As If You Didn't Have Enough Reason To Worry About Your Child's Public School...

I've had some pretty horrible subs. Scary subs, angry subs, incompetent subs, non-English-speaking subs...You name it, I've probably had one of those people in my classroom babysitting my kids.

Because of that, I always plan when I'm going to be out so I can obtain a good sub before I'm going to be out. Rarely do I call in the night before or something. Well, I had a 'business day' Thursday, where I was on campus but not in my room and I completely forgot that I needed to get a sub. And, of course, when I remembered, all the good standbys were spoken for.

The sub who accepted my job came to introduce himself last week on Tuesday. I was impressed with the fact that he was wearing a suit, spoke very good English, had a very old "Associate Teacher" badge (which meant he'd been with the district a long time), and was cordial enough to come meet me. I was totally confident that dude was going to do a great job.

Then, Thursday morning, the guy came in real early and sat down in my room and wouldn't stop talking. I was trying to write the instructions on the board and he just kept going on about his life, his teaching experience, which schools he's been to before, and on and on. I explained about my 1st period being rough and how the day gets better as it goes on. But he seemed to know what was going on and how to handle these kids.

So imagine my shock and surprise when I began realizing everything that went wrong. I'll even tell this in the order in which I learned it.

Thursday at 6th period, I called my room to tell this guy that I was going to come down at 2:05 to walk my kids to the gym for the pep rally and that he got to go home a little early and miss the buses. I get to my room at 2:06 (they aren't supposed to be in the gym until 2:10 and it backs up to my room so it's a short short walk), and there is no one in my classroom. A kid who was supposed to be in my class right then was wandering the hall and said, "Oh, he took them to the gym." I was so pissed that I didn't even realize the kid was skipping until later!

After the pep rally, I had kids coming in for tutoring (9, but only 2 showed), and that's when I realized that my ISN (interactive student notebook) was missing from my desk. We have to have a sample notebook for the students to use as a model, so I created one with drawings and everything, with all the handouts and all, and I keep it on my desk. When kids are done with their classwork, they can come get my ISN and make sure theirs is all up to date and in order. I specifically told the sub that no one should be touching that notebook, because they should be doing the assignment on the board and it would take more than one class period. So if he let someone borrow it during the period and they accidentally walked out with it, he was going against my instructions anyway. But it was gone. Poof. Deleted from my life. Not only did I have some really good sketches in it, but my other kids need it! So I was pissed. It never would have happened if I was there - I assure you that. In all my years of teaching, no one has ever stolen anything from me - not so much as a PEN. But, leave one incompetent "associate teacher" in the room...

Yesterday, I totally reamed 1st period's ass because they did absolutely nothing in class yesterday. It's not unusual for that to happen, even with me there, but some of them didn't even have the directions copied down. Second period, same deal. Not so normal for them. One of them said, "Well, it was hard to concentrate! The sub wouldn't stop talking." Third period - really good kids - nothing done. At this point, I'm like, "WTF?!" So I asked the kids (after my lecture about being someone being a thief and how I wasn't creating a new sample) exactly what the problem was. They said he wouldn't stop talking, that he was telling jokes the whole time, and one girl almost started to cry.

"What's wrong, hon?" I asked.

"The substitute. My mom wants me to make a formal complaint. He said some things."

Turns out he said that she looked like the kind of girl who will get a little older and get tattoos all over her ass. First off, I'm not sure why they were even talking about tattoos, but the rest of that was totally inappropriate.
He also made personal attacks on 2 of my other girls. They were in different periods.

I found out he'd been telling inappropriate jokes as well. He told a joke about boys "playing in the fountain with bubbles." The problem was that bubbles was a girl, and not of the soapy kind. He told three jokes that were offensive towards Hispanics. I mean, I wouldn't even tell those jokes to my kids, and I have established relationships with them - this guy doesn't know them at all.

That was kind of the end of it. That sealed the deal.

So I go off and get the Substitute Report Form and began filling it out in anger. Then I realized that it would hold more weight if the offended girls wrote their statements and I attached them. So I did that. I also mentioned that my ISN is now AWOL. I didn't accuse him of taking it, I just said that the fact someone was able to swipe it off my desk is an indication that he wasn't monitoring the students.

And that was my Friday. I'm afraid this guy's going to retaliate against me because he's been with the district for so many years. I can just see the Director of Substitute Services getting that evaluation and going, "Pshaw! I've known Harry for YEARS! He'd never do such a thing." I can't imagine that they would toss the evaluation, because it's on NCR and several people get copies, but if he's been subbing for our district for decades, I doubt they'll care what I have to say. There is NO way he hasn't done this before. In fact, I had 3 students - 1 in 5th period and 2 in 7th period say that they remember him from middle school and he was the same way then, telling the same dirty jokes.

I can't believe I would be the only person to have reported this in all this time. The only possible explanation for that is that I really don't think most teachers ask their kids how things went with the sub. I always ask mine, and I also ask them if they liked the sub. If they like them AND they got the classwork done, they go on my "preferred sub" list. I also know that a lot of teachers seem to forget that their students are people with feelings, opinions, and preferences. So perhaps they never asked their kids' opinions about how things went, so the kids never got the opportunity to express their insecurities.

Not only have I had to write up a guy who was very nice to me in the beginning - and I hate to write up people who are nice, but damn, dude...who would ever think it's okay to do that?! - but now my kids are a day behind in their studies because this fucker couldn't adhere to my lesson plan. Not only that, but their reading is broken up by a weekend now and it's going to take even more time for them to go back and refresh their memories, rather than getting it all done on Thursday and Friday. Grr.