NO SUB PLANS? USE A SUBSTITUTE TEACHER BINDER

Principals,  have you ever had a teacher call in at the last minute, struggle to find a substitute just before school opens, and then realize the absent teacher failed to leave sub plans for the day?  Or maybe you had several substitutes in the building, an unexpected evacuation drill is called by the district office and your subs have no idea what to do?  How about the 4:00 PM phone call  from a distraught and angry parent screaming at you because her first grade little girl was put on the wrong bus and isn't home yet.  You check into the situation and realize that child's classroom had a newly hired substitute teacher in the afternoon and he did not know to check the bus notes sent down to the room at the end of the day.  Had he been aware of the end of the day procedures, he would have realized the little girl had a bus note to ride a different bus home that afternoon.

All of these scenarios are real life situations principals experience.  I did.  These are some of the reasons we created a Substitute Teacher Binder for every classroom teacher as well as one for every other employee we would hire a substitute for (e.g. RtI/AIs teachers, special education teachers.).  It was probably the best thing we did!  The implementation of the Substitute Teacher Binder standardized our substitute teacher assignment information sharing and led to a better understanding of our daily and emergency procedures by substitutes. Their use helped eliminate issues related to lack of sub plans, searching for sub plans left by a teacher or having to hunt plans down if they were sent to another staff member.  Most importantly, implementing the use of the Substitute Teacher Binder minimized the risk of potentially dangerous or harmful situations such as a substitute not knowing what to do in an emergency or sending a child to the wrong location or on the wrong bus at the end of the day.

The idea for standardizing the substitute teacher assignment process came during my first principal assignment after getting through the first few weeks of school and experiencing substitute teacher related issues nearly every time we had subs in the building.  In addition, our mornings were crazy in the main office and that was where all the subs reported (at the same time!) to pick up their assignments, room keys, and ask a ton of questions about the class they would be in.  My secretary hated the first 30 minutes of every day!

We bought enough 1.5" plain white 3 ring binders for every teacher - classroom, special education, Reading and math interventionists - and any other staff member that we would hire a substitute for.  These were kept in a certain location in the main office, provided to a substitute upon arrival, and returned at the end of each day.  Note:  we used two pocket folders for our Teaching Assistants and Aides since they were not directly responsible for a classroom assignment or the creation of lesson plans.  Our office staff assembled the binders with the the basics: a building map, one set of colored divider tabs, an abridged version of our building safety plan (cheat sheet), a phone extension list, a class roster, and an emergency contact form.  They slid a teacher name/grade/room number sheet into the front cover of each binder and a teacher name tag into the spine of the binder.  The spine tag enabled us to easily alphabetize all binders on a shelf and quickly locate a particular teacher's binder when a substitute arrived.  The teachers did the rest.  We spent time during a faculty meeting going over the rationale for the use of the binders, how they should be assembled (standardized) by the teacher, what should be included, and when the completed binders were due back in the main office.  Teachers were given time on an upcoming early release day to work on their binder if needed.

The feedback from our substitutes on the implementation and use of the Substitute Teacher Binder was overwhelmingly positive.  They felt relieved to know that no matter what assignment they would have on a given day, the information shared would be consistent, formatted the same, and available; no more “flying by the seat of your pants” days because a teacher forgot to leave lesson plans.  It was important to us that our substitutes were given every opportunity to be successful, had what they needed to provide quality instruction in the absence of the classroom teacher.

The binders were updated by office staff whenever there was a student roster change or by the teacher if there was a significant change in content information (e.g. special medical needs for a student).  Other than that teachers updated them quarterly if they needed to change out emergency lesson plans or other information and at the beginning of each new school year.   The result?  Standardized substitute binders that included everything a sub would need to safely, effectively and efficiently supervise and instruct a classroom in the absence of a teacher.