Worst Thing You've Found (or found missing) After You had a Sub?

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For me, it was a huge hole in the ceiling, visible sky.

 

I found a partially eaten, dead rat one time.

Not sure if it was the sub's leftover lunch...it was a new-to-the-school sub and another teacher mentioned that the sub was a little rough around the edges.

 

My students once caught a sub eating my snacks (protein bars, bananas, and almonds). Apparently, she didn't hide the fact that she was going through my desk drawers.

 

I had a sub get into my cabinets and hand out prizes to the kids. I only used these prizes for certain things and couldn't figure out why she would do that. Another teacher had a sub drink her last pop from her mini fridge.

 

One of my classes took apart a stapler. Another class put toothpaste into one of my power outlets apparently. Another, not stuff related thing, a sub thought the assignment I left for the class was too difficult (Her words) and so she took it upon herself to use my paper printing off a completely different assignment for my classes to do.

 

Hah!

Funnily enough, I do inform subs of my secret candy stash.

All I had left from a sub was a fork and a can opener.

Though recently I actually went online to look at student behavior writeups. My ADHD kid who "lost it" while I was gone... I was never actually told the details.

Well, I saw the write-ups.

Woweee.... poor sub.

 

Nothing has ever been taken, but last year I left extremely clear sub plans that really confused the substitute somehow.

The instructions for the day were something like: "As a class, read pages 76-80 in the reading textbook. Have students answer the questions at the end of the story in full sentences on this (provided) lined paper."

Apparently, this was really confusing to the substitute, and the kids told me they pretty much did nothing all day except mess around and play heads up 7 up. It's pretty bad when your elementary students report to you that the substitute was confused and yelled at them all day.

From other subs, I've always gotten feedback that I leave great lesson plans. I talked to the secretary about him and she said she had already decided not to have him back based on what she'd seen.

 

Thankfully, nothing. Granted, I've only taken the 2.5 required release days for first year teacher program stuff a couple years ago, and that's it...but those were pretty straightforward. *knock on wood*

 

I can honestly say nothing has ever gone missing.

 

I'd also like to add that, in general, we have great subs. We use a sub service, so we're never sure who we'll get, but most of the time our substitutes are very competent teachers. I'd be surprised to hear stories of anyone in our building having someone rifle through their desk.

 

If they did that, they probably would be scared away from taking anything with how messy it is

 

Mine too - I tend to "clean" my desk for my sub by shoving everything into the drawers before I leave.

At least the room appears clean without too close of inspection.

 

We have horrifying subs. The worst thing I've found was a 2 liter bottle of pop on my guided reading table. Spilled. Laying sideways. Not cleaned up. The kids said she was drinking straight out of it, and didn't bother to clean her mess when she spilled it because she was in a hurry?

 

I had a sub pull file folders from my very organized file cabinet in order to cover up the heater air flow. Same sub also hid my pencil sharpener because she didn't believe that high school students should use pencils. This sub obviously had no clue that physics students do a lot of erasing while working on problem solving assignments.

 

Never anything missing... my favorite sub story is the day I had an illiterate sub back when I first started teaching third grade. Apparently, one of my girls was so pissed off that the sub wasn't capable of doing anything that she snatched the sub plans from him, read them, and ran the class herself for the day. As luck would have it, it was the one girl that I would have trusted that year to be able to run the class effectively.

 

I actually have a story for this thread now.
I came back after having a sub on Tuesday this past week and found food wrappers and sunflower seeds (ew) on my desk and adjacent cabinets. I also discovered that she threw out my bathroom passes, which were just hand sanitizer bottles with cute tape on them that said "boys" and "girls." I've been refilling them all year since I have giant refill bottles but not very many pump bottles. Apparently they were empty so she just tossed them. Oh well. I'm mostly just glad I had a sub at all since I put in my absence around 6:25 and the cut-off is 6:30! The past couple times I've needed a sub I haven't had one and my team had to split my class.

 

I.... just..... what??? How does one become a sub without being able to read?!
Glad you had a student who was on top of things!

 

I've had some illiterate subs before.

 

I've never had anything too terrible happen. Probably the worst thing I can think of was earlier this year when my sub chose to ignore my (painstakingly detailed) plans because the students told her they wanted to play with the "blocks" (math manipulatives) instead. She ignored everything I left and let them build "houses" with the manipulatives and then wrote a group story about it. I was at the school for meetings that day and she framed it as, "They saw the blocks and really wanted to play with them, so what could I do?" Umm...you're the teacher and they're 7. Tell them that's not what you're doing today!

A few years ago my dad had a sub that left a pile of nickels on his desk to pay him for the tissues he had used that day. I thought that was hilarious!