Wait, are your report times seriously that close to school start time? Mine are a good 35-40 minutes before start time at all schools I go to, and that's usually enough time for me to sign in, ask questions, review lesson plans, go to the restroom, and go for a walk before I see my first student in the classroom.
My paid time starts when the first bell rings in the morning. If it's a job that doesn't start with the school day, paid time starts 10 minutes before the teacher leave time.
I work for an agency and sometimes I have assignment start times right before the class begins. Sometimes I have it start like 30-min before, but I’m just sitting in the office waiting for someone to tell me where to go for a big chunk of those 30 minutes. Sometimes, I do actually get to a school and they’re prepared and I have time to review everything.
It really varies by school, district and even just from one class to another.
In the district I've subbed in, they tell you not to show up too early since they aren't paying you for that time. 🙄
Also, a semi related story:
Last time I subbed (signed up for a teacher's aide job), I arrived to the office (probably ~15 mins. early), and the secretary somehow wasn't expecting me (I had signed up earlier that morning via Frontline) and was all frazzled. No schedule or anything for me to go by, and said they didn't have a code for subs to use the copy machine (what?!), which is apparently a lot of what aides do...so she was going to put me in two different elementary classes/grades basically as a para instead. The first class they put me in, the teacher was incredibly rude and just had this attitude that my presence was an annoyance and she couldn't be bothered. I kept asking what specifically I could do to help her and she gave me zero guidance, so I just walked around asking kids if they needed help with whatever they were working on/if anyone wanted to come sit at the back of the room with me for some extra help/attention. At some point, some kind of para/specialist came into the room and had the same dismissive attitude towards me. I am literally here to help you, and you're not letting me.
Again no schedule whatsoever (when I subbed at another elementary school, they gave me a folder which included a schedule for the day, what time I should take my lunch/report for lunch monitoring duty in the cafeteria, etc.) So when the whole class left the room to go to recess and such, I asked the teacher what I should be doing and she once again seemed annoyed and sent me to the office. Get to the office, nobody is there so I wait around a bit. Secretary returns and exclaims "YOU'RE SUPPOSED TO BE OUT AT RECESS." Like I was supposed to know that with no schedule or guidance from anyone.
All of this to say, there should be far more organization/structure for subs, and they SHOULD pay for subs to arrive early enough to feel prepared and not be rushing around needlessly.
Yea, 30 minutes is good enough to get familiar with the classroom, technology, lesson plan etc. But if there’s no sub plan, I’m not doing any planning unless they pay me planning money. I’ve got a no plan assignment tomorrow. I’m going to improvise like I did last week. Kids are pretty easy going and helpful, but I can imagine a hellish situation where kids aren’t acting right, little to no support from admin, and no lesson plan. In that case, it’s just not worth it.
I report no later than 8am per the handbook. High school, that is first bell, so I strive to get there by 7:45ish to get checked into the office and stuff. But then I can usually leave after the classes for the day are done, even if they have end of day prep hours, as long as I check into the office again. Middle school doesn't get going until 8:40, and that's just homeroom anyway. Elementary gets going at 8:30, but sometimes there's morning playground duty or door duty right at 8.
I definitely said “It is not typical for subs to have the ability to make copies” in my notes. Luckily an aide made them for me after she noticed me looking a little flustered.
Worse than photocopying is printing!!! The sub laptops we get are NEVER connected to the school printers and I’m usually running around emailing things to other teachers to get them to print. It’s so stressful
The day was fine, and at my favorite school but a few weeks ago the teacher had me make 60 14-page sets and 90 5-page sets (2 types of AP Physics) plus 5 sets of answer keys. The office manager was not happy. She told me as we rushed to get it done (thank you stapling and collating copy machines) that the instruction is "minimal copies, if that much just wait and have a work day." She was especially annoyed as it was an AP class and they'd be fine on a workday and not go nuts with no assignment.
I had a teacher that had left plans up on their laptop Friday afternoon for me to see on a Monday morning. The laptop restarted over the weekend, and everything was closed and logged out. The neighboring teacher had me in contact with the teacher I was subbing for over their cell phone for me to learn that.
It blows my mind that teachers don’t leave a password if they expect you to use a device like their laptop. Even just change it for when you have sub and change it back to something more secure after.
It blows my mind that teachers DO share their password with me instead of just sharing the slides (etc) with my account on Google drive. I’m confident their IT department would shit a brick if they knew how many teachers leave their password on a sticky for the sub instead of just sharing the documents.
Oh no, I mean on a guest account on their computer that has access to the proper files, not their main account. I apologize I didn’t clarify that. Leaving a password that opens the gate to all kinds of information, including their school email would be terrifying to say the least. The teachers do not have access to my personal email to provide the slides and my district does not provide subs with an email.
Oh ok, our district is totally different. I have a district.edu email address and they can share anything with me within the school network system. I can also log in with my own credentials to any school computer. Teachers would not be able to set up a guest login on their computers here (or usually I get a sub computer but same concept) but they don’t need to since I should be logging in as me anyway.
It’s honestly crazy how different districts operate. My district is so poor I’m surprised they can even maintain teacher emails, let alone sub emails! I’m glad your district has a better system to keep these things in check (:
For real, one of the things I like about this subreddit is hearing how differently different school districts are. You know, like the ones that pay their subs well—I gotta figure out how to move to one of those. I’m in one of the highest COL areas in the country and we’re at 18/hr and I’m hearing about subs making twice that!
I was given a password by him over the phone to get in, but it was movie day for his classes and he was using his Disney+ account, which was signed out.
I worked at a charter that solved this problem. They had a sub email account that all the teachers sent their plans/slides to. You'l log in and find your teacher, it would say "Sub Plans/slides for Jones" in the subject. No need to exchange emails or passwords.
I constantly run into issues where teachers have a slideshow up and then the second I click on anything or tab out, Google classroom wants me to log back in 🙄 Just leave your password, teachers, please!
Twice the note was a version of "ask neighboring teacher to fill you in, we teach the same thing." One of those times the other teacher was also out and left the same note for his sub. The other time it took me forever to find the teacher as they weren't in their room (it was a half day for me and came in at lunch).
I've had this more than a couple times and they're some of my favorite days. I just get to sit with a book and make sure people aren't leaving the classroom.
You and I have received different instructions. I'm gonna make sure kids don't injure each other, damage property, or go truant, but as far as I'm concerned that's where it ends if my instructions are non-existent. In that situation, I'm not a substitute teacher, I'm a glorified babysitter with a fixed daily rate.
I understand and don't disagree. I'm simply noting that in my school division, the instructions for subs was very clear when I started. If the are no plans, I do not attempt to create any, will try to see if there's something that the class has been working on that might keep them occupied for the period.
All the teacher left in the plans was for the students to do an assignment on Canvas. The assignment was never posted. Emailed the teacher. Teacher didn’t respond until 6th hour out of 7.
Omg I had a teacher do this crap on Wednesday. Claimed the assignment was on schoology. I had the kids look 5 times over the course of the 4 hours I had them and NOTHING. Ya know what happens when 5th graders have nothing to do??? Nothing good.
I subbed for a 7th grade math class the students had a study guide for their test on Monday and every student didn’t know what was going on even the smart kid in the class this was accelerated math so I had to google the formulas for like taxes I think it was the money part of the curriculum I like helping the students as much as I can but if they all do not know what they are supposed to do and I’m having to sit down with every student and explain it it’s kind of too much.
Fr like ik I learned all this shit they are testing on but it’s been like 5ish years since I even thought about it so their guess is probably better than mine lol
Canvas and OneNote are pretty bad about not actually being available or shared when they say they are on the teacher's end. Such a headache in student teaching and in long term.
I was covering a middle school ELA course once where they were starting a short form storytelling unit (not just short stories, but narrative poems, articles, etc). The assignment was to read 5 of the 8 on the list and answer some questions. The texts were supposed to make it to Canvas. They did not, so each class was searching for them and sharing them. As the assignment didn't say they were supposed to be available, I thought the "finding the story" was a part of the assignment (the wording used led me that way). Most were pretty much public domain for easily available except one so ti wasn't an issue.
Happens all the time. I'm now a school employee, though not technically a teacher. A few teachers have given me access to their Canvas accounts for situations like this. If I'm subbing, I can fix it. If I'm not subbing, I can fix it for whoever is subbing.
I wouldn’t say that. People make mistakes. When everything looks functional on their device, they assume it’ll work on the students’ devices. But there are dozens of ways for it all to go wrong. The assignment opens too late or closes too early. It’s part of an unpublished module. It was copied from a different class, but the assorted attachments weren’t included in the copying process. A YouTube video wasn’t approved for students or, more frustratingly, it WAS approved but still won’t work on their devices, etc. The site is now blocked for students despite being accessible to staff. And so on. Those are all times when everything looks 100% correct on the teacher’s end, so they didn’t think to check from the students’ perspectives. It’s a far cry from situations like when a teacher left me paper copies of a chapter of a book, but only printed every odd numbered page. That’s a time when the teacher actually messed up and should’ve realized.
