at school today. One has strep throat, the other is snotty and has a headache. I never get sick. I understand other people do, but it's frustrating for me when I've only missed one day this whole year, and the other two have missed weeks (a few days at a time).
Personally, I'd rather people stay home when they're sick. I don't want their germs. One of my pet peeves is when people (students or teachers) come to school sick and spread their germs. That makes me crazy. Good for them for staying home. Do you really expect someone with strep to be at school?
If they are sick they should stay home. You are blessed to not be sick during this season. I have been out with the flu and then another viral infection which was contagious. Everyone should take precautions with so many new strands of the flu and now corona virus.
Thought this was a vent board.
Of course I don't want them to come to school sick. And I never said it's my business why they are out. I also get that's it's not their fault. But it gets frustrating when I have to take over other people's classes every other week! I have severe behavior problems in my classroom (with TA support), and it's exhausting when I have 10 extra students in my room.
MissAgnes I’m sorry that you have all the extra workload. I’m retired now, however, I have never experienced having to take extra students into my classroom because their teacher was out. That is an administration problem. No one is doing any quality learning in that situation. It’s glorified babysitting. When we’ve had sub shortages, all administrators had to cover rooms. Paras who could, would double up on students, to allow other paras to cover a classroom. But I have to say luckily that only happened two or three times in 27 years. My question is why is there a sub shortage at your school? Administration needs to look at what they are paying and conditions for their subs. It should not fall on you.
If you have to take students from another class then it has been made your business. We are so short of subs in our building that this happens to us too! Now I don't have enough copies of the work and they don't have a book for that activity....it's exhausting!!
It seems like more and more on this board even the most common sense posts are being treated in a mean, argumentative fashion. I'm somewhat sick of it.
I am another one of those people who hardly ever misses. We have 1.25 sick days per month, though, so I have 280+ sick days. I'm lucky to have them in case my husband or I gets majorly sick, or we have some other emergency. I'm also supposed to get 1/4 of them upon retirement, though who knows if that will still be available by the time I retire?
I agree completely that when you have to cover someone all the time, it absolutely becomes your business and can be incredibly annoying. I hope you are compensated. Sometimes the $20 (that's what it is in our district; I have only covered once this year) isn't worth the lost time or the aggravation if you have a jerky group.
I feel for you. We have to split the classes into ours as well with no compensation. You can forget your awesome activity if you suddenly have 10 more who will also be in your class at another time during the day. I rarely miss.
I have to cover for other teacher absences 2-3 times per week and it is extremely tiresome. There is a sub shortage and I agree it is an admin problem but nothing has been done about it and based on past practices, it will remain the same for the upcoming school year. I totally get it because each day I don't know if I'm going to be covering someone else's class and to wake up every morning faced with this doesn't put me in a good head space. I don't care why people are absent, I only care that it falls on me to cover them and that isn't right. The teacher turnover there is extremely high. Each year there are 6-7 new teachers and the same cycle continues. The sub shortage is because the pay is low and the behavior is horrible.
Boy am I glad we don't usually have to do that. I only remember a time or two when so many people have been absent we haven't been able to cover classes. I am sure the classes that have EA's that get pulled to cover classes get tired of that, but it sometimes has to be done.
I get your vent. My 2 teammates this year have been out a LOT. Me, none.
(Thank goodness, as one never knows...).
I have had to take 1/2 their classes on numerous occasions this year, which I know is not their fault. However, I've also had to do their recess duties while they've been out. You'd think that upon their return, they would cover a recess duty or 2 of mine, but nope. Kind of disappointing.
You are correct, true teaching doesn't really take place. I do try hard to ensure teaching occurs, but it's not of the same quality.
I don't blame my coworkers. They can't help being sick. I am just very thankful it is them and not me. Helps me keep it in perspective.
I do blame admin/districts, however. They COULD do something about it! It's not fair to students and it's not fair to teachers.
I will say, up until this year, we've always been able to get subs. No longer the case.
I think people are standing up for those who are sick because being frustrated by them getting sick is like getting frustrated because it is a windy day or that it is raining.
So I'll have 30 kids today, including the worst behavior student in the grade. The one that we've had to call the police for several times this year. This in addition to my regular behavior kiddos who I sometimes have to call a room clear for. Glad I took my vitamins this morning.
Three more days until spring break.
But...I know it's hard to have other teachers out so often if you feel you never take off. That used to be me. i never took off. This year, I caught pneumonia. It was really bad, mostly because I overwork myself. I was out for almost two weeks. I'm realizing my health is important too, and I'm going to be sure to start staying home when I'm not feeling well so it doesn't get that bad again.
My question is why is there a sub shortage at your school? Administration needs to look at what they are paying and conditions for their subs. It should not fall on you.
Yes, this is a very good question, but it's not always just about administration.
There are definitely things that administrators can do, like having a discipline policy that has some teeth, not this everlasting "positive only" BS, creating some consistency in how subs are informed of school procedures and policies and yes, pushing for decent pay.
But, I walked away from my highest paying district last year and some of that was the behavior of the teachers. I was done with being expected to enforce rules that most of the teachers, themselves, didn't enforce. I was done with being left with absolutely no lesson plans or alternatively, being left with 25 pages of sub plans which I was somehow miraculously supposed to understand in 15 minutes because a) I had to wait for someone to show up in the front office and then b) I had to wait for a janitor to let me into the classroom and then c) I got switched to a different class.
But, most of all, I was done with the condescending attitudes of the regular teachers. After a while, I realized that the practice of splitting classrooms was, indeed, harder on the teachers but, often, a lot easier on kids who were dealing with trauma and had a hard time trusting strangers. I didn't see any reason to keep going to that school to help out teachers who couldn't mask their disdain for me because I was "just a sub" - despite the fact that I had 29 years of successful teaching under my belt.
So, if you can't get subs, despite competitive pay, it might be worth looking at procedures and policies and taking a look at how teachers treat subs when they're in the building.
Like I said before, it's district-wide. It's not just our school. The subs I've talked to love working at our school. They say that the teachers and staff here are really helpful and welcoming.. We have several that will only sub at our school. But there just aren't enough.
Several years ago (like more than 5) the district made a new requirement that not only do subs need to have a bachelor's degree, they also had to have a teaching certficate. That caused a huge number of subs to drop off our sub lists.
The district ended up going back to just requiring a bachelor's degree, but the numbers haven't come back up.
At any given day, at any given school, you will find classes being covered, split, etc., to make up for not enough subs.
I also work at a Title I school, in one of the poorest neighborhoods in the district. It's not a school for everyone, and some subs prefer not to work at Title I schools. So there's that.
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03-02-2020, 10:16 AM
Helps me keep it in perspective. 
It's not fair to students and it's not fair to teachers.
