How does your school handle getting a sub for you if you are sick, or do you have to get a sub yourself from an approved list?
Our school district has an automated call-in system to assign subs for teacher absences. When I'm going to be absent due to illness or personal reasons, I call in to the system and if I don't specify a preferred sub, the system will randomly assign a sub for the required day. I have two favorite subs that I always request. I can also record an absence and request a sub on-line. For absences due to workshops, my school usually handles subs.
We have to call from an approved list - kind of antiquated system. The other school that I taught at which is just down the road but in a different district had an automated system which was great.
I have to call our football coach who's in charge of calling subs if I call in sick. If I know ahead of time I just have to fill out a form and set it on his desk. We can request specific subs if we know ahead of time, if not he just calls whoever he can get.
We have to tell the building secretary, and she calls someone for us. If it's due to an illness, we just call her at home even.... she handles all of it. We can request a person if we want, but generally there is a set of 4-5 subs that we use for the building.
If it's advanced notice, we're required to line up our own subs. If it's a sudden illness, the secretary takes care of it.
I call and leave a voicemail. That's it. I don't know what they do from there. lol. That's my old school. I don't know what my new job will be like.
Our system is antiquated, too! I have to call a sub for myself from an approved list, which isn't too bad most of the time, but one morning I woke up at 3 am very sick, started calling by 5:30, and didn't get a sub until 7! I was too sick to hold my head up but still had to take care of business. Our subs have a lot of flexibility and can say no to a teacher for any reason (because classes are too large or have freshmen). We need a new setup! I did have a sub NOT show up one time after I called her and she said she would sub. I also had called to verify closer to time that she was going to be there. Didn't happen. Thankfully the P handled it for me and wasn't upset w/ me. Maybe we should start a new thread called "subbing nightmares."
We call the sub coordinator, and she gets subs for us. We can also email if we know well ahead of time. She takes requests in certain circumstances. I was able to request a certain person when I was out for an extended time when my dad was dying.
Our district subscribes to a service. But we rarely get subs. They claim that any available sub is too scared to accept an assignment in our school.
We call our own subs. Apparently this prevents us from calling in sick when we aren't. Personally I think it makes it easier because I don't have to misrepresent myself to my boss. Besides... mental health counts, doesn't it?
We get calls from the office to cover classes. Constantly. When your prep or duty period comes up, you cover. (LOL....sometimes we run for cover!)
If we need a sub for the following day or a future date and it is during normal business hours, we fill out a sub request form and give it to our secretary. She enters it into the computer system, and we can request specific subs that way. If it is after hours or an emergency, we enter it into the computer system ourselves and hope a sub picks up the job. After we've entered the sub request, we get a confirmation number that we have to leave on the secretary's voicemail, so she can check on the status of the job when she gets to work. I believe we can request specific subs through the computer system, but most of the regular subs at our school don't use the system - they only sub if called by the secretary.
Everything is automated. Whether I am sick or need to take a "personal day" for whatever reason, I call the sub system. Once I call the sub system, I can either request a sub or the sub system will automatically call people until someone accepts the job. The nice thing is that I don't need to tell anyone (secretaries, principal, etc) that I'm going to be absent; however, they receive a list (each morning) of teachers who are out for the day.
We had an automated system, but are losing it next year because of budget cuts. We will probably have to call a sub ourselves - not sure yet.
My district uses on online system, SubstituteOnline. We can put in the absence, and if we have pre-arranged it with a paticular sub, we can assign it to them. We also can make are "preferred" list, who would see the absence first, before the "general population" of substitutes. We can also have a rejected list, of substitutes who will never see our absence. We also have a sub coordinator for last minute absences, or emergencies, etc. A lot of the districts in our area use this system. It is nice, as a sub, because the sub can accept jobs in advance, or but "unavailable" on a particular day and not be contacted. It is nice, too, as a teacher, to be able to prearrange absences and get a substitute that you know/want.
We use Aesop as a management sub system...its great! We used to have a sub-caller, but the system has replaced it.
At my old school we had to get our own subs no matter what. Well at least I did. I only took three days of personal days ever and I took them in advance. Even the time I was out for nearly breaking my ankle at school I took care of my own sub. I did so that I could pick my own sub. Sometimes when we had testing to do the reading specialist would just get several subs for a few days to cover our classrooms. I hated not knowing who was going to be in my room those days. At my new school they use AESOP I saw it on their website. As a teacher I have never used an automated system, but as a sub I have. My only thing is that I am moving to a new district in a few weeks where I know no one. I guess I will be asking the teachers for alot of advice on subs when I get there.
If we know in advance we can tell the secretary in our school and she will arrange for subs. If we don't know we call in and leave a message for the sub coordinator.
We call the principal and she tries to get a sub, but usually they end up pulling the aide from kindergarten to do it or the principal does it herself to save money.
We also have an on-line sub system- forgot the name. We log-in and specify our dates, times, sub preference- if there is one, and reason for absence and it gives us a confirmation number. I then call the school secretary and leave a message or or e-mail her the confirmation number. Love it! Subs love it too because they can select their own jobs instead of being assigned randomly.
I'm a bit surprised at how many teachers have to call their principal to get a sub. The principals in my district don't even know when a teacher is out, so they DEFINITELY wouldn't have the time to find a sub for a teacher (my school has about 35 teachers). Hmmm...
Subs Our School has about 122 teachers ... our building has two permanent subs that work 180 days.. this helps if a teacher leaves early, or has an unexpected PPT.
