Missing teachers

Weird. What country do you live in?

I'm in America. We have substitute teachers. Typically a class isn't warned in advance if a teacher is going to be gone (for something like sickness) and a sub is called first thing in the morning.

On the not-so-rare occasions when a teacher cannot or does not secure a sub, the class is not dispersed to other classes - other teachers just take over for portions of the day. At least in high school. When I was a teacher and a class was without a teacher or a sub, we had to give up a third of our planning period to go cover that class. I'm not sure what elementary schools do, honestly, if a teacher has no sub. I actually wouldn't be surprised if a principal or other office worker sat in until someone could come.

 

I've never heard of this method before, and I'm assuming they only have one teacher for all subjects then? Here each teacher specializes in one or two subjects and if he or she is sick then a substitute will be brought in and the class would go on as scheduled. If one or two of them got sick the class would still go on because the rest of the subjects would still have teachers assigned to them.

 

Wow, that's really strange to me. I don't really get how a system like that would work overall :/. We just do substitute teachers if a teacher can't make it, and unless it's something planned or prolonged like a maternity leave or for a trip or surgery or something of that nature, we aren't likely to get advanced notice about the teacher being absent. That's interesting to me, though, that you have such a different experience.

 

This is unheard of where I live which is NYC, usually when your child's teacher is not at school, they have a substitute teacher. Schools are always suppose to have back up teachers just in case a teacher is out sick or needs to take an maternity leave. I'm not sure why the teacher suggest the children stay home from school, everyday that children miss out on school is another day that the child could have learned something. Attendance is suppose to be very important in schools, so my child staying home cause their teacher is not in is out of the question.

 

We usually have substitute teachers. Do you not have substitute teachers where you live? That's a pretty interesting protocol and a little unfair for the kids to miss out on learning if the teacher is absent. What happens if the teacher is absent for a whole week? What do the students do then? Very interesting.

 

Yeah. Basically a sub comes in and using the teachers notes will take over the class. It's a stressful job because a lot of kids take advantage of someone who isn't fully aware of the rules and regulations, but it helps keep students caught up.

 

I would imagine that this would be a one-off event, where the school was short-handed, absolutely unable to find a substitute teacher and the teacher had to leave for something urgent on very short notice. Usually schools should be prepared for this kind of thing.

 

Yes, I concur with some of the comments here. I likewise have not heard of students being redistributed to other classes just because the teacher isn't present. There's always a substitute teacher who will handle the lesson or guide students through an activity on behalf of the absent teacher. I'm not sure how it's done in other countries, but that's the protocol followed in most private schools in my country.

 

Currently, I am a substitute teacher for a local public school. students are distributed among other teacher's classroom because there are not enough substitute teachers who wish to work. If a district wants to only hire state certified teachers, then their source of employees are generally retired teachers. However, those of us who retire become too tired to work during these winter months. Not many of us want to drive around in the snow or slush.
Districts should attract better qualified workers by paying more than $160.00 each day. That way, certified teachers would willingly work in all kinds of weather for that amount of pay.

 

How ironic that you should mentioned this. Just a month ago my grandson class was dispersed to other classes. He is only in the second grade and he was put in a third grade classroom and didn't do anything but read. He was totally an unhappy camper.