How Does Your District Get Its Subs?
My new copy of Scholastic Administrator magazine came the other day. It’s not my copy, per se, but the lady it’s addressed to doesn’t work in our building any more, and I’m all for free reading, so it’s mine as long as I keep doing the mail.
Anyhow, there’s an article about the Syracuse, New York schools. To get a sub a teacher used to talk to their principal, who would talk to the district office, and someone over there would make the arrangements. Now they have a computerized system that they say has saved a ton of man-hours and made things much smoother.
On the other hand, the Big City District east of us also uses a computerized system, and there have been a ton of complaints. Teachers will call in to request a sub, but the computer doesn’t follow through. It’s also been hard for them to request specific subs. Some subs I’ve talked to haven’t been getting called for jobs until 9:00 or 9:30 the morning, and by then many of them have taken jobs in other districts. If you refuse a job for a day you’re not called back with other jobs for that day, even if the initial offer was the behavior room at the high school and you’re an elementary ed person.
In my medium-sized district we talk to our principal when we need to request a day; he then forwards the request to the district sub scheduler, who is a part-time parapro. If we’re sick in the morning we’re also to call the principal, who again calls the sub caller and puts her on the case.
If your district uses a computer, has it worked well for you?
Anyhow, there’s an article about the Syracuse, New York schools. To get a sub a teacher used to talk to their principal, who would talk to the district office, and someone over there would make the arrangements. Now they have a computerized system that they say has saved a ton of man-hours and made things much smoother.
On the other hand, the Big City District east of us also uses a computerized system, and there have been a ton of complaints. Teachers will call in to request a sub, but the computer doesn’t follow through. It’s also been hard for them to request specific subs. Some subs I’ve talked to haven’t been getting called for jobs until 9:00 or 9:30 the morning, and by then many of them have taken jobs in other districts. If you refuse a job for a day you’re not called back with other jobs for that day, even if the initial offer was the behavior room at the high school and you’re an elementary ed person.
In my medium-sized district we talk to our principal when we need to request a day; he then forwards the request to the district sub scheduler, who is a part-time parapro. If we’re sick in the morning we’re also to call the principal, who again calls the sub caller and puts her on the case.
If your district uses a computer, has it worked well for you?
posted by Ryan at 8:43 AM
3 Comments:
We've had the computer system for several years now. There is still a human "backup" in case of emergencies and to handle all the clerical work. This system has also been great for handling professional leave requests and other issues that are difficult to juggle in a large district. So far, so good!
Our district uses a computer, and it works fine, except it is a pain to request a specific sub. Our school secretary can do it much more easily, so she just tells us to come on in and fill out the absence there (which works well for when you know that you will be gone...meetings and such).
I worked at a school in which you had to call the principal at home in the morning if you had to call in sick. That wasn't pleasant, but I suppose less people took "mental" days off there.
Our computerized system is a bit clunky, but eventually it gets the job done.
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