Ep 137 The Best Way To Ensure a Smooth Substitute Day

As educators, we understand that unexpected situations can arise at any moment, making the prospect of taking a day off seem daunting. Whether it's due to a sudden illness, a family emergency, or just needing a well-deserved personal day, the process of preparing for a substitute teacher can be overwhelming.

In this episode, join me as I explore the best strategies to make the preparation for a substitute teacher seamless and stress-free. We know that taking a day off can feel like more work than it's worth, so here are practical tips to ensure your classroom runs smoothly and your students continue learning even in your absence.

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Episode Transcript

(00:01):
Welcome to the Teachers Need Teachers Podcasts, the podcast for teachers who don't want
to just survive teaching but actually thrive. I'm really excited for you guys to
be here today because this is areally important topic that I don't know what's
taken me so long to talk about. I mean, at some point everyone
is going to miss work, andI don't know why I haven't talked about

(00:22):
subplans or sub days or substitute stuffin general. I don't know. So
I think that this is going tobe really useful for you, especially if
you are a new teacher, anddefinitely a refresher for those of you that
are veteran teachers. As teachers mayknow that the unexpected can happen at any
time, whether it's a sudden illness, a family emergency, or just a

(00:44):
much needed personal day. Having aplanned or unplanned absence can be a stressful
experience. But how can you makethe process of planning for a substitute as
stress free and seamless as possible.How can you make it so that it's
even worth taking a day off whenyou have to consider that sometimes making a
substitute plan is more work than takinga day off. I'm going to share

(01:06):
with you the best way to planfor when you're going to miswork to ensure
that your classroom runs relatively smoothly andthat you have a greater chance of your
students actually accomplishing something while you're gone. So the first thing that you need,
and I'm sure that you've already heardof this, is a substitute binder.
This has everything that your classroom needsto run. So it should include

(01:26):
things like how to take attendance,seating charts, protocol for bathroom passes,
how to handle discipline, especially withparticular students that you know ahead of time
are going to be difficult, afellow teacher to contact if the substitute has
any questions or concerns. Definitely aschool map and where the closest staff bathroom

(01:48):
is so helpful, bell schedules,daily routines, and of course the location
of your emergency substitute plans should younot have a plan for that day.
This is definitely definitely good to have, especially if you teach elementary because your
sub is going to be with yourstudents all day long. But even at
the secondary level, it's still reallygood to have a substitute finder. At

(02:09):
my school, the substitute binders arekept with the front office secretary, So
make sure, if that's the casefor you, that you keep that minder
updated every year. Now, let'sbe real here. I asked substitutes before
if they actually read this stuff oruse these binders, and a lot of
them say that they might refer toit. Most of them don't look at

(02:29):
them at all, especially if they'vealready taught or subbed at that school.
But it's still a really good thingfor them to have. So the next
thing that you definitely need are emergencysub plans. Now, I don't actually
have these because of the way thatI run my classroom. Most of you
know that I use the modern classroomproject model, which means that my students

(02:50):
get an entire unit ahead of time, and it's very much self paced.
So this means that my students havea list of all the assignments and they
know what to work on next.Whether I'm absent or pair absent, they
just know what they're supposed to donext. Also, anything that I do
gets pushed out in Google classrooms,so students can always refer to that in
my absence. Now, if youdon't use a system like this, then

(03:13):
you definitely want to have some emergencysubstitute plans. These should definitely be an
activity that you don't normally teach duringthe school year. So for me,
that will include a story or somearticles in the textbook that I normally don't
read with the students because frankly,I can't cover everything in a textbook.
So for your particular subject, youwant to think of pages or chapters that

(03:35):
you normally don't get to. Andthese could be topics that you would like
to get to, but based onthe pacing and how things go in your
school year, you know you're notgoing to get to that chapter or concept,
so that would actually be perfect foremergency subplans. You can also make
packets ahead of time that will includeextra practice in terms of things that you
have already done the school year,because it's always good for kids to practice

(03:59):
more, whether it's practicing reading andcomprehension questions or vocabulary or math, just
anything like that that you know theywould benefit from doing and that will keep
them occupied for the entire class period. And then if you trust your substitute
and you trust your kids, thisis important. You can also have online
programs that students can use for additionallessons or practice. So obviously the next

(04:24):
thing that you need if you're goingto miss a day of school is detailed
lesson plans. Now, definitely,the best way to do this is to
lead up the lessons to the daythat you're going to be gone. So
you definitely don't want to be absenton a day when you need to teach
a big concept that just doesn't makesense, because the substitute may not understand

(04:46):
that concept or just may not teachat all. So you want to try
to pace everything so that on theday that you're gone, the students are
doing some kind of individual work.So this could be more practice on a
content that you taught the day before, or it could be a test,
It could be group work if youtrust the students, it could be a
project. If they don't need alot of your help, maybe it's just

(05:10):
something that they have to do bythemselves and it's just time consuming. That
would be a good day for youto be absent because all the substitute has
to do is just sort of monitorthem, just make sure that there's enough
work for the entire period so thatstudents aren't just sitting around, because that's
when trouble happens. And then alsoyou want to have a plan if the
students finish early. Now, asyou can see, I'm not necessarily making

(05:33):
it so that the substitute has toactually teach anything, because if they don't
know my subject area, I don'twant them to teach it incorrectly. And
also if I'm relying on them toteach something and I can't do the next
day's lesson unless they taught it,then I'm setting myself up for failure.
So it's just better to have aclass period where the students are doing individual