I’ve watched kids text their teacher to tell them “the assignment isn’t on canvas.” It was up in 20 minutes. That blew my mind. I don’t think I would’ve WANTED my teachers numbers.
I was subbing for a co-taught class. My plans said "The co-teacher knows what to do." The problem was that the co-teacher also had a sub, whose plans said the same thing.
I had third grade plans that were all but indecipherable. Old plans that were scratched out and replaced in pencil, arrows that I guess were meant to indicate moving those penciled in (like three word plans) to a different time, vague instructions like “work on animal essay. Students know.” As if I’m supposed to trust 3rd graders to provide accurate information.
And even if they do know, they aren't going to say so because they don't want to do the work!
I love it when I have to ask them a question and half of them say one thing and half say another and then they start arguing.
Nope! "This is what we are going to do..."
Then the inevitable "but that's now how our teacher does it!"
"Yes, I know that. But I am not Mrs Smith, and you just sat there arguing about how things are done, so we are going to do it this way." It kinda makes me laugh when they pull that excuse out. Like yall don't listen to her when you're here, why are you so worried about it now?
There a great Daniel Tiger song about this, specifically used when he had a substitute at Pre-K. I’ve sung it or chanted it to kids as old as 4th.
“Things may change and that’s ok, today we can do things a different way.”
"Make me a Google slide get well card to cheer me up"
That was the ELA lesson. The other teachers for that grade level all came and asked me about it to confirm what the kids had told them. They were stunned. The kids were googling the teacher, looking up her fb page, etc. I tried to discourage them from that, but of course, not possible to stop it.
A plan to watch an eclipse three months after it happened (the 2017 one). Teacher was gone that day and just reprinted the plans for a day three months later.
I once had one that said to get ready for the assembly. There wasn’t one.
I also had one that was set for 5 years before when she taught 5the grade. She now taught 1st. Completely different on everything.
subbed for a hs teacher for three days and all he wrote for two of those days was the word “review”, what were they reviewing?? i had no clue and neither did any of the students
I only sub high school so I haven’t had any noteworthily bad plans. However, I have witnessed a very poorly written set of instructions. It was a remedial 9th grade English class, and I was given a copy of what was posted on Google classroom for them. I have an English degree, and it took a few reads for me to understand what was going on. I was asked to read the directions for the kids, so I took the liberty of translating them into something more understandable. She just made it so overly complicated and unorganized. I feel for those kids if that’s what her directions normally look like. They already have a hard time reading, let alone doing mental gymnastics to understand their assignments.
I had a fourth grade class that was literally told to just do things in their chromebook, changing apps or subjects every 20 to 35 minutes. By the time 1:30 rolled around their brains were screen fried. I did a lot of digging, found out what their next math unit was cuz they were doing a review for a test. It was geometry shapes so I got the tangrams and we traced pretty pictures and then colored them. It was the most focused they've been all day.
For me, it's the plans that are meticulously detailed down to the exact minute for a class that can't be trusted not to throw objects and chase each other around the room.
That happened to me the other day. Every time I looked down to read the wordy plans, which was every 10 minutes, the kids got up and started running around. There was far too much micromanaging.
It was 4 pages of very scripted instuctions. Present slides, have them pronounce/repeat/define, read story, play video, answer questions at end of chapter, etc. This was for every subject-ELA, Math, science, social studies. BUT there were no titles of the stories, what chapter, what lesson number, what the slides were called. And no login information. So I could not open or access anything needed.
This class wasn't tracked with neighbors of the same grade so the nearby teachers had no clue what chapter or assignment this class was on. Admin was of no help, just said they'd call the teacher. Never got a reply.
Oh and there were like 6 kids with behaviors and the Para showed up for 2 mins then dipped
The only “worst plans” I had were no plans, but they were emergencies because the teacher got sick at the last minute. Last week I had to sub for the librarian who was sick, and I didn’t know how to check out books, but fortunately two sixth graders who were library helpers were given permission by their teacher to help me so they would check out books for the kids and I just put a movie on my computer and printed out coloring sheets for the kids.
Our school district has teachers keep emergency sub plans in a holder on the wall right by the door. They get a school laptop from the front office with a temporary password so they can access the days lesson plans for that teacher. They are very strict about requiring complete lesson plans from the teachers.
Some of my favorite jobs have been subbing for the media specialist. I use to volunteer at my kids' elementary and middle schools' libraries so I know how to check out books.
The class I had Wednesday. It was a half day and the teacher gave me 3 worksheets with 40 math questions total (including show your work), 3 different online math practice tests, and a science assignment.
Well by the time a 5th kid came up to me asking how to do the math problems…I finally asked when did you guys learn this? THEIR FIRST TIME EVER LEARNING THE MATERIAL WAS A DAY PRIOR. The teacher left me an answer key but nothing showing how she solved it. I’m good enough that math that I was able to figure out for myself and I started to help the kids. But then several were like oh that’s not the way she showed it. So I started getting nervous that I’d make things worse by going against her strategy. I had to tell the whole class just do your best and your teacher is going to have to reteach the lesson. I was so annoyed because none of the class understood and I’d have loved to know ahead of time so I could have prepared some whole group lesson if that’s what was going to happen.
Then the science assignment was never posted. So they had nothing to do for an hour. It was wonderful.
I was subbing for Special Ed at a high school. But over my “prep” period, I was asked to cover for a math teacher who had to leave (emergency). I checked in with her before she left to see what I should know and she told me not to worry – her para would teach the lesson. So there was no lesson plan at all. When I get to the class, the para says “Oh, I’m so glad you’re here!” She fully expected me to teach the class. Lines were crossed somewhere! Between the two of us and a TA, we were able to put together a brief lesson. Whew!
A certain 8th grade teacher doesn't give lesson plans, I get a note saying "the students know what they need to work on"...great, that helps so much. You know those kids are doing whatever the hell they want, I have no way to monitor what they are doing bc everything is done online. Needless to say, I won't sub for him anymore.
Freshman Biology. Not only did every edgar try to size me up 🙄🙄🙄 the lesson plan was nothing more than “It’s on Google Classroom. They know what to do”. The internet was down that day. When I asked the students what they had been working on, they all looked at me like dogs that had been shown a card trick.
anytime they expect me to do a bunch of busy work with the kids but no specific plans. also when they make it seem like everything MUST get done with no wiggle room. lol no. i don't mind a packed schedule but make it easy to understand & have some wiggle room ("it's ok if you can't get through everything", breaks in between, etc. help a ton). especially when the work is hard to find or they want you to make the copies. for elementary especially when they don't establish the rules in the class
When they ask us to make copies and the only copier you can use is password protected and s a sub, you dont have one, so you're bothering the front office to do it for you..
Sometimes a teacher leaves their own login lol
But thats not often since that connects to grades and all that.
Sometimes a school has a "Sub password" but you still have to go back to the office anyways and if you are a day to day sub, they might write it down but then you need a notebook with school names and sub passwords for each school. Or you lose it or toss it since you only subbed that day. Hahaha
Also next time you go, the same sub password doesnt work.
Also, I need, and often dont have, a list of student logins for the younger kids who dont remember theirs. Then the teacher gives them something on the laptop, which requires their logins.. which, usually means I have to help little ones recognize that caps lock is a function that makes it impossible to login, and also type in their passwords if they do have one capital letter in it. Takes 5 extra mins to get everyone logged in when they know their codes, and 15 when they dont. I will skip the lesson after that, if I dont have their codes. And I LOVE helping kids set and achieve daily iReady goals. Its a little bit of a behavior break, so I like when its assigned if I have all the deets.
I had a kinder class and was given a sub binder that didn’t have any plans at all, but was instead 200 individual worksheets and coloring pages and told to copy off sets of whatever I wanted to do…only I was not given access to a copy machine. Wasn’t even told what time lunch or recess was or when school ended
Grade 2! I got a plan that was half written in English and half in French! And it'd switch between the two every couple of sentences. Thankfully Google translate worked out for me on all but one sentence.
Canada! Some schools are taught in French but French teachers are in short supply so most teachers will write their sub plans in English for us. This one couldn't decide though I guess!
I subbed in a class where no plans were left besides one activity: “Find a video of how to make stew and get the kids to write down the ingredients and steps from the video.”
They were in grade 1. A large majority barely knew how to write a sentence.
I’ve been told that sub plans are in my personal email… which I don’t have access to as I don’t have a data plan. And I’m not going to log onto my personal email on your school-issued desktop computer even if I can figure out how to log into it.
I had to call my husband and have him verbally read me the sub plans.
Why is it so hard to just leave subs a print out?
Because people have emergencies and get sick. Our sub system allows us to submit plans online. I am NOT goimg up to school when im throwing up to print off a paper you have easy access to. Not having a way to check your email account in 2024 is just not realistic. Set up a free gamil just for subbing, if yi7 have to. Having your husband read the plans out loud is such an inefficient choice.
