The Same Extra Period

It's finals week at the high schools. Yes, we have school this week. So, as is my habit, I continue to post subbing stories on weeks that I'm working (I am actually scheduled to work today), and I'll save this week's stories for when we return from the break in January. 

We have hit peak subbing season. Jobs are so plentiful that there are not enough subs to go around. This means I'm getting the dreaded extra period assignments. 

Well, not really dreaded...

When a teacher is out but they are unable to assign a sub (at the secondary level), that teacher is covered period by period by different teachers. 

Almost every teacher has a "conference" period. It's a free period where the teacher can do prep work like grading papers or planning lessons. For us subs who don't need prep time, it's just an hour off.

So, the front office asks various teachers and subs to go and cover the class missing a sub during the teacher's conference period. We do get paid for the extra work, so it's not an unreasonable ask.

(Although, lately there's pretty much no days where they aren't needing coverage. Most days there are at minimum two teachers but likely more who don't have their very own sub. That means that they need five other teachers to work an extra period to cover one teacher's absence. Multiply that by the number of teachers out, and you get why this sub shortage is hurting the schools.)

Tuesday, I was covering a special ed teacher. I had second period conference. I was given a computer class to cover.

It was easy enough. I had covered the teacher's classes before. 

Then Wednesday I was at the same school covering a history class. This time I had fourth period conference. I was given a choice of three classes to cover. And it turned out the computer teacher was out again. So, I figured why not? 

The lesson plan was the same as the previous day. They had work assigned via Google Classroom. And as they had the previous day, many of them took the day off. Sigh. 

Ah well. That's on them.

I still got paid (extra) for being there.