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Wednesday, September 15, 2010

Limited Access Update…

The first month of the school year (mid-Aug to mid-Sept) is in and despite my reservations about lack of work this year, it hasn’t happened.

Of the 22 possible school days, I’ve been in class 14. That’s a bit above average for this time of the year. Since teachers can’t request favored substitute teachers anymore, ALL assignments are posted to the random substitute assignment pool. That may be a factor in the apparent increase of available assignments. I don’t really know if that’s the case but it seems that the phone is busier than normal for this time of year.

One month after the fact, the district finally sent out a “SmartFindExpress” reference card to tell us how the system works. Next week the district is holding a workshop to tell us how to use it. The workshop is a bit pointless at this stage since everyone has been using it for a month but they promised cookies and soda. Anyone who personally knows me knows I’ll be there.

The reference card they sent DID have some useful information. For instance, those of us who are “limited access” don’t need to hang around the phone before 05:00pm or after 10:00pm. Those are the only hours the system does assignment calling. We don’t have to hang around on Saturdays either. The system only calls for “future dates” Sunday through Thursday night.

The “day of” calls start at 05:30am and continue until taken or cancelled by the school. I have missed a few of those because I wasn’t home to take the call. If I had been permitted to access the website for current day assignments before I left for Costco at 10:00am this morning, I might have taken the assignment that was left on my answering machine at 10:15am. I wonder how the district will handle the flood of last minute assignments as they go unfilled during flu season.

That might be a good question to ask at the workshop next week!

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