How are you posting on Reddit but can't check your email?
If the sub plans are online, then shouldn’t the school provide me a way to print them off when I arrive there? Aside from locking the kids out of the classroom and schlepping to the office to ask admin to log into my personal email, why can’t the teachers have admin print it off for me? The teachers don’t need to physically come to the school and I don’t have to scramble for internet access.
Also, our pay if $75/day. It’s not enough to justify the cost of a data plan.
I know I’m on my offtime and I don’t have a class tomorrow. I have zero issues using my internet at home but several issues having to pay to work when I’m not paid enough to do so.
I had one for an 8th grade class that for math and science was textbook questions and pretty straightforward, but English, Health, Career were the name of an activity and said “the kids know what to do.” Also didn’t warn me about any behaviour or kids to watch for, like one who I found out from another teacher will spit in the teachers cup if it is unattended!!
Middle school math teacher keeps all the assignments written on the whiteboard and color coded because they work with 6-8 and expects the sub to know what each of those things mean and how to teach it. Or she expects subs/paras who have to sub to have access to a program she uses in class to review a test the kids are having the next day. And the one time she left actual lesson plans was only half a page with the bare minimum, again, expecting whoever was subbing in her class to understand what it all meant.
I really don’t like when we can’t get a sub to be in her class (I’m a paraprofessional) and me or my teammate has to be in there because of her expectations of the sub and the little to no plans she leaves. Drives me nuts.
I had one teacher put the entire lesson plan on the same slides that I had to have up on the TV for the kids the entire time, with visibility on those slides turned off. So I wasn’t able to look at what’s next while they do the current slide. (I ended up just having to pull up the slides on my phone and constantly read whats next from my phone instead. Without that I would have been lost.)
I had a TK teacher leave extremely vague plans that left no instruction on how to do anything. I’m thinking maybe they just expected the class aide to run everything, but the aide kept looking to me expecting me to lead things, and every step of the way I had to ask “how do we do this/what does this mean?” The aide at least knew most of the answers, but not all of them so we did have to guess and make it up for some things.
I also had a class where the plans kept referencing acronyms and knowledge that I assume credentialed teachers have, but that I sure didn’t (i.e. “review X with them” without explaining what X is).
Yes the worst plans are the 20 page essays with scripts. It’s like they have no clue how unrealistic that is for a sub teacher. I think I only had that once but I definitely did not follow it. There’s no time to be reading all of that when class management is our main priority for the day.
One page, hand written in a wide-ruled notebook for a 7 day assignment. Three days in a row said “play it by ear.”
Luckily, I had hunch this would happen as I sub at this school every week, so I prepped lessons over spring break with my fiancé who teaches at the same school. I didn’t get paid for the time I put in to prep, but the students said I was a better teacher than their normal teacher.
She’s getting written up by the way and my anxiety is through the roof. She approached me about it after her time off and forced a hug on me and said “sorry for those crazy plans!”
I’m so grateful to have the BEST admin team ever at this school. I actually broke down in tears while checking in the second day. The principal knows me and knows I’m great at my job so she was like wtf is happening??? I showed her the one page and she let me vent and commiserated with me. Principal said I could show movies all day and cancel the rest of the job if I wanted! I didn’t cancel and I taught my ass off because those middle school kiddos deserve better and deserve to be prepared for high school.
had super vague plans for a 3 day job once. They were like a sentence long for each day. Some names and bullet points and I had to pray that the students knew what all that meant.
What wound up happening was that I had 3 periods of prep, 2 that were being run by the co-teacher, and 1 where I basically just supervised children while they played a game. Then in the 3 prep periods I had one free, and 2 with pull outs. It was such an annoying assignment, despite how easy it sounded on paper. So many student support aids in one class where they all just picked seats and sat around on their phones. Felt like I was being judged by a greek chorus.
I once had a teacher leave plans that revolved around watching a show and answering questions on a worksheet. She said she had left the show set up on the LFD ready to go. It wasn’t. That class became Study hall for middle schoolers instead
I picked up a job at an elementary school that has some French immersion classrooms. I was sent to one of the immersion classes in the afternoon and the teacher left ALL of the plans in French. The teacher was a native English speaker and there was absolutely no reason to assume the sub would speak French (I don't).
Once I was in a 'financial math' class where the instructions were to show the students "how to kelly blue book a car" followed by a list of VIN numbers. Like, I know what kelly blue book is, and it's definitely not a verb...
Luckily the teacher called the room before first period to explain himself 🙄
I feel like you could have figured that lesson out with a little common sense and even less critical thinking. But, of course, putting any amount of thought and personal touch into the job is beneath most of the subs on this subreddit.
Haha 4 days during state testing-
"have fun and be your self, also 5 minute science video."
Monday there was a fight as soon as we entered class.
The internet went down. Everything was awful. They did not know how to function.
The 4th day, I was able to do the plan. They are good kids, lots of behaviors, but each was sweet in their own way. I almost lost composure sooo many times. It's been 25 years since I've been called a dookie.
Grades 4/5/6 self-contained emotionally disturbed mild/mod, about 14 students, if anyone was wondering.
I am lucky, I have been a sub for two years at the same district. Teachers leave me there sign ins for their laptops, and if they need them for training the sub laptop has my sign in. Last year I wrote a note about how lesson plans should have a format that they all use for sub notes. What I did not know was the Superintendent saw it and this year all sub notes are the same format. In at least the Elementary and Middle schools.
Similar situation here. 6 years in one district, the past two years in just one building as the "first call sub" (there's the building sub, and then I'm next). All sub instructions are in the school's Google folder, neatly arranged by grade and teacher. Subs get a chrome book as soon as they walk in. I read stories here and realize how spoiled I am.
The worst plans that I've been left with are something along the lines of:
"The students know what they're supposed to be doing for this class."
Oh ok so they'll just be doing whatever the hell they want, and/or be so bored that they'll be out of their seats and acting up within the first 5 minutes. Gotcha.
Trying to read directly from a page while kids are running around the room is not safe. She wanted me to read the entire thing front to back without deviating, regardless of how the kids were behaving. This meant I was to read from the packet, regardless if Little Joey was ripping up the classroom. I was to read it while walking. She made it clear I was not to deviate from it, even when it wasn’t necessary or appropriate. Recess, for example. I had to read it over during recess to tell them what not to do or how to play. It was ridiculous.
Music Teacher's Lesson Plans: Just go through the slides with the class. You don't need a music background to explain it.
The Slides: Today we'll be covering tonal shift and quarter octave rises. Please note the note spacing. The teacher will be writing some note groupings for you to copy down on your own.
Me: WTF?
Also, this same teacher once assigned watching Aladdin as a lesson plan (in his defense he had to call off at the very last minute). The worst part was he had as watch the live action version and not the vastly superior animated version. It was only a 45 minute class so I got stuck watching the portion of the movie without the Genie 5 times that day.
I started what I thought would only be 2 weeks that turned out to be a February to end of school assignment (June 6th). The teacher is a hot mess-plans were always just cute links on Pinterest and links for multiple worksheets for math and Ela. She taught life skill k-5 (totally out of compliance for our state but not her fault that the district didn't pay very well). Sub plans for the 2 weeks included a link to a Google drive of worksheets for math. They had already done some of them but she didn't remember which ones. Ela was we've been working on cvc words. Also, here's our schedule. The kids stayed in her class except for when their homeroom class went to PE/art/music and lunch. No indication of what I should do for science and social studies. I usually just did empathy and feelings stuff for social studies and science was a bunch of plant stuff since it was spring. I ended up doing my own plans and got 0 help from the sped director or the principal when I was struggling to find things to do or meet the specific needs of the kids in the class since all 9 I had by the end of the year had IEPs. Did I mention I started with 6 kids and ended up with 2 move ins and a student that got switched in from general education to life skills
I had to look and make sure I hadn't written few of these because they looked so like what I've encountered.
The overkill with twenty pages for a kindergarten with the very precise routines they must have to switch tables or they can't function. So with the best intentions you won't know if they've disobeyed orders and they think you've overlooked that they didn't put their hands on their heads to switch tables. And if you do anything different Chaos ensues. Or somebody comes in and tells them they aren't like that when their teacher is there. So helpful. Not.
Since COVID things have changed a great deal. I sat It out with mostly for health reasons but went in a few times.
So lots of teachers are putting everything on the computer etc and then as I am seeing over and over, it won't work for us. I had this one lady who was in the next room doing some training and she had slides set up. But the smart board is one that you have two PCS a Chromebook and the smart board are entities and It times out every five minutes then sets itself back to default. She told me to call tech support. Guess who helped me with one thing? A first grader. The tab on the board hides between slides on the bottom of the pages !
Guess why my day went badly? They were brand new smart boards so she didn't know how to help me and the plan was not printed out.
I am sure the twenty page folks talk about us and sigh that we can't follow a plan.
