The Current Chaos

Have I mentioned that there's a substitute teacher shortage? I mean, I may have alluded to it several times as this is the reality I'm living, but I don't think I've come out and said it. It's bad enough that it's made the media. 

Two weeks ago (last week's posts on this blog) I was covering a vacant English class. On Tuesday of that week, I ran into Mrs. O. (In the bathroom, but that's neither here nor there.) The next day (Wednesday), she was starting her leave (she had to have surgery, and she's now recovering from that). And she didn't have a sub to cover her classes. 

When I worked the second day of school, I ran into Mrs. O. She mentioned the surgery and asked if I was doing long-term jobs. I gave a non-committal answer. She said she'd request me. 

(No, teachers aren't required to find their own subs. But when teachers are going to be out, they can request who takes their classes. That's how I got that long-term gig in April. The sub caller gives us the option, which we can turn down, but if I've said yes to the teacher, I take the gig.) 

Of course, I didn't know I'd be in the vacant English class when Mrs. O needed to be out. And I didn't know that there'd be no one else to take the class. 

Seriously. No. One. 

Mrs. O was told that in all likelihood, her classes would be covered period-by-period daily by different teachers on campus. For the entire month that she's due to be out. 

But then, on Wednesday after school, I was informed that they had hired someone for the vacant English class, and Mrs. B was starting on Thursday. Yes, the next day. 

Because the English classes were scheduled to take a standardized test, I did two days of transition with Mrs. B (because I'd already set everything up), and then the next Monday (last Monday) I'd transition into Mrs. O's class. 

I had lesson plans. I knew what was going on. I was ready. 

Then, Monday morning...

I got a call. Sub caller. They needed me to cover a fifth grade class, and I had no choice in the matter. 

Grrrr.

(Tomorrow's post is all about how that day went.) 

I heard later how the school had to scramble to cover Mrs. O's classes yet another day. 

It's bad. If you've ever considered becoming a substitute teacher... 

Yes. Okay. Fine. 

It wasn't that funny. 

Still laughing? 

I'll give you a minute before I continue on...

So, yes, I'm now covering Mrs. O's classes and will do so (unless pulled again) for the rest of this month. And every day, there will be classes that go uncovered. It's been like this since day one of the school year, and it doesn't appear to be changing any time soon.

So, how's your job going?

High

Friday. Sixth period. We were doing some district mandated standardized test, so the kiddos were quiet, and the room was calm. It was after the middle of the period, so the majority of the students were actually finished.

Helen asked for a restroom pass. She returned a short time later.

Not too long after her return, she approached me. Whispering (so I had to ask her to repeat as whispering and masks do not work well together), she informed me that she felt like she was going to throw up, and could she step outside? 

Yeah, I don't want to deal with any of that, so I let her go.

She returned shortly thereafter, went to her desk, and put her head down.

I asked her if she wished to go to the health office. She did. (I probably would have insisted if she hadn't.) 

This was my last day covering the vacant English class (the new teacher they hired started and was in the room with me during this), so I went up to the office to check out at the end of the day. 

Because it had been sixth period, Helen had ended up in the office where I check out. (The health office only has coverage part of the day, and no longer is there an actual nurse on campus. Well, sometimes, maybe. But not usually.) The secretary told me that Helen had been taken away in an ambulance. Drugs. 

Helen took something. Her body didn't react well. (Apparently, her parents were close by, so they were at the school quickly.) I'm not sure if she was coming down or if she had taken it when she used the restroom. (She hadn't taken anything in class. At least, if she had, she managed to do it in a way that three adults in the room did not notice.) 

I just... 

I mean, I hope she's okay. I hope she learned that drugs are bad. But, I know this sort of thing is going to happen again.

Quarantined

I've been scrambling. 

A "vacant" class is one in which there is no teacher assigned. Because of this, a sub who arrives has nothing but a room, a class full of students, and a class period to fill. This is why I was trying to avoid covering a vacant class at the start of this school year. As you know by now, I failed at this.

It took a few days to get my feet under me. First, I had those class periods to fill. What to do? Teachers who also teach the same subject let me know what we should be covering. 

Once lesson plans were established, then I could focus on getting some things for the class. Books and seating charts and staplers and dry erase markers and papers don't miraculously show up. Full-time teachers have planning days to get this stuff ready. Subs in vacant classes have to figure it all out on the fly while they have bodies in the classroom.

It took me a couple days to create Google Classrooms for the classes. It took a couple more to get access to the attendance/grading software and then set up their gradebook for the year. 

