So this is my third year subbing for this district. I have a full teaching degree and license as well as the sub license and apparently nobody wants to hire a brand new teacher as old as I am. My first year I subbed 4th and up and decided at the end of that year I was only interested in subbing for the high schools.

This district has two high schools and one prep school. When I took jobs for the prep school I never knew what grade I was going to be dealing with, because it was 6th through 12th. Regardless, all three schools were always very happy to see me because there is an ongoing sub shortage, and I was willing to cover other periods during the planning period when needed. I’d actually lasted longer than two school secretaries in that time, although the original one just returned.

I’ve posted before how last week I had three days in a row where it was all middle school classes there, and on the second day one of the kids video recorded two of the boys mock fighting while I didn’t do anything to stop it right away. I don’t believe in trying to jump on the students’ case at every little thing, but just after the video stopped it didn’t show me getting up and going to them and telling them to stop. The class has several boys who were constantly off task and disruptive, and I spent s lot of time correcting their behavior.

But of course it was the short video illegally taken (it’s against state law to video record or photograph anyone on school grounds without prior consent) that was given to the principal who showed it to me that third day and telling me I need to do better. I didn’t have any issues that day, except that as I was leaving, I’d heard some teachers gossiping about me (yes, I know it was about me because they mentioned the teacher I subbed for by name). This was Wednesday last week.

I decided at the very least I was taking a break from subbing for that school, and focus on the two high schools for a bit. I’d taken a four day job for this week covering a Spanish class for the prep school but I emailed sub services and asked to be removed from that job, and they did.

Oddly enough, since then I haven’t even seen jobs for the prep school show up on Frontline. This is unusual because there had been a lot of them before, and suddenly nothing?

It makes me wonder if the principal decided I was no longer welcome there as a sub, but of course there’s no way I can find out for certain without raising a big fuss. There’s plenty of sub jobs available at the other two schools anyway, and as I’ve also noted, I will probably have to start looking for something better paying anyway at least by the spring.