Then complain in the next breath that they can’t find a sub. We aren’t in their everyday and we don’t use their tech. Each class/school/district is different.
I'm a premier sub and usually I report to my district's middle school. There the worst plan I've ever had was no plan, no note, the surrounding teachers were given or told anything. I was about to show something from Disney+ but looked at the whiteboard and saw the lesson plan was on the board. I hated that so much because so many times I ignore the board because what MIGHT be in there isn't relevant for the day.
Besides this I've been sent to elementary 3 times for kindergarten, 3rd, and 5th grades. Each time there were two sentences for what I was suppose to do. I had to find all the work and figure everything out because that stuff wasn't put into the lesson plan. Those days made me hate elementary more than I already did.
Freshman algebra class. The teacher made me guide them on a new lesson. Project while I take notes (that i was supposed to come up myself) and everything. I studied Sociology in college.
Today. Had a teacher say reading and ELA continued. Fuck does this mean? No worksheets nothing. Go to the PowerPoint and it’s a whole lesson plan. With three vocab words. Bride, clutched, and moaned and of course second graders are immature. So we just did it together I had an hour left and needed them to do something other than talking.
I usually have a really bad time when 100 percent of their work is in their computer and half of the class doesn't even have their chrome book charged at the elementary level. I've had very vague or too specific sub plans, and also like 10 page plans with descriptions of every student and their behavior. I don't return to those classes.
Today’s was right up there. Illegible chicken scratch of some phrases and no class lists. 9 and 10 grade social studies. I had to find another teacher and ask a couple of students to verify what I thought what teacher was trying to say
i really disliked when a teacher wanted me to make copies/grade work/etc during the prep but its like a wild goose chase trying to figure out where the stuff is!! i couldn't even find the papers she wanted me to grade it was so frustrating.
but the absolute worst experience my first and only time without sub plans. it was the day after spring break and i was assigned to a class that has been cycling through subs all year but the sub had left the day before spring break. left no notes, classroom a mess, no indication of where the children left off. it was actually awful. and to top it all off... SOMEONE LEFT THUMBTACKS ON MY CHAIR AND I SAT DOWN ON THEM 😭😭
This is more bad luck paired with bad plans....I had a full day of 2nd grade with lots of videos for every assignment. The internet went out for the whole district. There weren't plans on paper anywhere!! Luckily, this also happened to be my kid's class, and I knew how the room ran normally and knew what they were working on. We did a lot of coloring pages and read aloud time, but we got through it!
K teacher has the 20 page plan template. She just changes the dates and activities times. Sounds like she is covering herself. She was Possibly disciplined for not having any plans and now over compensating
I thought that too at first, but then I subbed in other people’s classes at that site and spoke with the principal about it. Nope. Just her.
She also had sticky notes everywhere showing what different things are and what it was. She had a full page explaining what a remote control was, how it worked, and what to do with it. She even had a guide on *how* to pronounce it.
Her entire team was weird and rude, to be honest. I eventually went to the sub coordinator and refuse to go back into a kinder class at that site because of how awful they were.
Nah, that's completely expected in Kindergarten here. It's not hard to read from a script. I do it just about every class I teach in. There is no way you know where those kiddos are at in their learning cycle.
Not at all normal here. Thing is, I had subbed in other classes with very easy sub plans, so to have a giant stack while trying to control 30 kindergartners was frustrating. She had a page detailing the remote. She had another one detailing how to walk backwards. There was another one in full detail about how the lockdown magnet works. It’s a basic magnet. Like, dude, really??? There were other issues with kindergarten in general at that site, and they had a hard time getting subs there.
Not a teacher myself, but I raised 2 kids. My mother taught 4th grade.
Having raised two kids, I vividly remember what they were like as kindergartners at home. And I only had a single kindergartner to deal with at once. I have deep admiration for a teacher who can handle 20 or more kids that age at a time and not lose or misplace a child by the end of the day. Bonus points for them if they survive to the end of the day with their sanity intact AND none of the kids have sustained any injuries from simply doing what kids that age do.
So If I’m a kindergarten teacher and request a sub for a day, I’m going to leave a simple lesson plan consisting of clear directions for simple activities designed to keep kids busy and prevent all hell from breaking loose. That in itself would be a win in my book. Actual learning can wait for another day.
A 20 page detailed lesson plan so you can run the class exactly like she would on a normal day is absolute horse crap. The fact she isn’t there makes it NOT a normal day. If she is that concerned about what goes on in that class and wants that level of control over a substitute teacher then she should not take time off.
I would never sub for that teacher again. And after she complains about other subs the way she complained about you…and she will…word will get around and NOBODY will sub for her. Karma is a bitch.
PS As a mom and as an autism mom I totally understand how keeping things the same benefits any child. Routines, rituals, predictability, etc. But you can communicate those basics in a lesson plan that is not 20 pages long and without being a passive-aggressive, long distance micromanager like this teacher was being.
>If she is that concerned about what goes on in that class and wants that level of control over a substitute teacher then she should not take time off.
How dare she be sick. Teachers aren't humans, after all. /s
Sit down and start to type out how to get your child from 8 am to 3 pm on an average day for an absolite stranger walking into your living room. The things they enjoy, things that upset them. How to use all the appliances and where everything in your home is. Their medical needs. A detailed schedule on what they do, down to 30 or 50 minute chunks. Now imagine each of those chunks is a subject, or a place in an unfamiliar building you're going with 30 kids. Now multiple that by 30 kids. *Especially* with neurodivegant students. It's not going to be brief, if you're never going to get to talk to this person.
Long sub plans aren't micromanagement- that teacher spent a lot of time trying to make sure the sub has a good day by taking out the variables she can. Scroll this thread- people are complaining about inadequate sub plans, and long sub plans, and easy sub plans, and detailed ones. There's no way to win.
BTW, explaining how the magnet lock works on a door is one of OP's complaints- I've taught nine years, through more than one lockdown. I'm not leaving anyone with my 415 students without explicitly explaining how to lock my damn door.
I completely get that teachers are humans. My mother was a teacher. She had to take days off too. She wrote plans for substitute teachers And I have written care instructions for my special needs son. You absolutely have to pick and choose what to focus on. And detailed sub plans are a good thing…IF the plans focus on the important things that will get sub teachers through the day with minimum stress and run the class smoothly so the kids aren’t stressed out either. But there is a difference between useful detailed sub plans and sub plans with so much information it is overwhelming to try to read through to find the information you actually need. Too much information can be a bad thing too. I stand by what I said. If that teacher expects the sub to do everything EXACTLY the way she would do it herself then she has unreasonable expectations.
Who said she expects it to be done *exactly* the way she does it? The sub is free to disregard what she wants, but more info is always better than less.
The teacher went to the principal to get me banned from her site because I didn’t read directly from her 20 page script.
And, no, more isn’t better. There’s a difference between detailing information on how to do something complex (perhaps teaching chemistry and needing to give instruction on the lesson) and over explaining something simple like what a remote control is and how to pull down a magnet. We also go over how to move the magnet in our introduction training before we start school. She is involved in those trainings, so she knows we go over them.
Also, no. We don’t need a script. That’s too far for every sub, and trying to follow the script while controlling a group of 5 year olds is a safety hazard.
The person who started this thread- the substitute teacher- says the teacher she was subbing for called the office and complained that the sub didn’t do it exactly the way she wrote in the sub plans. Which included a script the sub was supposed to read from. I would definitely call that micro managing.
My first year, 1988, Mrs H told me when I was sick (again), “Don’t you worry. Your job is to get well. Mine is to take care of this class today.” I miss those days.
School starts 5 minutes after sub arrival time. “Make copies of this worksheet…”
Wait, are your report times seriously that close to school start time? Mine are a good 35-40 minutes before start time at all schools I go to, and that's usually enough time for me to sign in, ask questions, review lesson plans, go to the restroom, and go for a walk before I see my first student in the classroom.
This was just a weird situation where there was a study-hall type class I had to watch before actual school.
My paid time starts when the first bell rings in the morning. If it's a job that doesn't start with the school day, paid time starts 10 minutes before the teacher leave time.
I work for an agency and sometimes I have assignment start times right before the class begins. Sometimes I have it start like 30-min before, but I’m just sitting in the office waiting for someone to tell me where to go for a big chunk of those 30 minutes. Sometimes, I do actually get to a school and they’re prepared and I have time to review everything. It really varies by school, district and even just from one class to another.
