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Teachers and Substitutes
Hi all,
I have a question about how substitutes work in your schools. For years, the teachers at my school got subs without any problems. It didn't matter it if was for a half a day, whole day, or a week. You got a sub, end of discussion. Last year, our school started a policy that if you were going to be out for a half or whole day, that you had to get coverage within the school. This means that you were pretty much going to loose your planning time if you needed to cover a class. The school still deducts your sick days or annual time and puts the money that a sub would have been paid into some sort of fund to pay to keep teachers in our county. I will be really honest, they have told us it saves jobs but I am not really sure how all of this works. We have been kept in the dark about a lot of stuff. We have spoken to our local nae representative and they pretty much said they were allowed to do this. What is the deal at your school?
Re: Teachers and Substitutes
We have a similar situation at my school this year. We've always had a building sub who filled in for anyone who was out. If he/she wasn't available and you were out for a day, they'd hire a daily sub. If it was a period, we'd cover for each other but this happened only maybe 1-2 times a year per person.
This year, no building sub and no per diem subs. We cover for others in our (6-12) department. I think it's ridiculous. It's making it so people 1) come into school sick all the time 2) don't do any professional development and 3) aren't willing to coach or sponsor activities where they might miss classes because they don't want other teachers to have to cover for them all the time, and this, of course, hurts kids more than anything.
Just like so many other things in education right now, I feel like this is just one more responsibility that is being placed on teachers with no compensation, and I think it sucks.
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We call the sub caller and get a sub regardless. 1/2 day,whole day, multiple days etc. Giving up a planning period to cover another teacher's class isn't the norm by any means. Sometimes an emergency will come up and someone has to leave school early or something, and that instance someone might cover for another teacher, but normally our union wold have a fit. It depends on the specific language in your contract, but we are guaranteed/required to have a certain number of hours of planning built into our schedules each week. Covering for others takes away from that and would be a breach of contract.
Has anyone had a conversation with your union rep. about the situation?
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We typically call the sub caller system and a sub is called. We can request a particular sub (I often threaten FIL I'll request him to sub in Kindergarten -- he is ONLY ever at the high school..hehe)..However, I work in a district with a great deal of behavior problems and we pay a lot less per diem than other districts -- so our pool is often exhausted during the winter when a lot of people are sick or in the spring when subs are in to cover PPTs and testing. Or, if you call in the morning it is usually hard for them to get coverage (if you wake up sick for example) and in that case they will have support staff cover your class -- meaning their kids don't get seen (special ed, reading, math teachers etc.)
If it isn't a whole day absence and we can arrange coverage (for example this Thursday I'm leaving early for my anatomy scan) it is much appreciated because it saves money for the district.
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That is terrible... In my district we just call the service and it is taken care of. You just can't be an effective teacher when you are sick, plus it's not fair to spread your illness to your little munchkins.
When you cover for other teachers, are you reimbursed for loosing your prep time? On occasion, emergencies come up and when we have to cover another teacher we are paid for that time. It's not all about the money, but loosing prep time can really throw off your teaching.
I'm surprised your union is ok with this arrangement.
Good luck.
If the school can't get a sub to come in for the whole day to cover a teacher that is out, then they go to volunteers within the building. We have a form to fill out stating whether or not we're willing to give up our prep period to cover for another teacher (you can specify which subject or department). We get paid $30 or something like that for it. You can refuse if you're too busy when they ask though. It's in our contract.
I did it for the first 2 years, but not last year. I was pregnant in the fall and then went back to work in the spring and was honestly just too tired to teach all day without a break. I did it this year, but specified that I'd only do it for a teacher in my department. There are only 2 of us, so I'll only cover for her.
We have to call the sub finder by 5:30am the day we will be sick. We can schedule our own if we want. I can't imagine teachers covering during their preps. We get one thirty minute one.
Are you a union member? I'm at a charter so we aren't union memebers.
We have an automated sub finder system that we can either request a sub or it'll find one for us.
We just have a specific amount of PTO days and sick days we can take throughout the year.
