Just a Substitute Teacher.....

I’ve gotten myself in a rut.

Teachers prefer bypassing any automated “random sub” assignment system in favor of a short list of substitutes they personally know. This is why new substitutes don’t get much work at first.

There are thirteen schools in the school district I work, but the last couple of years I seem to be getting 95% of all my assignments from only two schools. After five years on the job, I’m one of the first substitutes they call when they need a substitute and as a result I’m rarely available to work any other school.

That’s good and bad.

The good is that the kids all know me in those two schools and I “know” most of them even if I can’t remember specific names. The bad is that I’m probably missing out on other assignments when these two schools experience lulls in subbing assignments.

One way to “break out” of such a rut is to accept half-day assignments at schools I rarely hear from.

Most subs don’t like taking “half days” because it’s only “half pay”. It seems hardly worth the effort when the possibility for a full day and full pay assignment might have been the next call.

Last week I took a “half day” from a 1st year 6th grade teacher I didn’t know at a school I rarely hear from.

I was even able to double end this assignment with a 2nd “half day” with one of my regular schools because the teachers at both schools arranged it. It seems they had to observe each other in the classroom as part of some teacher evaluation assignment.

This week the 1st year teacher called on Monday to ask if I would take her class on Thursday. She said her class had a very positive response to my short time with them and she didn’t know any reliable subs to call.

If this works out right, I might have increased my “regular schools” pool by 50%.

This is a slow week for subbing. I had a half day in 5^th grade Monday and another half day Tuesday in 1^st grade.

I’m usually not real fond of 1/2 day assignments but if I have a choice, I prefer the afternoon half of a 1/2 day assignment. It’s usually shorter because the kid’s lunch time is part of that half day. Since you don’t have to be there until 11:30 or so, you can sleep late and not rush breakfast.

If you compute the pay by the hourly rate you are actually in the afternoon class, then it’s the highest paid job for substitutes (per hour) in this area.

The rate (a little more than ½ the regular day rate) divided by the actual hours in the classroom (around 2.5h) works out to be about $25/hr. Slightly less if you do the morning half class.

Disclaimer: Your mileage may vary in the district you work…