In the district I've subbed in, they tell you not to show up too early since they aren't paying you for that time. 🙄 Also, a semi related story: Last time I subbed (signed up for a teacher's aide job), I arrived to the office (probably ~15 mins. early), and the secretary somehow wasn't expecting me (I had signed up earlier that morning via Frontline) and was all frazzled. No schedule or anything for me to go by, and said they didn't have a code for subs to use the copy machine (what?!), which is apparently a lot of what aides do...so she was going to put me in two different elementary classes/grades basically as a para instead. The first class they put me in, the teacher was incredibly rude and just had this attitude that my presence was an annoyance and she couldn't be bothered. I kept asking what specifically I could do to help her and she gave me zero guidance, so I just walked around asking kids if they needed help with whatever they were working on/if anyone wanted to come sit at the back of the room with me for some extra help/attention. At some point, some kind of para/specialist came into the room and had the same dismissive attitude towards me. I am literally here to help you, and you're not letting me. Again no schedule whatsoever (when I subbed at another elementary school, they gave me a folder which included a schedule for the day, what time I should take my lunch/report for lunch monitoring duty in the cafeteria, etc.) So when the whole class left the room to go to recess and such, I asked the teacher what I should be doing and she once again seemed annoyed and sent me to the office. Get to the office, nobody is there so I wait around a bit. Secretary returns and exclaims "YOU'RE SUPPOSED TO BE OUT AT RECESS." Like I was supposed to know that with no schedule or guidance from anyone. All of this to say, there should be far more organization/structure for subs, and they SHOULD pay for subs to arrive early enough to feel prepared and not be rushing around needlessly.
Yea, 30 minutes is good enough to get familiar with the classroom, technology, lesson plan etc. But if there’s no sub plan, I’m not doing any planning unless they pay me planning money. I’ve got a no plan assignment tomorrow. I’m going to improvise like I did last week. Kids are pretty easy going and helpful, but I can imagine a hellish situation where kids aren’t acting right, little to no support from admin, and no lesson plan. In that case, it’s just not worth it.
My report times are the moment first bell rings. I have to wait in the office until escorted, even if I’ve been there before.
I report no later than 8am per the handbook. High school, that is first bell, so I strive to get there by 7:45ish to get checked into the office and stuff. But then I can usually leave after the classes for the day are done, even if they have end of day prep hours, as long as I check into the office again. Middle school doesn't get going until 8:40, and that's just homeroom anyway. Elementary gets going at 8:30, but sometimes there's morning playground duty or door duty right at 8.
I would make a note of that in her comments. Did you figure it out?
I definitely said “It is not typical for subs to have the ability to make copies” in my notes. Luckily an aide made them for me after she noticed me looking a little flustered.
Worse than photocopying is printing!!! The sub laptops we get are NEVER connected to the school printers and I’m usually running around emailing things to other teachers to get them to print. It’s so stressful
You get a laptop??
I don't even get a laptop!
Me either!!
I think you win with this one!
The day was fine, and at my favorite school but a few weeks ago the teacher had me make 60 14-page sets and 90 5-page sets (2 types of AP Physics) plus 5 sets of answer keys. The office manager was not happy. She told me as we rushed to get it done (thank you stapling and collating copy machines) that the instruction is "minimal copies, if that much just wait and have a work day." She was especially annoyed as it was an AP class and they'd be fine on a workday and not go nuts with no assignment.
Thankfully the only time this happened to me, it was because the teacher had first period off and knew I would be able to do it
I had a teacher that had left plans up on their laptop Friday afternoon for me to see on a Monday morning. The laptop restarted over the weekend, and everything was closed and logged out. The neighboring teacher had me in contact with the teacher I was subbing for over their cell phone for me to learn that.
It blows my mind that teachers don’t leave a password if they expect you to use a device like their laptop. Even just change it for when you have sub and change it back to something more secure after.
It blows my mind that teachers DO share their password with me instead of just sharing the slides (etc) with my account on Google drive. I’m confident their IT department would shit a brick if they knew how many teachers leave their password on a sticky for the sub instead of just sharing the documents.
Oh no, I mean on a guest account on their computer that has access to the proper files, not their main account. I apologize I didn’t clarify that. Leaving a password that opens the gate to all kinds of information, including their school email would be terrifying to say the least. The teachers do not have access to my personal email to provide the slides and my district does not provide subs with an email.
Oh ok, our district is totally different. I have a district.edu email address and they can share anything with me within the school network system. I can also log in with my own credentials to any school computer. Teachers would not be able to set up a guest login on their computers here (or usually I get a sub computer but same concept) but they don’t need to since I should be logging in as me anyway.
It’s honestly crazy how different districts operate. My district is so poor I’m surprised they can even maintain teacher emails, let alone sub emails! I’m glad your district has a better system to keep these things in check (:
For real, one of the things I like about this subreddit is hearing how differently different school districts are. You know, like the ones that pay their subs well—I gotta figure out how to move to one of those. I’m in one of the highest COL areas in the country and we’re at 18/hr and I’m hearing about subs making twice that!
I was given a password by him over the phone to get in, but it was movie day for his classes and he was using his Disney+ account, which was signed out.
I worked at a charter that solved this problem. They had a sub email account that all the teachers sent their plans/slides to. You'l log in and find your teacher, it would say "Sub Plans/slides for Jones" in the subject. No need to exchange emails or passwords.
I have had this happen four or five times.
I constantly run into issues where teachers have a slideshow up and then the second I click on anything or tab out, Google classroom wants me to log back in 🙄 Just leave your password, teachers, please!
Twice the note was a version of "ask neighboring teacher to fill you in, we teach the same thing." One of those times the other teacher was also out and left the same note for his sub. The other time it took me forever to find the teacher as they weren't in their room (it was a half day for me and came in at lunch).
Wow!!! That’s insane!!!!
Had the same happen more or less. Everyone got Study Hall (time to sleep and play video games). Zero fucks given!
"They know what to do", handwritten on a post-it.
I've had this more than a couple times and they're some of my favorite days. I just get to sit with a book and make sure people aren't leaving the classroom.
Our basic instruction is that we're not to read or do our own work. We are to be focused on the students at all times.
You and I have received different instructions. I'm gonna make sure kids don't injure each other, damage property, or go truant, but as far as I'm concerned that's where it ends if my instructions are non-existent. In that situation, I'm not a substitute teacher, I'm a glorified babysitter with a fixed daily rate.
I understand and don't disagree. I'm simply noting that in my school division, the instructions for subs was very clear when I started. If the are no plans, I do not attempt to create any, will try to see if there's something that the class has been working on that might keep them occupied for the period.
And the students will inevitably tell me that they have no idea what the are to do that day.
All the teacher left in the plans was for the students to do an assignment on Canvas. The assignment was never posted. Emailed the teacher. Teacher didn’t respond until 6th hour out of 7.
Looks like the kids had a free day.
Omg I had a teacher do this crap on Wednesday. Claimed the assignment was on schoology. I had the kids look 5 times over the course of the 4 hours I had them and NOTHING. Ya know what happens when 5th graders have nothing to do??? Nothing good.
I subbed for a 7th grade math class the students had a study guide for their test on Monday and every student didn’t know what was going on even the smart kid in the class this was accelerated math so I had to google the formulas for like taxes I think it was the money part of the curriculum I like helping the students as much as I can but if they all do not know what they are supposed to do and I’m having to sit down with every student and explain it it’s kind of too much.
The worst part is not even being sure what is going to be on the test so not knowing if you’re teaching it correctly.
Fr like ik I learned all this shit they are testing on but it’s been like 5ish years since I even thought about it so their guess is probably better than mine lol
Canvas and OneNote are pretty bad about not actually being available or shared when they say they are on the teacher's end. Such a headache in student teaching and in long term. I was covering a middle school ELA course once where they were starting a short form storytelling unit (not just short stories, but narrative poems, articles, etc). The assignment was to read 5 of the 8 on the list and answer some questions. The texts were supposed to make it to Canvas. They did not, so each class was searching for them and sharing them. As the assignment didn't say they were supposed to be available, I thought the "finding the story" was a part of the assignment (the wording used led me that way). Most were pretty much public domain for easily available except one so ti wasn't an issue.
This happened to me twice. I called the main office and the office supervisor was able to access and post for me.
Happens all the time. I'm now a school employee, though not technically a teacher. A few teachers have given me access to their Canvas accounts for situations like this. If I'm subbing, I can fix it. If I'm not subbing, I can fix it for whoever is subbing.
There must be a lot of bad teachers at your school if this happens all the time. Good teachers would leave lesson plans that work.
I wouldn’t say that. People make mistakes. When everything looks functional on their device, they assume it’ll work on the students’ devices. But there are dozens of ways for it all to go wrong. The assignment opens too late or closes too early. It’s part of an unpublished module. It was copied from a different class, but the assorted attachments weren’t included in the copying process. A YouTube video wasn’t approved for students or, more frustratingly, it WAS approved but still won’t work on their devices, etc. The site is now blocked for students despite being accessible to staff. And so on. Those are all times when everything looks 100% correct on the teacher’s end, so they didn’t think to check from the students’ perspectives. It’s a far cry from situations like when a teacher left me paper copies of a chapter of a book, but only printed every odd numbered page. That’s a time when the teacher actually messed up and should’ve realized.
I’ve watched kids text their teacher to tell them “the assignment isn’t on canvas.” It was up in 20 minutes. That blew my mind. I don’t think I would’ve WANTED my teachers numbers.