When I finally set up the gradebook, the students who had not been on campus could finally access Google Classroom for the class. (I had the kiddos in class add themselves to the class. Adding in the attendance software automatically uploaded the other students.) 

A couple days after I got that all set up, I got an email from a student who had been absent since pretty much the first day. 

Anaya apologized for not emailing sooner (which she couldn't have done as she only just got access to my name via Google Classroom) and for missing class. Her brother has Covid, so she's on quarantine. And she was worried about keeping up with her schoolwork. 

Um... 

We're supposed to keep all work on Google Classroom for students in just that predicament. And, considering the circumstances, those students are afforded extra time to get things in.

My reply: 

Yikes, I'm so sorry. Don't worry. I will be posting all work to Google Classroom, so whatever we do in class you can do from home. (The assignments aren't posted yet, but they will be by the end of the week.)

To which she replied: 

Okay thank you! I'll try my best to get everything done and turned in on time. Have a good day!

Turned in on time... Considering how far behind I was in getting things posted, there was no way I was holding her to a higher standard. 

I got caught up on grading by Friday of last week. Anaya has an A. Full credit for everything assigned. There are kiddos that haven't missed a day who have Fs. 

Missing the Obvious

Thursday afternoon. I was in the process of setting my seating charts for my Friday classes. 

I had let them sit where they wanted to as I was getting up to speed on what was going on with the classes. But, at a certain point, I want to assign seats. While some kiddos can sit next to their friends and concentrate on class when I need them to, mostly, they don't. Especially at that age. 

Because beginning of the school year, students have been added and dropped from all the classes, so as I was finalizing the chart, I wanted to make sure that no student who I was adding to the chart had been dropped. I opened up the attendance software just to make sure my printed list and the current list were the same. 

And that's when I saw the 8. 

Up until that moment, I thought I had all ninth grade classes. But no. I had one eighth grade class. 

And... 

I mean, suddenly the class made sense. I couldn't figure out why the kiddos were so much... more... than the other groups. 

I had to think back. I had been doing the same stuff with them as with the ninth graders. As it was first week stuff (getting to know them stuff), it wasn't too big of a blunder. But still. 

You'd think they'd have noticed or something. Apparently not. Or, they just didn't want to tell me. 

At least I hadn't passed out books or started them on any of the actual curriculum yet. I caught my error in time.

Rearranged

Tuesday, after school. Ms. D and I looked at the classroom, and we both agreed that we did not like the way the students' seats were situated. 

(The English class is co-taught for three periods. Fun fact: last year when I covered a vacant position, Ms. D was the teacher they hired. Now I get to work with her.) 

Well, we were the ones running the class now, so why not rearrange the desks? 

It didn't take us a half hour to move things around so that we could move around the room better. (We moved things into the configuration at the top of this post.) 

Wednesday. It was the fifth day of school. School hasn't even been in session for a full week. But you should have seen the kiddos when the walked in to find the room completely reconfigured. 

I mean, if we'd been in session for a month or more, I could see it. But five days? The room isn't even decorated yet. Of course things are going to change. 

The kiddos claimed they didn't like how we reconfigured things. Ah well. They'll get used to it. (Or we'll rearrange things again, just to throw them off ;)

Grumble Grumble

In last Friday's post I wrote: 

Things should settle in a week or two. The first couple weeks are always a bit like this. At least I haven't been stuck with a vacant class yet. I kind of want to avoid that this year if I can.

 I spoke too loudly...

via GIPHY

When I had a gig for the first day of school, I figured I was safe. Then I deliberately accepted an assignment on the second day of school for a class that had a teacher attached. And when I called that Friday for an assignment this past Monday, I took the class that was technically vacant, but they had hired a teacher who was due to start on Tuesday. 

I was safe. I thought... 

On Monday as I checked out, I was informed that the teacher they hired was for a different English class. Not the one I was covering. The class I was due to cover for just Monday and Tuesday was vacant, and was going to be vacant for a bit. 

via GIPHY

(They were supposedly conducting interviews that day. As of this writing, they have not hired someone.)

I mean... Really? Crap! 

Now, I could have just walked away. I could have. Perhaps I should. But, it's like I ended up there for a reason. Maybe? 

So, fine. I called the sub caller to say that I would remain in the vacant English class until they hire someone (or until my 30 days are up). 

via GIPHY

Just when I thought I was out, I got pulled back in.

via GIPHY