I'm relocating to another state and I was surprised to find out that you only need a high school diploma and to be 18 yrs. old to substitute teach (besides getting the substitute certification). This is definitely not the case in my current state - you need 60 credits here. I really don't like the idea of a fresh out of high school student teaching my class while I'm absent,but I'll have to get over that. Hopefully, I can find a good sub and request him/her when I'm out. The only pro is that I will have three assistants (self-contained room) so I'm sure they would help her/him anyway. What are the requirements to be a substitute in your state?
High school diploma, 18 years old and finger printed is the requirement set by the state. However, they still go through sub interviews before they are hired to sub in my district.
It's been years ago, but when I subbed in OK (after subbing in KS and having to do the fingerprinting, college hours, certification, etc.) I was told that the only qualification was "a warm body" because I wouldn't be doing much anyway. Maybe it was just the district I subbed in was pretty relaxed, but it was in a fairly large city and I would have thought the qualifications would be more.
You have to have a BS/BA and fully certified in PA to substitute. We don't get subs where I teach. The specialty teachers have to cover.
At least a high school degree, not sure if need some college hours ( i know you get more pay with a degree), at least 18, pass a background check, and pay $25 to go through a sub training.
I think you have to be at least 18 in my area as well... I couldn't imagine if the 18-year old sub was watching a high school class. That's where I would be EXTREMELY concerned, though I'd want a reliable, seasoned substitute for my own room, too.
Here in Texas it just depends on the district. Some you just have to bea high school graduate so that would mean you could be an 18 year old substitute, while others you have to be a certified teacher to be a sub.
It depends on the district, but even in my district there are variations- some schools are more lax than others.
Here you are required to have 60 college hours. Because I took some AP classes and went to summer school before actually starting college, I had 60 hours when I was 18. I could have subbed. I was 21 when I was a certified teacher for 12th graders. Not a whole lot of difference.
Here, you need a Bachelors in any field & the passing of the CBEST. I don't question certain 18 year old's maturity level. I just think they should at least have a few yrs of college under their belt & earn a bachelors degree. Just think, if these 18 year olds teach 12th grade, they could be the same age as the students. That would be strange! Will they really know enough to teach what they just left from a few weeks or so ago?
I think here you have to have a high school diploma to sub in elementary and junior high, and a college degree to sub in high school. I can't find the requirements on our website though.
Where I subbed, there were some 19yr old subs. You needed I think 35 credits--easy enough to do with a year of cc, starting in the summer. For some perspective here (I think some of you are overreacting a bit): when I saw the much younger subs, they usually seemed involved in what they were doing and mostly had plans to teach. Subbing was their first step towards this plan. But, I saw LOTS of older adults who came in with coffee and a newspaper. They just wanted the check.
I don't think age is as much of a concern to me as skill set. There are people who graduate with undergrad degrees at 18 every year and there was one young woman recently, Alia Sabur, who managed to get far enough in her education to become a college professor at 18! Ideally you would like to have someone who had enough additional education that you were fairly confident that for most general coursework (math, science, history, and english) that the sub was reasonably competent to cover the material. With a HS grad depending upon their own knowledge it could be the blind leading the blind. Sure, there are some HS grads who I think could do a decent job teaching their peers, but a lot of students have minimal mastery of HS material. Obviously some specialized classes like some foreign languages you can't expect every possible sub to have mastery, but you obviously try to match qualified candidates to sub said courses when possible. Having a student be the same age as the teacher isn't that awkward. In community colleges the you see that every day. Heck, the student is often older than the professor in some cases. Nobody considers that strange. Younger people may consider it odd, but as one grows up you discover that you don't always learn from those that are older than you.
Well, I wasn't talking about community college in my other post, I was talking about HS. Sure, in college, students of all ages are there, so yes, it's common to have the students & professors be around the same age, but people of all ages aren't still in HS. And sure, there's always those genius kids that graduate at 14-16 from HS & all that, but if they were that smart, they wouldn't just be a sub! They'd be working on their PhD at 17 or something!
Most districts around here (may be state reg, not entirely sure), you need your BA/BS in something. Anything, doesn't matter... and to pay the fee to get a sub certificate. Most districts around here, though, will call the certified teachers who are subs more often unless they know someone else is reliable. They also try to match you with a subject area, at least for specials and jr high (I didn't sub in any of the HS districts but I'd imagine they would have the same policy). There are a few highly-sought-after districts that only take certified teachers.
Where I'm originally from, in Missouri, you need between 30-60 college credits in the city I was from and the city I went to college. I was never able to sub during college because you had to go to a sub training and I couldn't fit it into my schedule, even though I had finished 3 years in the education department. Here in Idaho they're practically begging for subs. You just have to have a high school diploma and get a background check/fingerprinted. But one of my friends said they let her start subbing before they got the results of the fingerprinting back. It shocked me! That is incredibly unsafe and could cause a really bad situation.
In my district in VA, subs with a college degree get $90 per day. Assuming that somehow you got called in for all 183 days (with no snow days), that's $16,200 per year. In this area, that's not enough to live on, especially if you have kids. So, anyone with a teaching degree and certification is either going to take a job as a full-time teacher, or take a job in another field entirely. Long-term subs get slightly more, and they must have a college degree, but it's not enough to live on, unless you're in a dual-income situation. The long-term sub who works at our school when people are on maternity leave is actually a retired teacher who is married and collecting her pension. If they required teaching certification for subs at the rate they currently pay, there would not be enough subs to cover for teachers who are out. In the districts where they require certification, do they pay enough to live on?
I subbed during my college breaks--and I was 18. Believe it or not, but the easiest students to work with were the high schoolers. Granted, it was the high school I graduated from and knew most of the students, but they got to work and did everything I asked of them. The elementary kiddos were a different story--my lack of classroom management knowledge made it difficult. However, I wouldn't have traded those experiences for anything. Although I was young, I learned a lot and the students I worked with are still alive. Now, as a more experienced teacher, I have to say that the age of the substitute doesn't matter--I've had some absolutely terrible subs in the past who were middle-aged, elderly, etc.
I subbed at 18 during my winter session from my first year at college, and it was at the high school I went to! I actually had my prom date and my chem partner in one of my classes. lol. Nevertheless, I was requested a lot.