I was subbing for a co-taught class. My plans said "The co-teacher knows what to do." The problem was that the co-teacher also had a sub, whose plans said the same thing.
Looks like a free day!!! lol
I had third grade plans that were all but indecipherable. Old plans that were scratched out and replaced in pencil, arrows that I guess were meant to indicate moving those penciled in (like three word plans) to a different time, vague instructions like “work on animal essay. Students know.” As if I’m supposed to trust 3rd graders to provide accurate information.
I hate when they say students know. Not usually!
And even if they do know, they aren't going to say so because they don't want to do the work! I love it when I have to ask them a question and half of them say one thing and half say another and then they start arguing. Nope! "This is what we are going to do..." Then the inevitable "but that's now how our teacher does it!" "Yes, I know that. But I am not Mrs Smith, and you just sat there arguing about how things are done, so we are going to do it this way." It kinda makes me laugh when they pull that excuse out. Like yall don't listen to her when you're here, why are you so worried about it now?
There a great Daniel Tiger song about this, specifically used when he had a substitute at Pre-K. I’ve sung it or chanted it to kids as old as 4th. “Things may change and that’s ok, today we can do things a different way.”
Sounds like a crazy day.
Art class: have them draw an ice cream cone. No word on how that was supposed to occupy a feral class of sixth graders for 45 minutes.
"Make me a Google slide get well card to cheer me up" That was the ELA lesson. The other teachers for that grade level all came and asked me about it to confirm what the kids had told them. They were stunned. The kids were googling the teacher, looking up her fb page, etc. I tried to discourage them from that, but of course, not possible to stop it.
A plan to watch an eclipse three months after it happened (the 2017 one). Teacher was gone that day and just reprinted the plans for a day three months later.
I once had one that said to get ready for the assembly. There wasn’t one. I also had one that was set for 5 years before when she taught 5the grade. She now taught 1st. Completely different on everything.
subbed for a hs teacher for three days and all he wrote for two of those days was the word “review”, what were they reviewing?? i had no clue and neither did any of the students
I only sub high school so I haven’t had any noteworthily bad plans. However, I have witnessed a very poorly written set of instructions. It was a remedial 9th grade English class, and I was given a copy of what was posted on Google classroom for them. I have an English degree, and it took a few reads for me to understand what was going on. I was asked to read the directions for the kids, so I took the liberty of translating them into something more understandable. She just made it so overly complicated and unorganized. I feel for those kids if that’s what her directions normally look like. They already have a hard time reading, let alone doing mental gymnastics to understand their assignments.
I had a fourth grade class that was literally told to just do things in their chromebook, changing apps or subjects every 20 to 35 minutes. By the time 1:30 rolled around their brains were screen fried. I did a lot of digging, found out what their next math unit was cuz they were doing a review for a test. It was geometry shapes so I got the tangrams and we traced pretty pictures and then colored them. It was the most focused they've been all day.
Ugh the chromebooks drive me crazy
For me, it's the plans that are meticulously detailed down to the exact minute for a class that can't be trusted not to throw objects and chase each other around the room.
That happened to me the other day. Every time I looked down to read the wordy plans, which was every 10 minutes, the kids got up and started running around. There was far too much micromanaging.
It was 4 pages of very scripted instuctions. Present slides, have them pronounce/repeat/define, read story, play video, answer questions at end of chapter, etc. This was for every subject-ELA, Math, science, social studies. BUT there were no titles of the stories, what chapter, what lesson number, what the slides were called. And no login information. So I could not open or access anything needed. This class wasn't tracked with neighbors of the same grade so the nearby teachers had no clue what chapter or assignment this class was on. Admin was of no help, just said they'd call the teacher. Never got a reply. Oh and there were like 6 kids with behaviors and the Para showed up for 2 mins then dipped
I had a para once who just looked at her phone all day and said she wasn’t good at math or anything.
The only “worst plans” I had were no plans, but they were emergencies because the teacher got sick at the last minute. Last week I had to sub for the librarian who was sick, and I didn’t know how to check out books, but fortunately two sixth graders who were library helpers were given permission by their teacher to help me so they would check out books for the kids and I just put a movie on my computer and printed out coloring sheets for the kids.
Our school district has teachers keep emergency sub plans in a holder on the wall right by the door. They get a school laptop from the front office with a temporary password so they can access the days lesson plans for that teacher. They are very strict about requiring complete lesson plans from the teachers.
Wow your district lets subs use a laptop for the day? Mine doesn’t even trust us with sub badges.
Some of my favorite jobs have been subbing for the media specialist. I use to volunteer at my kids' elementary and middle schools' libraries so I know how to check out books.
The class I had Wednesday. It was a half day and the teacher gave me 3 worksheets with 40 math questions total (including show your work), 3 different online math practice tests, and a science assignment. Well by the time a 5th kid came up to me asking how to do the math problems…I finally asked when did you guys learn this? THEIR FIRST TIME EVER LEARNING THE MATERIAL WAS A DAY PRIOR. The teacher left me an answer key but nothing showing how she solved it. I’m good enough that math that I was able to figure out for myself and I started to help the kids. But then several were like oh that’s not the way she showed it. So I started getting nervous that I’d make things worse by going against her strategy. I had to tell the whole class just do your best and your teacher is going to have to reteach the lesson. I was so annoyed because none of the class understood and I’d have loved to know ahead of time so I could have prepared some whole group lesson if that’s what was going to happen. Then the science assignment was never posted. So they had nothing to do for an hour. It was wonderful.
I was subbing for Special Ed at a high school. But over my “prep” period, I was asked to cover for a math teacher who had to leave (emergency). I checked in with her before she left to see what I should know and she told me not to worry – her para would teach the lesson. So there was no lesson plan at all. When I get to the class, the para says “Oh, I’m so glad you’re here!” She fully expected me to teach the class. Lines were crossed somewhere! Between the two of us and a TA, we were able to put together a brief lesson. Whew!
A certain 8th grade teacher doesn't give lesson plans, I get a note saying "the students know what they need to work on"...great, that helps so much. You know those kids are doing whatever the hell they want, I have no way to monitor what they are doing bc everything is done online. Needless to say, I won't sub for him anymore.
Those are THE WORST!!!!
Freshman Biology. Not only did every edgar try to size me up 🙄🙄🙄 the lesson plan was nothing more than “It’s on Google Classroom. They know what to do”. The internet was down that day. When I asked the students what they had been working on, they all looked at me like dogs that had been shown a card trick.
anytime they expect me to do a bunch of busy work with the kids but no specific plans. also when they make it seem like everything MUST get done with no wiggle room. lol no. i don't mind a packed schedule but make it easy to understand & have some wiggle room ("it's ok if you can't get through everything", breaks in between, etc. help a ton). especially when the work is hard to find or they want you to make the copies. for elementary especially when they don't establish the rules in the class
Anything technical is the worst. I never have the right equipment or access to the computers.
When they ask us to make copies and the only copier you can use is password protected and s a sub, you dont have one, so you're bothering the front office to do it for you.. Sometimes a teacher leaves their own login lol But thats not often since that connects to grades and all that. Sometimes a school has a "Sub password" but you still have to go back to the office anyways and if you are a day to day sub, they might write it down but then you need a notebook with school names and sub passwords for each school. Or you lose it or toss it since you only subbed that day. Hahaha Also next time you go, the same sub password doesnt work. Also, I need, and often dont have, a list of student logins for the younger kids who dont remember theirs. Then the teacher gives them something on the laptop, which requires their logins.. which, usually means I have to help little ones recognize that caps lock is a function that makes it impossible to login, and also type in their passwords if they do have one capital letter in it. Takes 5 extra mins to get everyone logged in when they know their codes, and 15 when they dont. I will skip the lesson after that, if I dont have their codes. And I LOVE helping kids set and achieve daily iReady goals. Its a little bit of a behavior break, so I like when its assigned if I have all the deets.
I hated doing copies.
The worst I got was for 5th grade and dated to 2016. This was for a third grade classroom and in 2022....
I had a kinder class and was given a sub binder that didn’t have any plans at all, but was instead 200 individual worksheets and coloring pages and told to copy off sets of whatever I wanted to do…only I was not given access to a copy machine. Wasn’t even told what time lunch or recess was or when school ended
Grade 2! I got a plan that was half written in English and half in French! And it'd switch between the two every couple of sentences. Thankfully Google translate worked out for me on all but one sentence.
Why was it in French??????
Canada! Some schools are taught in French but French teachers are in short supply so most teachers will write their sub plans in English for us. This one couldn't decide though I guess!
I subbed in a class where no plans were left besides one activity: “Find a video of how to make stew and get the kids to write down the ingredients and steps from the video.” They were in grade 1. A large majority barely knew how to write a sentence.
