In a Rut...

I’ve gotten myself in a rut.

Teachers prefer bypassing any automated “random sub” assignment system in favor of a short list of substitutes they personally know. This is why new substitutes don’t get much work at first.

There are thirteen schools in the school district I work, but the last couple of years I seem to be getting 95% of all my assignments from only two schools. After five years on the job, I’m one of the first substitutes they call when they need a substitute and as a result I’m rarely available to work any other school.

That’s good and bad.

The good is that the kids all know me in those two schools and I “know” most of them even if I can’t remember specific names. The bad is that I’m probably missing out on other assignments when these two schools experience lulls in subbing assignments.

One way to “break out” of such a rut is to accept half-day assignments at schools I rarely hear from.

Most subs don’t like taking “half days” because it’s only “half pay”. It seems hardly worth the effort when the possibility for a full day and full pay assignment might have been the next call.

Last week I took a “half day” from a 1st year 6th grade teacher I didn’t know at a school I rarely hear from.

I was even able to double end this assignment with a 2nd “half day” with one of my regular schools because the teachers at both schools arranged it. It seems they had to observe each other in the classroom as part of some teacher evaluation assignment.

This week the 1st year teacher called on Monday to ask if I would take her class on Thursday. She said her class had a very positive response to my short time with them and she didn’t know any reliable subs to call.

If this works out right, I might have increased my “regular schools” pool by 50%.