The substitute

I left the classroom three and a half years ago. I finished my doctorate and got a job in the curriculum department. Partly for health reasons but also because I thought I’d have a larger reach and impact.

I couldn’t be more wrong.

The people in front of students every single day are the ones with the greatest reach.

The ones working the pick up line, checking out library books, emailing parents, handing out tardy slips and chocolate milk. Their reach is the greatest because it is the shortest distance to students.


People often ask me if I miss the classroom and my answer is always this,

“I miss MY classroom” because I do. I miss my students, the constant interaction and the reward.

There are parts of teaching, however, I do not miss. I do miss not lesson plans. pointless meetings, testing, angry parents, discipline, more testing. documentation, piles and piles of papers to grade, active shooter drills and the absolute exhaustion. I have traded those woes for new ones. My new job is a different kind of stressful. One that is less physically demanding but still manages to keep me up at night and make my stomach hurt. I do not get the rewards that come with student interaction. Instead I am rewarded with more flexibility in my schedule and the ability to use the restroom any time I want. I don’t think I could go back, but in no way do I consider it an even trade.


It has not even been four years since I boxed up my classroom.

Each year out of the classroom is like dog years. One feels like seven.

Add in a pandemic and it feels like a million.

I’ve seen those memes on the internet of a teacher digging a ditch and several people watching telling them what to do, rather than actually helping. I’ve often wondered how to combat that image from my cubicle. How I can help rather than just direct? What is even helpful right now. Nice notes and Sonic drinks do not feel like enough.


In this season, however, I have found a way to help dig. Late January was filled with constant emails and google sheets to sign up to sub at campuses. There were not enough well bodies to keep schools open, although we certainly tried. I subbed. My co-workers subbed. My boss subbed. Her boss subbed. Heck, even the secretary subbed. And I’m here to tell you that I have an entirely new found respect for the people that watched my classes when I was sick or my kids were sick or I pretended to be sick just so I could stay home and get caught up on grading.


Preparing for a substitute is a lot of work. Sometimes it is even more work than being present. I offer subs to teachers all the time to come in and plan or write curriculum. Many of them refuse because it is so hard to be out. They do not want to lose a day of instruction or deal with the mess that is often left for them when they are gone. If me or my children woke up sick in the middle of the night, I’d still crawl out of bed in the morning at the crack of dawn and go lay out sub plans, make copies and leave the most detailed notes I could manage. More than once I had to pull over and vomit on the way. I tried to leave out fool-proof lesson plans so that no matter who showed up my students would know what to do. There was still usually confusion. The rules and quarantines have changed things. The first teacher I subbed for had not planned on being out. They woke up with Covid symptoms and could not come and lay out perfect lesson plans that anyone could deliver. They did the absolute best they could, considering the circumstances, but it was not enough to keep the class busy the full period and it certainly was not fool proof.

In this scenario I am the fool.


I’d subbed before I started teaching and I had covered dozens of classrooms while I was in the classroom. I had even covered a few science classes in the fall. This was not my first rodeo, but the arena has completely changed. This was not like Key and Peele although I did struggle to read the names off the roll sheet. Mostly because the print was so tiny and my eyes are so old. The names were not as simple as A-Aron and I butchered them just as badly. A student volunteered to take the roll sheet and I let her.

And then realized that I now knew ZERO names of the students in my class.

They started to finish their lesson about fifteen minutes, which left me with almost thirty minutes of no names, no information and no plan. Let’s just say things could have gone better. More than one kid went to the office. I counted down the minutes until the bell rang. Students do not care one iota that I came from administration. To them I was a substitute, which means someone who they can attempt to walk on and push boundaries. This was a computer lab and I had made the mistake of assuming that these kids would be occupied even if they were not on task. Wrong. Clearly Oregon Trail has lost its appeal. Students called me “Miss Teacher”, exasperated and doing anything I could to gain ground I told them I was “Doctor Teacher”. I subbed again the next day and this teacher had worked her last day the day before. Teachers are leaving the profession at an alarming rate for the business world. This time I held tight to my roll sheets. I figured since she had already turned in her key and computer that the candy in her desk was fair game. This time, no one ended up in the office, but the only lesson plan left was a word search. The coordinator in me could not pass out a word search and call it a lesson. I was not concerned. I knew how to find the curriculum and surely I could handle one day. I logged into the CANVAS course and every single activity required a projector or tools I did not have available. Instead, I did SEL lesson after SEL lesson. Well, at least the ones that I could do sans a projector, a computer or handouts. I had no idea how long eighty five minutes actually was but it ended with several games of hangman. I had fun, but I also left exhausted.

Over twenty years of education have taught me that the most important tools for classroom management are not strict rules, a perfectly laid out classroom or a really even a strong principal.

They are relationships with kids and engaging lessons. I knew this, but it only took ten minutes as a substitute to really hammer that home. Three degrees and likely years of my life sitting through professional development and that is what it comes down to:

Relationships and engaging content.

Trying to teach students without one of those will fail every time.

Just ask the substitute or administrator covering classes down the hall.


Thankfully the cases in our area have decreased, although I suspect I have not covered my last class for the school year. I wish I could go back in time and leave every sub I ever had a Starbucks gift card, a seating chart with pictures and the best lesson plans ever.

If you have friends that are teachers and you have heard them say that this is the hardest year they have ever had in education. Believe them. Encourage them. Buy them a Sonic drink.

Their jobs are hard enough right now without extra critique, criticism, controversy and/or additional unfunded mandates.

If you are a substitute – Bless you. Thank you. Keep coming back. We literally could not keep schools going without you.

For anyone else that can - pick up a shovel and start digging.