Ditto pp about a union. Are you a part of a local union? Check your contract. I know that wouldn't fly in our district, but we have a really strong Union.
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There's a practice in my school that I haven't seen posted.
In my former school, when teachers call out, they usually split his/her class. So I would have an extra 3-5 kids in my class for the day.
Last winter, 2 teachers were out on maternity leave and another 2 out with the flu. So at one point there I had an additional 10 kids in my class along with my class of 27. My union rep was a joke of a person. That week I sent out my resume.
At the end of the 2008-2009 school year, the district stopped paying for subs due to budget constraints. We just covered classes from about Feb. to the end of the year. The next year, they got subs for us again but had a limited sub budget so they asked us to be conservative when taking days off. The situation is pretty much the same this year, but they don't always get a sub, so we still cover classes. The problem is that we lost a lot of our subs when we stopped using them, so it's harder to find a sub now. If a teacher leaves early, they definitely don't bother getting a sub though.
ETA: I'm in South Carolina, so no unions.
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I work at a charter and we kind of do things our own way.
We don't have a lot of money to pay for subs, and sometimes we have parents who volunteer. Otherwise, we cover for each other and yes, you lose your planning that day. Boo freaking hoo. The upside? They don't count our sick days. That has always been the policy. We cover each other enough that it all cancels out and then we get to keep the sub money for more important things, like electricity.
We sometimes use period subs (teachers on their prep periods) to cover teachers who are out. But the teachers who sub during their prep get paid $25 for each period they sub, which is a part of our contracts.
I'd look at my contract if I were you and see what it says about covering classes during your prep. It doesn't sound right that your school expects teachers to sub without compensation.
H is a special ed teacher and I sub in his district once a week. I know a lot of people mentioned automated sub finders in their districts, but I like the way the sub finding works in his district. If they are sick, they call the district sub finder, who is a real person, by 5:30 that morning. That person then calls a sub. If they know in advance that they are going to be out, they notify their building secretary who then gets them a sub. It was really nice last year for me because along with his school secretary, the district subfinder was in his building and knew me, so she would call me often. This year, the district subfinder is new to the district, so I am still building a relationship with her. Thankfully, the school secretary knows me very well and has already lined up several dates for me to sub for my husband. lol
Also, because he is a special ed teacher, the district gives him 3-4 days a year where they will pay for him to have a sub so he can write IEPs and set up meetings with parents (he's at the school, he just doesn't teach at all that day). He doesn't always use all of them (depending on when parents can meet with him), but he loves the fact that he has that option.
Here, you just call the principal ASAP if you're sick or fill out the paperwork form and let the secretary schedule the sub. 1/2 day. Full day. Doesn't matter. If it's only an hour or two they'll send someone in on their planning time, but an extra $20.00 is added to their check.
It's illegal here to not allows teachers their prep time, and no one can be forced to sub on their prep time.
In my old district if it was the same although if it was a 1/2 day or less they tried to fill in with teacher's prep times. However, they were either paid $20.00 an hour or they could get comp time and someone else could fill in for them so they could leave early or get a sub for a full day. I always volunteered to sub on my prep time. I could still do mindless tasks and sub and 2 fridays a month I got to leave 2 hours early (my prep time was the last 2 hours of the day, so the principal never cared).
At the elementary level, subs are always called in. At the secondary level, subs are hired. However, sometimes there aren't enough subs and they pull a teacher off of hall duty to cover a class. Contractually and legally, they can do this. However, this is not a policy and is only done when there are no subs available or when a teacher leaves unexpectedly (which, surprise surprise, tends to be the same teacher all the time, but that's a different issue).
If the school were to stop hiring subs, we would never have enough teachers to cover everyone.
We will cover other people as a favor when there is an emergency or something like that.
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Every private school I've taught at (as well as public schools in the UK) do in house coverage. Yes you lose your planning period, but it is what it is. But teachers in those schools tend to me more flexible about helping out and less "BUT ITS IN MY CONTRACT?!?!?!?!?!"
I've never worked at a public school that did it. And I think most teachers in my old public schools would have flipped.