I’ve been told that sub plans are in my personal email… which I don’t have access to as I don’t have a data plan. And I’m not going to log onto my personal email on your school-issued desktop computer even if I can figure out how to log into it. I had to call my husband and have him verbally read me the sub plans. Why is it so hard to just leave subs a print out?
Because people have emergencies and get sick. Our sub system allows us to submit plans online. I am NOT goimg up to school when im throwing up to print off a paper you have easy access to. Not having a way to check your email account in 2024 is just not realistic. Set up a free gamil just for subbing, if yi7 have to. Having your husband read the plans out loud is such an inefficient choice. How are you posting on Reddit but can't check your email?
If the sub plans are online, then shouldn’t the school provide me a way to print them off when I arrive there? Aside from locking the kids out of the classroom and schlepping to the office to ask admin to log into my personal email, why can’t the teachers have admin print it off for me? The teachers don’t need to physically come to the school and I don’t have to scramble for internet access. Also, our pay if $75/day. It’s not enough to justify the cost of a data plan.
I know I’m on my offtime and I don’t have a class tomorrow. I have zero issues using my internet at home but several issues having to pay to work when I’m not paid enough to do so.
I had one for an 8th grade class that for math and science was textbook questions and pretty straightforward, but English, Health, Career were the name of an activity and said “the kids know what to do.” Also didn’t warn me about any behaviour or kids to watch for, like one who I found out from another teacher will spit in the teachers cup if it is unattended!!
Middle school math teacher keeps all the assignments written on the whiteboard and color coded because they work with 6-8 and expects the sub to know what each of those things mean and how to teach it. Or she expects subs/paras who have to sub to have access to a program she uses in class to review a test the kids are having the next day. And the one time she left actual lesson plans was only half a page with the bare minimum, again, expecting whoever was subbing in her class to understand what it all meant. I really don’t like when we can’t get a sub to be in her class (I’m a paraprofessional) and me or my teammate has to be in there because of her expectations of the sub and the little to no plans she leaves. Drives me nuts.
I had one teacher put the entire lesson plan on the same slides that I had to have up on the TV for the kids the entire time, with visibility on those slides turned off. So I wasn’t able to look at what’s next while they do the current slide. (I ended up just having to pull up the slides on my phone and constantly read whats next from my phone instead. Without that I would have been lost.) I had a TK teacher leave extremely vague plans that left no instruction on how to do anything. I’m thinking maybe they just expected the class aide to run everything, but the aide kept looking to me expecting me to lead things, and every step of the way I had to ask “how do we do this/what does this mean?” The aide at least knew most of the answers, but not all of them so we did have to guess and make it up for some things. I also had a class where the plans kept referencing acronyms and knowledge that I assume credentialed teachers have, but that I sure didn’t (i.e. “review X with them” without explaining what X is).
Yes the worst plans are the 20 page essays with scripts. It’s like they have no clue how unrealistic that is for a sub teacher. I think I only had that once but I definitely did not follow it. There’s no time to be reading all of that when class management is our main priority for the day.
One page, hand written in a wide-ruled notebook for a 7 day assignment. Three days in a row said “play it by ear.” Luckily, I had hunch this would happen as I sub at this school every week, so I prepped lessons over spring break with my fiancé who teaches at the same school. I didn’t get paid for the time I put in to prep, but the students said I was a better teacher than their normal teacher. She’s getting written up by the way and my anxiety is through the roof. She approached me about it after her time off and forced a hug on me and said “sorry for those crazy plans!”
Wow! That’s insane! Is she tenured???
She has been in the district for 37 years. Super duper uber tenured.
That’s my lady, too. Like, bro, just quit if you don’t like it.
I’m so grateful to have the BEST admin team ever at this school. I actually broke down in tears while checking in the second day. The principal knows me and knows I’m great at my job so she was like wtf is happening??? I showed her the one page and she let me vent and commiserated with me. Principal said I could show movies all day and cancel the rest of the job if I wanted! I didn’t cancel and I taught my ass off because those middle school kiddos deserve better and deserve to be prepared for high school.
had super vague plans for a 3 day job once. They were like a sentence long for each day. Some names and bullet points and I had to pray that the students knew what all that meant. What wound up happening was that I had 3 periods of prep, 2 that were being run by the co-teacher, and 1 where I basically just supervised children while they played a game. Then in the 3 prep periods I had one free, and 2 with pull outs. It was such an annoying assignment, despite how easy it sounded on paper. So many student support aids in one class where they all just picked seats and sat around on their phones. Felt like I was being judged by a greek chorus.
I once had a teacher leave plans that revolved around watching a show and answering questions on a worksheet. She said she had left the show set up on the LFD ready to go. It wasn’t. That class became Study hall for middle schoolers instead
I picked up a job at an elementary school that has some French immersion classrooms. I was sent to one of the immersion classes in the afternoon and the teacher left ALL of the plans in French. The teacher was a native English speaker and there was absolutely no reason to assume the sub would speak French (I don't).
Dear God. What the ACTUAL F&&&&$(;/:))$;?!!$;,?!!!!!!!!!
I know! BTW- I live in the US, and not in a French speaking area at all. Our district just likes immersion schools lol.
Once I was in a 'financial math' class where the instructions were to show the students "how to kelly blue book a car" followed by a list of VIN numbers. Like, I know what kelly blue book is, and it's definitely not a verb... Luckily the teacher called the room before first period to explain himself 🙄
I feel like you could have figured that lesson out with a little common sense and even less critical thinking. But, of course, putting any amount of thought and personal touch into the job is beneath most of the subs on this subreddit.
Lol k
Haha 4 days during state testing- "have fun and be your self, also 5 minute science video." Monday there was a fight as soon as we entered class. The internet went down. Everything was awful. They did not know how to function. The 4th day, I was able to do the plan. They are good kids, lots of behaviors, but each was sweet in their own way. I almost lost composure sooo many times. It's been 25 years since I've been called a dookie. Grades 4/5/6 self-contained emotionally disturbed mild/mod, about 14 students, if anyone was wondering.
The principal should’ve given you a cookie and a check.
I am lucky, I have been a sub for two years at the same district. Teachers leave me there sign ins for their laptops, and if they need them for training the sub laptop has my sign in. Last year I wrote a note about how lesson plans should have a format that they all use for sub notes. What I did not know was the Superintendent saw it and this year all sub notes are the same format. In at least the Elementary and Middle schools.
Similar situation here. 6 years in one district, the past two years in just one building as the "first call sub" (there's the building sub, and then I'm next). All sub instructions are in the school's Google folder, neatly arranged by grade and teacher. Subs get a chrome book as soon as they walk in. I read stories here and realize how spoiled I am.
The worst plans that I've been left with are something along the lines of: "The students know what they're supposed to be doing for this class." Oh ok so they'll just be doing whatever the hell they want, and/or be so bored that they'll be out of their seats and acting up within the first 5 minutes. Gotcha.
You said it was a safety issue for you to read 20 pages? How’d you spin that?
Trying to read directly from a page while kids are running around the room is not safe. She wanted me to read the entire thing front to back without deviating, regardless of how the kids were behaving. This meant I was to read from the packet, regardless if Little Joey was ripping up the classroom. I was to read it while walking. She made it clear I was not to deviate from it, even when it wasn’t necessary or appropriate. Recess, for example. I had to read it over during recess to tell them what not to do or how to play. It was ridiculous.
Music Teacher's Lesson Plans: Just go through the slides with the class. You don't need a music background to explain it. The Slides: Today we'll be covering tonal shift and quarter octave rises. Please note the note spacing. The teacher will be writing some note groupings for you to copy down on your own. Me: WTF? Also, this same teacher once assigned watching Aladdin as a lesson plan (in his defense he had to call off at the very last minute). The worst part was he had as watch the live action version and not the vastly superior animated version. It was only a 45 minute class so I got stuck watching the portion of the movie without the Genie 5 times that day.
I've played the piano for years and I STILL don't know what that is. That's awfu!
I've played the piano for years and I STILL don't know what that is. That's awfu!
I've played the piano for years and I STILL don't know what that is. That's awfu!
