Public Education and PR

While I was looking around the education blogosphere trying to find inspiration for this post, I stumbled across a blog called, Just a Substitute Teacher. I’ve since added it to my blogroll because it was a fun read – the writer, KauaiMark, has a humorous voice. This post was a compilation of all the things that have gone wrong in his subbing experience over the years.

It’s a fairly long list – 15 bullet points – but two in particular stood out to me. The first was that one day when he was subbing there were no lesson plans left for him. When the absent teacher finally e-mailed the school’s secretary with the plans, they were printed in such a small font he couldn’t read them. In another instance he hadn’t been informed of the teacher’s schedule and didn’t know he was responsible for yard duty. He found out later when a teacher said she had to cover for him.

After reading those two points, it got me thinking about the relationship schools have with their substitute teachers.

According to this article there’s a growing demand for substitute teachers and the responsibilities of subs have increased, due, in part, to teachers attending more professional development workshops and conferences.

Obviously the relationship between schools and substitute teachers needs to be positive since schools are reliant on them to help educate students. Not taking the time to prepare materials for a sub or being understanding of the fact that he or she is unfamiliar with particular programs or policies doesn’t seem like a good way to develop a relationship.

As this article states most substitutes want to feel respect from school officials and other teachers, as well as a sense of appreciation. The article goes on to mention one woman who substituted for 15 years and only had one administrator thank her.

If a school can’t put the effort into developing a good relationship with substitutes, they might have to get used to more subs doing what KauaiMark mentioned in his last bullet point – he told a school district he would no longer sub there.

photo courtesy of www.lawrence.com