Make your day a success for everyone involved.
Dear Substitute Teacher,
We are so grateful for your service to our school communities. You keep the wheels of learning turning when our teachers cannot be present in the classroom. Thank you for being present and for caring for our young learners.
Here are a few guidelines, hopes, and expectations to keep in mind while you serve at your local school. We know that you’re human and you may still be new to formal educational contexts, so embrace the grace of knowing that none of us are perfect. Consider the list of practices and principles described here as a set of commitments to aspire to.
1. Student safety and welfare is number one.
Every decision you make in our learning environments should pass through that filter. If you’re uncomfortable or unsure about a situation, feel free to ask a nearby administrator, teacher, or paraprofessional. But if you’re keeping our students safe, happy, and well, you’re already on the right track.
Student safety also requires that we refrain from ever touching students as a way to guide or correct them, except to avoid an emergency. In case of student injury or illness, call the main office immediately for first aid support and seek help from a colleague. In case of a serious or life-threatening emergency, call 911 and then the school office.
2. Model the values of the school community.
Most school communities extol the virtues of industry, innovation, kindness, generosity, hospitality, inclusiveness, and respect. My school’s mission statement describes transformation of character through excellence and service.
Whatever the mission, vision, and values of the community you’re in, you’re an ambassador for the brand. Model the values of the school in everything you say and do while you’re on campus.
3. Be friendly and smile. A lot.
You may be new, which means some students won’t know what to make of you for a while. Smiles and laughter go a long way to let students know that they are safe with you and you are happy to be learning with them, so smile early and often.
Act as if your day just took the best turn ever when you learned that you’d be spending part of it with these students.
4. Be punctual.
Aim to arrive at your school 20–30 minutes before your job begins. This allows for bad traffic on the commute, heavy parent or bus traffic around the school campus, human traffic in the halls, and other congestion or disruptions that appear before the first bell of the day.
During the day, aim to be at assigned rooms before the bell that signals the beginning of the period.
When you’re running late, stress and anxiety skyrocket and problems multiply. You’ll enter classrooms feeling flustered, behind, and out of sorts. It’s not a good look and it doesn’t feel good for you or anyone around you.
5. Mingle, circulate, and establish proximity during learning blocks.
Be present and visible during class periods. If students are working on pre-assigned tasks, circulate frequently through the classroom.
Talk to students, ask curious questions, look over shoulders, and maintain awareness of your surroundings. Circulation is an easy way to gently remind students that you exist, you care, you have expectations for their learning, you’re supporting the absent teacher, and this class time is not a free-for-all. Try to limit your own phone activities to the essentials.
6. Monitor student activities on devices frequently.
Most schools frown on allowing students unrestricted free time online. Once students have finished a learning task, encourage them to engage in other learning or creative activities or shut computers off entirely. Gaming, social media, or YouTube surfing are not acceptable uses of class time.
7. Always speak respectfully.
You’re working with impressionable minors, which means you’ll need to avoid coarse language and speak with discretion at all times. It also means that we never insult, negatively label, ridicule, or use sarcasm with students (ex. “You’re lazy” or “That was stupid” or “Great idea, genius”).
If students use defiant or inappropriate language with you, refuse to return it in like fashion. Take the high road, keep it classy, and represent the profession with dignity.
8. Remain physically present at your assigned location.
One exception to that would be a washroom break, but if you do leave the room temporarily for that purpose, let another staff member know.
If you decide to leave the building for lunch, it’s also a good idea to let office personnel know, even if it’s just by text.
Educational assistants may be present to support the students in your learning environment if you need to step out of the room briefly, but the overall safety and operation of the class is still your responsibility.
9. Dress professionally.
A number of factors will affect attire decisions, including weather and learning environment. Aiming for semi-professional attire in the classroom and new(ish) athletic wear in gymnasiums is a good place to start.
Dressing well is a way to show respect for the learners you’re serving and the colleagues you’re serving beside. It says this work matters to me.
10. Support the teacher’s intentions for the class.
Listen, we know that you’re often coming into the teacher’s lesson plans cold and with little lead time, and we’re grateful that you’re doing the best you can.
But avoid the temptation to shortcut the teacher’s intentions (ex. “Oh, let’s just skip that”) or contradict a teacher’s call in front of the class. Be mindful of the fact that teachers often invest considerable time and mental energy to prepare for your day, and what happens in their classes matters to them.
11. Start your day well.
Start by covering your bases. If you’re opening a school day with a class, you’ll need to (1) warmly welcome students and introduce yourself, (2) record attendance (hopefully the teacher has left you a class list), (3) communicate your attendance with the office by phone, paper message, or online system, and (4) share relevant announcements with students.
12. Finish your day well.
When you end the day with students in a given classroom, help them to take reasonable steps to clean and tidy the learning space. This looks like stacking chairs, picking up belongings, putting away trash, closing windows, and wiping down whiteboards.
Don’t frustrate neighboring teachers and contribute to chaos in the hallways by dismissing your students early before the final bell.
13. Leave notes for the teacher.
Whoever left your plans for the day will want to know how the period(s) went: were students on task, were they engaged, did they behave themselves, did you experience any difficulties, and did you achieve the instructional goals of the lesson.
Write brief summaries for each period to that effect. You can do so by commenting directly on the digital lesson plans, by writing some notes in an email, or by leaving handwritten notes on or in the teacher’s desk. The best medium will vary by context.
14. Bring back-up activities.
Always plan for the worst case scenario: a room full of students but no lesson plans, resources, or information of any kind (or a sudden loss of wifi for an all-online lesson).
Take the time to photocopy and pack a full day’s worth of logic puzzles, sudokus, mapping activities, writing prompts, short stories, Math worksheets, and similar items x 35.
This isn’t the time to worry about the world’s gold standards for pedagogical approaches. This is about making sure you have the tools to survive any resource disaster.
15. Ask questions.
If and when you’re not sure about something, don’t hesitate to ask an administrator, teacher, or office assistant. Everyone in the building wants you to have a successful experience while you’re at their school, and people are generally happy to help in any way they can.
Thanks again, and good luck.
Again, we’re incredibly grateful that you’ve made the commitment to support teachers and schools during this season of life. You’re playing an important role in the life of our learning communities, and we appreciate you.
Take a deep breath, my friend. You’re going to make somebody’s day today.
Now get into that school building with a smile and have some fun.
Teachers on Fire 