(05:56):
or group work and it's not relianton a teacher leading it. The next
thing is I like to prepare mystudents for when I'm going to miss a
day of work and when there's goingto be a substitute. I think it's
important to let the kids know aheadof time because that way they can kind
of be in the mindset that whenI'm gone, the expectations are going to
be different. I expect them actuallyto behave better for a sub than they

(06:17):
would for me. And then youalso want to ahead of time write the
agenda on the board so that whenthe students come in, it's already ready
to go. Especially if you don'thave a substitute and it's just other teachers
covering your classes, then the agendawill be on the board because no one's
going to be there to write it. Also, if you have a learning
management system like Google Classroom or somethinglike that, use that to send up

(06:40):
the agenda as well. I woulddouble up online and on the board.
And then you can also appoint somestudents ahead of time to help the substitute
out and answer any questions if thereare any. You can also ask those
students to take attendance or just kindof make sure that things run smoothly in
the classroom if you trust. Andthen you can also let the kids know

(07:01):
ahead of time for any consequences orrewords for good or bad behavior. So
if you want to get them somekind of reward like a movie or something
like that for being good, orcandy or I don't know, whatever makes
you happy, you can do that. But you can also definitely let them
know the consequence of bad behavior.Just be careful because you don't want to

(07:23):
punish the whole class. If there'sjust a few knuckleheads that were acting up
during that time. The next thingthat you want to consider when you're going
to be absent is whether or notyou're going to tell your colleagues. So
obviously you have to call into asystem or let somebody know that you're going
to be absent, but that's usuallylike the front office secretary or maybe your
administrator. I don't always tell mycolleagues. It just kind of depends because

(07:45):
sometimes they get upset when you're gone, especially if they have to cover your
classes. It just depends on howyou get along with the people in your
school. But it is helpful ifyou do have someone who you know,
you're good colleagues with, your goodfriends, or you just get along with
and let them go ahead of time. And the reason why I do this
is so that they can maybe helpout, especially if it's an unplanned absence,

(08:07):
or just ask them to keep aneye out on my class or to
be there if the substitute has anyquestions. I just kind of have like
a buddy system with my neighbor becausewe both teach the same subject in the
same grade, and we help eachother out when the other person is going
to be absent and it's unplanned,especially and this would be the person whose
name you put in the sub binderwho the substitute can reach out to.

(08:31):
Now, the next step is preparingfor unplanned absences, which sounds kind of
interesting because it's unplanned. If youare going to be absent and it was
completely unplanned you got sick, oryour kid got sick, or just something
came up, then you definitely wantto let your front office secretary or whoever
is in charge of those absences andthe substitutes ask them if they can maybe

(08:54):
put the substitute binder on your desk. If you can, again use a
learning mannament system like Google Classroom,which I can access from at home,
you can also send out the plansfor that day and say, hey,
can you please let whoever is yoursubstitute today let them know what the plan
is. And that has actually workedreally well for me and my classes because

(09:16):
my students will check Google Classroom tosee what they're supposed to do that day.
Now, if you do have atrusted colleague, this is where it's
nice to have a buddy system.You can ask them if they can run
over to your classroom and write theagenda on the board so that whoever is
covering that day, they can seewhat the plan is, and maybe even
that colleague can print out the substituteplans for you. If both of you
have access to a computer and aprinter, they can kind of help you

(09:39):
out that way. But honestly,if it's an unplanned absence and you don't
have anything like ready to go,maybe the substitute plans aren't ready to go,
or your emergency plans were already usedlast time, you just have to
give up hope that anything is goingto be accomplished that day and it's okay,
Which leads me to the seventh thingthat you need to consider when you're

(10:00):
going to be absent, especially ifit's an unplanned absence and you're going to
have a substitute, is to justexpect the worst. I mean, you
were a kid too, you knowwhat it's like when there's a substitute.
Kids act up. Maybe you actit up. So you just have to
expect that that's what's going to happen. And if it doesn't go that bad,
well then that's just beautiful. Soeven with the best laid plans,

(10:24):
even with the most meticulous lesson plans, things will go wrong. You will
have students that will listen, andthen you'll have a group of students that
are like, sweet, I geta day off and I don't have to
do anything. And then you'll havea handful of knuckleheads who will intentionally act
up and do things that they're notsupposed to do. It's just how it

(10:46):
is. Now you need to decideahead of time how much that means to
you, because what happens in yourclassroom in your absence is literally out of
your control. I mean, thereshould be consequences for the more egregious things
that kids are doing, like writingon the board or standing at the desk,
or hitting a student or anything likethat, the obvious things, But

(11:07):
for the kids who just don't doanything, I really think you should just
let it go. The worst thingsI've actually seen happen are students doing things,
like I said, starting fights.I've had colleagues where they told me
that students stole some of their stuff, went through the desk and stole stuff.
But otherwise, just now that whenyou're gone, the worst will probably

(11:28):
happen, and you can be pleasantlysurprised by just nothing happening. That to
me, that's the best case scenariois that nothing happens. It's just a
boring old day, And oh boy, would I give them a reward for
actually doing the work while I wasgone, That would be amazing. But

(11:48):
otherwise I just expect that it's awaste of date and nothing gets accomplished and
we get behind. So definitely catchingup your students is tough when you've missed
a school day and when you werehoping that it could actually be a day
for them to work so that youcould move on to the next thing the
next day. So if you're someonewho is struggling to catch your students up

(12:09):
because of something like this, thenI would definitely check out episode one thirty
six where I talk about how tocatch up students that are struggling and falling
behind, but I also talk abouthow to catch up a whole class when
they're falling behind. Thanks for hangingout with me today, you guys,
and I will talk to you nexttime.