[Barclay]

Okay, so I subbed today. Great kids, no major issues or problems, well....except one.
The classroom phone rang 19 times, not kidding 19. I laughed as I picked up the phone for the 6 or 7th time, and said "boy, this is a busy classroom" several students said, "Oh, this is nothing!" There were calls from the office, other teachers, specialists...I have never experienced this before. The thing is, I haven't subbed in this school in a couple of years. This NEVER happened before, and this is a new teacher. Should I say something to the principal? I know her fairly well. TIA

[Kataqueens]

This was the day I covered the "art" class with the flying markers. This teacher has his class positioned in a way that I had to walk to the back of the classroom and squeeze between student desks to answer the phone, so you can imagine how annoying it was to answer the phone about 15 times during the course of the day. Nothing important either, just some teacher or admin. asking to speak with the teacher. I became a broken record, "he's at a meeting?" 'where is the meeting?' "I'm not sure, but I will be covering his classes THE WHOLE DAY." Don't people communicate with one another at the school? The students sensed my annoyance, which is something I really tried to keep to myself, but come on, these were mostly stupid social calls and I had to use every ounce of my classroom management to make sure the classes didn't erupt into chaos.

[Ball Three]

With great kids, or even one good kid, could you have assigned the phone duty to
him or her? Tell the kid if the caller wants to speak to the regular teacher to say
(s)he's out for the day, which would probably take care of most of the calls, and
otherwise to call you to the phone.

I've been in classrooms where the regular teacher already had such a system set
up, and with the call volume that you describe, I'm surprised the teacher in that
class hasn't done it already. In my experience, the system works fine with a good
kid.

[Barclay]

is a good option, I was just surprised at the NUMBER of calls. I have never seen this before. In most schools I sub in (and I sub a lot) the only time the phone rings is for a real emergency, or something very urgent. These calls were for things that could have (for the most part) been handled by an email or after school. I was just so very amazed that this was such a common occurrence.

Did I spell that right? You know that just b/c a bell rings doesn't mean you have to respond right??? lol If I am talking, I do not allow the ringing to interrupt me, especially if it is a lesson. If I am tutoring a student I finish my sentence and try to get it, but usually after 3 rings it stops anyway (and I am rarely near the phone as it is - they are near teh doors) and miss the call anyway. If they don't get you on the phone they will send a runner to your room if it is urgent.

Unless you need a student in the office, or have something urgent to tell me - it can wait. Other classroom teachers shoudl not need to call you, now they may not know there is a sub that day so if you stop letting it interrupt you they will eventually come looking for the teacher and realize tehre was a sub and understand. You are not there to be secretary to the teachers telephone habit. It ringing more than 2 times in one day JMHO is a LOT and is tolerated by the reg. teacher (for whatever reason, she may have a good one) but YOU do not have to tolerate it and cow to it JMHO.

However, I do caution - anyone who consistently doesn't answer the phone may have people from the office in their room delivering things and getting kids throughout the day so you'd better have the class under control when they show up! lol