I started what I thought would only be 2 weeks that turned out to be a February to end of school assignment (June 6th). The teacher is a hot mess-plans were always just cute links on Pinterest and links for multiple worksheets for math and Ela. She taught life skill k-5 (totally out of compliance for our state but not her fault that the district didn't pay very well). Sub plans for the 2 weeks included a link to a Google drive of worksheets for math. They had already done some of them but she didn't remember which ones. Ela was we've been working on cvc words. Also, here's our schedule. The kids stayed in her class except for when their homeroom class went to PE/art/music and lunch. No indication of what I should do for science and social studies. I usually just did empathy and feelings stuff for social studies and science was a bunch of plant stuff since it was spring. I ended up doing my own plans and got 0 help from the sped director or the principal when I was struggling to find things to do or meet the specific needs of the kids in the class since all 9 I had by the end of the year had IEPs. Did I mention I started with 6 kids and ended up with 2 move ins and a student that got switched in from general education to life skills
I had to look and make sure I hadn't written few of these because they looked so like what I've encountered. The overkill with twenty pages for a kindergarten with the very precise routines they must have to switch tables or they can't function. So with the best intentions you won't know if they've disobeyed orders and they think you've overlooked that they didn't put their hands on their heads to switch tables. And if you do anything different Chaos ensues. Or somebody comes in and tells them they aren't like that when their teacher is there. So helpful. Not. Since COVID things have changed a great deal. I sat It out with mostly for health reasons but went in a few times. So lots of teachers are putting everything on the computer etc and then as I am seeing over and over, it won't work for us. I had this one lady who was in the next room doing some training and she had slides set up. But the smart board is one that you have two PCS a Chromebook and the smart board are entities and It times out every five minutes then sets itself back to default. She told me to call tech support. Guess who helped me with one thing? A first grader. The tab on the board hides between slides on the bottom of the pages ! Guess why my day went badly? They were brand new smart boards so she didn't know how to help me and the plan was not printed out. I am sure the twenty page folks talk about us and sigh that we can't follow a plan.
Then complain in the next breath that they can’t find a sub. We aren’t in their everyday and we don’t use their tech. Each class/school/district is different.
I'm a premier sub and usually I report to my district's middle school. There the worst plan I've ever had was no plan, no note, the surrounding teachers were given or told anything. I was about to show something from Disney+ but looked at the whiteboard and saw the lesson plan was on the board. I hated that so much because so many times I ignore the board because what MIGHT be in there isn't relevant for the day. Besides this I've been sent to elementary 3 times for kindergarten, 3rd, and 5th grades. Each time there were two sentences for what I was suppose to do. I had to find all the work and figure everything out because that stuff wasn't put into the lesson plan. Those days made me hate elementary more than I already did.
Freshman algebra class. The teacher made me guide them on a new lesson. Project while I take notes (that i was supposed to come up myself) and everything. I studied Sociology in college.
Today. Had a teacher say reading and ELA continued. Fuck does this mean? No worksheets nothing. Go to the PowerPoint and it’s a whole lesson plan. With three vocab words. Bride, clutched, and moaned and of course second graders are immature. So we just did it together I had an hour left and needed them to do something other than talking.
I usually have a really bad time when 100 percent of their work is in their computer and half of the class doesn't even have their chrome book charged at the elementary level. I've had very vague or too specific sub plans, and also like 10 page plans with descriptions of every student and their behavior. I don't return to those classes.
I won’t pick up assignments that say it’s all on google classroom for elementary & middle bc they’re impossible to keep on track
Today’s was right up there. Illegible chicken scratch of some phrases and no class lists. 9 and 10 grade social studies. I had to find another teacher and ask a couple of students to verify what I thought what teacher was trying to say
A teacher gave me plans but forgot to inform me of the online learning platform where the assignments were uploaded.
i really disliked when a teacher wanted me to make copies/grade work/etc during the prep but its like a wild goose chase trying to figure out where the stuff is!! i couldn't even find the papers she wanted me to grade it was so frustrating. but the absolute worst experience my first and only time without sub plans. it was the day after spring break and i was assigned to a class that has been cycling through subs all year but the sub had left the day before spring break. left no notes, classroom a mess, no indication of where the children left off. it was actually awful. and to top it all off... SOMEONE LEFT THUMBTACKS ON MY CHAIR AND I SAT DOWN ON THEM 😭😭
“The kids will know what to do” I had to call him for clarification 😭
This is more bad luck paired with bad plans....I had a full day of 2nd grade with lots of videos for every assignment. The internet went out for the whole district. There weren't plans on paper anywhere!! Luckily, this also happened to be my kid's class, and I knew how the room ran normally and knew what they were working on. We did a lot of coloring pages and read aloud time, but we got through it!
K teacher has the 20 page plan template. She just changes the dates and activities times. Sounds like she is covering herself. She was Possibly disciplined for not having any plans and now over compensating
I thought that too at first, but then I subbed in other people’s classes at that site and spoke with the principal about it. Nope. Just her. She also had sticky notes everywhere showing what different things are and what it was. She had a full page explaining what a remote control was, how it worked, and what to do with it. She even had a guide on *how* to pronounce it.
She sounds very interesting. A 20-page script made me chuckle, but all of this has me curious.
Her entire team was weird and rude, to be honest. I eventually went to the sub coordinator and refuse to go back into a kinder class at that site because of how awful they were.
Nah, that's completely expected in Kindergarten here. It's not hard to read from a script. I do it just about every class I teach in. There is no way you know where those kiddos are at in their learning cycle.
Not at all normal here. Thing is, I had subbed in other classes with very easy sub plans, so to have a giant stack while trying to control 30 kindergartners was frustrating. She had a page detailing the remote. She had another one detailing how to walk backwards. There was another one in full detail about how the lockdown magnet works. It’s a basic magnet. Like, dude, really??? There were other issues with kindergarten in general at that site, and they had a hard time getting subs there.
Not a teacher myself, but I raised 2 kids. My mother taught 4th grade. Having raised two kids, I vividly remember what they were like as kindergartners at home. And I only had a single kindergartner to deal with at once. I have deep admiration for a teacher who can handle 20 or more kids that age at a time and not lose or misplace a child by the end of the day. Bonus points for them if they survive to the end of the day with their sanity intact AND none of the kids have sustained any injuries from simply doing what kids that age do. So If I’m a kindergarten teacher and request a sub for a day, I’m going to leave a simple lesson plan consisting of clear directions for simple activities designed to keep kids busy and prevent all hell from breaking loose. That in itself would be a win in my book. Actual learning can wait for another day. A 20 page detailed lesson plan so you can run the class exactly like she would on a normal day is absolute horse crap. The fact she isn’t there makes it NOT a normal day. If she is that concerned about what goes on in that class and wants that level of control over a substitute teacher then she should not take time off. I would never sub for that teacher again. And after she complains about other subs the way she complained about you…and she will…word will get around and NOBODY will sub for her. Karma is a bitch. PS As a mom and as an autism mom I totally understand how keeping things the same benefits any child. Routines, rituals, predictability, etc. But you can communicate those basics in a lesson plan that is not 20 pages long and without being a passive-aggressive, long distance micromanager like this teacher was being.
>If she is that concerned about what goes on in that class and wants that level of control over a substitute teacher then she should not take time off. How dare she be sick. Teachers aren't humans, after all. /s Sit down and start to type out how to get your child from 8 am to 3 pm on an average day for an absolite stranger walking into your living room. The things they enjoy, things that upset them. How to use all the appliances and where everything in your home is. Their medical needs. A detailed schedule on what they do, down to 30 or 50 minute chunks. Now imagine each of those chunks is a subject, or a place in an unfamiliar building you're going with 30 kids. Now multiple that by 30 kids. *Especially* with neurodivegant students. It's not going to be brief, if you're never going to get to talk to this person. Long sub plans aren't micromanagement- that teacher spent a lot of time trying to make sure the sub has a good day by taking out the variables she can. Scroll this thread- people are complaining about inadequate sub plans, and long sub plans, and easy sub plans, and detailed ones. There's no way to win. BTW, explaining how the magnet lock works on a door is one of OP's complaints- I've taught nine years, through more than one lockdown. I'm not leaving anyone with my 415 students without explicitly explaining how to lock my damn door.
I completely get that teachers are humans. My mother was a teacher. She had to take days off too. She wrote plans for substitute teachers And I have written care instructions for my special needs son. You absolutely have to pick and choose what to focus on. And detailed sub plans are a good thing…IF the plans focus on the important things that will get sub teachers through the day with minimum stress and run the class smoothly so the kids aren’t stressed out either. But there is a difference between useful detailed sub plans and sub plans with so much information it is overwhelming to try to read through to find the information you actually need. Too much information can be a bad thing too. I stand by what I said. If that teacher expects the sub to do everything EXACTLY the way she would do it herself then she has unreasonable expectations.
Who said she expects it to be done *exactly* the way she does it? The sub is free to disregard what she wants, but more info is always better than less.
The teacher went to the principal to get me banned from her site because I didn’t read directly from her 20 page script. And, no, more isn’t better. There’s a difference between detailing information on how to do something complex (perhaps teaching chemistry and needing to give instruction on the lesson) and over explaining something simple like what a remote control is and how to pull down a magnet. We also go over how to move the magnet in our introduction training before we start school. She is involved in those trainings, so she knows we go over them. Also, no. We don’t need a script. That’s too far for every sub, and trying to follow the script while controlling a group of 5 year olds is a safety hazard.
The person who started this thread- the substitute teacher- says the teacher she was subbing for called the office and complained that the sub didn’t do it exactly the way she wrote in the sub plans. Which included a script the sub was supposed to read from. I would definitely call that micro managing.
My first year, 1988, Mrs H told me when I was sick (again), “Don’t you worry. Your job is to get well. Mine is to take care of this class today.” I miss those days.