In FIFTH GRADE!!! The principal also had to sit in the classroom almost all day because it was such a rough class...that was kind of embarrassing for me since it makes me appear to have no classroom control! Though even with him in there the kids were horrible, so maybe it wasn't just me...

 

[ash&abby'smom]

Another sub here. I'm on my third year of subbing. I love it. I only sub at my girls' school. I will only sub PreK-4th. I have been told by some of admin. that I need to get my certification to teach full time. I do like being able to say know, but I really love the kids and feel like this maybe something I want to pursue. I have several teachers that request me when they know they are going to be out.

Advice: Don't let the kids know you are nervous. If they know you are, they will definately take advantage and you will know immediately who the trouble makers are. If you run out of lessons for them to do, you definately have to improvise and keep them busy. I usually bring books from home to read to the younger grades. They enjoy that, especially if it's around a holiday and I have some books related to that.

2nd-4th we will play around the world with flash cards. They really like this. They have fun, but yet they are still learning. I never let them just sit and free draw. There are also games we do with spelling and vocabulary words.

The longer you sub, the more confident you become and the more ideas you can bring to the class as well.

 

[Pikester]

This will be my 3rd year subbing in a K-4 school. I really like those ages as they're not getting too smart mouthed yet for me although 4th grade is starting to push it.

For the last 2 yrs the secretary at each school (K-4,5-6, 7-12) would make the calls looking for subs based on a list that they are given. If a sub has signed up for all three schools that would sometimes result in them getting 3 calls each morning. Since I only do one school I never had that problem. The "People in Charge" decided to have one person be in charge of all subs by having the Principal's of the 3 schools call with how many subs they need and then "she" will call the subs on the list till the needs are filled. The secretary where I work hates this and so do I! This woman, "K" has called me 3 times. Two times I was able to sub and one time I was not. Since then I've been getting most of my jobs from the secretary because she is upset that "K" is not filling the spots and "K" tells the secretary that she can't find anyone to fill the needs but she's not calling me.

I hope that made sense.

 

[PollyannaMom]

......I wouldn't have been a bit suprised to find a kid or two "missing". Imagine my suprise when I had a "spare"! lol Of course, I sent him packing.

I'm glad I'm not the only one - I once had an 8th grader who was cuting gym try to sneak into my music class.

 

[PollyannaMom]

....Do any of you have your own behavior reward system you use? I know many classrooms have their own to follow (flip a card, marbles, etc) but I have been in classrooms where that is not the case. I want to have my own system in place incase either the particular classroom does not have one or if the students are not cooperating with it.

With younger students, I figured maybe giving stickers to my students would be a nice pat on the back. Or I was thinking of making/laminating tickets and giving them to students when I catch them doing something good (working, walking quietly, helping another student, etc) and the top 1-3 students with the most tickets at the end of the day get free time or something of that sort? Does anyone do anything similar or is this not such a great idea? I'm just thinking of new ideas so please feel free to share any with a newbie

I think it's smart that you want to plan your own back-up system, in case you don't know the regular teacher's, or it's too involved for one day. I've used different things, depending on the class:

Sometimes it works just to put a sliding scale on the white board (for example, from a happy to a sad face, with a medium one in between) and move a magnet as their behavior goes up and down. - Tell them it represents the kind of note their regular teacher is going to get.

Or, a bit like Disney Hot Mama said, if the seats are in groups or tables, I've sometimes done a "map" of them on the board and put stars in the tables for good behavior and erased stars for bad. That little bit of competition can work wonders.

 

[tonilea]

I think the simplest system would be the old "name on the board" with talley marks next to it.

 

[DawnCt1]

DS#3 graduated with a BA in history and while he is 'plotting his course' forward, he decided to sub. He applied for his former high school and was called the next day; after submitted the security check paperwork. They like him so much that now he is the "permanent sub" which means he goes in every day. He seems to enjoy it and sees his old school from an entirely new perspective.

 

[flying_babyb]

I do the sticker system with the little kids and the " Teachers list" with the big ones. I make a list on the board with IVE BEEN GOOD on top. Each kids name goes up there with 3 check marks. If they get in trouble i erase a check and so on. The kids who have names up there the next day always get lots of praise (since teachers love it when kids are good) from there teacher (and stickers from me, even the big kids like stickers).

 

[Kitty 34]

Hi fellow Subs.

I have been subbing for over 26 years! I like it. I even turned down a teaching job about 12 years ago because I enjoy the freedom and variety of subbing. I just wish the pay was better.

I only sub in one school district which makes it easier on me as I get to know the staff, students and parents better.

My favorite age is Junior High. I very rarely do anything under 4th grade and I'm not fond of HS because it's usually just babysitting and busy work. I like the challenge of actually tackling an assignment!

In the past 10 years I have done quite a few long terms which is fine now as my boys are all grown and I can devote more time to lesson plans and grading papers. I will be doing a 6th/7th grade Math class for 3 months starting in Dec.

I agree with those that say to definitely be firm with a class especially at the very start. Always have back up plans and be flexible!! Be prepared for EVERY excuse under the sun why a student has to leave class.......I'm sure I've heard them all!

 

[Cindy B]

I think the simplest system would be the old "name on the board" with talley marks next to it.

That method is frowned upon nowadays because it does not "encourage" the students to behave thier best.

However, I do a twist to it. Kids are just scared when they see the name on the board for something bad. So I decided to change it up.

I would write a big heading "Caught Doing a Great Job" and would write the names under that. It was my goal to have everyones name on the list by the end of the period -- (this was a 80 minute instructional block middle school)

First the kids were scared they did something wrong, but then it was sort of a race for the kids to get thier names on the board for something 'good" instead of bad. This emphasized positive behavior instead of focusing on negative.

 

[MushyMushy]

Cindy, I was taught something similar to that. It only works with some classes, but when it does work, it's amazing!

I had to cover for this AWFUL class one time (agriculture class, which is where the bad kids go for an easy A ). Some of the kids in there were the worst of the worst. A little way through the class, I noticed a boy just sitting there quietly doing his work, so I asked his name and wrote it down. That caught the attention of the troublemakers in the back, and they started saying, "What are you doing Mrs. M? What's that for?"

Then I'd pick out another quiet kid and write his name down. After 3 or 4 names, they realized what I was doing and asked to be put on the list. I wasn't saying anything other than to find out each kid's name. They had all settled down by that time and I was amazed.

I got pretty cocky about it and tried it again in a different class and they basically laughed at me.