7 Tips for Substitute Teacher Success

Teacher Self-Care: Setting Your Substitute Teacher Up for Success 🍎✨

Are you dragging yourself to school when sick because writing sub plans feels overwhelming? Discover how to set yourself (and your substitute teacher) up for success with these practical strategies from a former teacher-turned substitute!

Episode Highlights:

• The Self-Care Connection: Why creating effective sub plans is essential for your wellbeing
• Substitute Teaching Insights: Lessons learned from 5 months of subbing in various schools and grade levels
• 7 Key Strategies to ensure your classroom runs smoothly in your absence

The Self-Care Connection

Taking time off when needed is essential for teacher wellbeing, but many educators avoid absences because preparing for a substitute feels more stressful than working while ill. This episode reframes substitute preparation as a crucial self-care practice.

A Substitute's Perspective

After 20+ years of classroom teaching, Grace gained valuable insights from substitute teaching across:

• Grade levels from TK through 11th grade
• 11-12 different schools
• Various school cultures and resource levels

7 Strategies for Substitute Success

1. Create a template with your master schedule, important routines, and student information
2. Plan review activities rather than new content
3. Provide clear tech instructions or designate student tech helpers
4. Establish a buddy teacher system who can check in and support with challenging students
5. Set up incentives or consequences for student behavior during your absence
6. Have emergency activities available for unexpected situations
7. Document policies in writing regarding phones, computers, seating, and other classroom procedures

Final Thoughts

Remember: You are a human first and a teacher second. You deserve to take time off when needed without stressing about classroom chaos. With proper preparation, both you and your substitute can succeed!

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Transcript

 Welcome back. Today on the podcast, we are talking substitute teachers. Oh my goodness. Can't that make or break your day when you have to be off? Goodness me. Here's what I'm gonna talk about. I'm gonna tell you how to set your self up for success and more importantly. How to set your substitute teacher up for success.

As some of you may know, for the last five months, I have been substitute teaching. For the most part, it has been an absolute blast. I have substitute, taught everything from tk, oh my gosh, so adorable. All the way through 11th grade. I filled in. All the gaps for things I had never taught throughout my career.

And yes, it has been a whirlwind of a journey. Um, I. Continue. I plan on continuing to do it a few days a week, but I wanna give you all the good stuff, all my insights, all the things I've learned to set you up for success and to set your class up for success. Here we go. See you on the inside. Welcome to the Teacher Self-Care and Life Balance podcast, where we focus all things personal development to help teachers feel empowered to thrive inside and outside of the classroom.

If you are passionate about education, but tired of it taking over your whole life, you have found your new home in the podcast universe, you'll love it here. I'm Grace Stevens, your host, and let's get going with today's show. All right. First off, some of you are gonna think Grace, this podcast is supposed to be about self-care for teachers.

How is setting my sub up for success going to help with my personal development and self-care? Well, let me tell you this. You already know the answer. How many times have you. Struggled and dragged yourself to school even though you were not feeling well, because it seemed easier to do that than have to deal with writing sub plans.

Yes, we are all guilty of that. We want to do better. We want. To know we deserve that. If we're not feeling well, we can take time to rest and recharge. Okay. Or if we have something we just, sometimes we have personalized, we need to take care of, there are things we need to do. We wanna be able to know that we have set our class.

Up for success with that substitute teacher in that we don't have to worry about it all day. We don't have to think about what is happening. Are the dysregulated kids getting in trouble? What will I have to fix when I get back to school tomorrow? We know we've seen those awful gosh on TikTok that I'll never forget the poor teacher who has a wonderful snack drawer, she keeps filled with her.

Um. Snacks that she buys with her own money and she'd just done like a $200 snack run that was supposed to see her through the end of the year. And when she got back to her classroom after a day of, of being gone. They were, there was barely anything left. The kids had told the sub, no, she lets us. She lets us.

And they had just tore through it. How disrespectful for that teacher. My heart broke for her, and I wasn't even mad about the sub for it. I was mad at the kids who would do that. But anyway, so you know. We have all come back to a room that has been trashed, supplies that have been used, sad notes. I once had a note with literally like teardrops on it from um, a sub that said, I will pray for you.

Good luck. So we wanna do better than that. Okay? So that's how this all fill in. But first off, let me start off by saying this. Let me tell you about my experience real quick, and then I'm gonna get into the strategies because it has been. Really fascinating to me. I honestly wish that I had spent more time substitute teaching before I became a teacher.

It's an amazing way to get into different schools and different grades and really understand how different school culture can be. Even when a school is within one mile of another school. So let me tell you a little bit about my situation and probably why it's been a little bit more diverse than if you just went and subbed for a school district.

So I made the choice not to substitute teach for my local school district. I have never worked in this school district. I moved a few years ago, and so I live in California and I live in a. Pretty small community, to be honest. Maybe five or six schools in town overall, but it's right next to San Jose, which is, you know, population, I dunno, a million people, I dunno how many people, but I know in the schools there, there are well over 25,000 students and over 40 schools.

And so I made the decision to work for a third party vendor, not an actual school district, but a company that contracts out to schools who. That don't have a large enough need for subs or a large enough kind of, um, administrative support system to higher than the subs. So they turn out to be smaller schools, so lots of public schools, but they are smaller maybe on one school, school district, and also a lot of charter schools.

So in the last five months, I've actually had the opportunity to sub. In, I think it's either 11 or 12 schools, which is way more experienced though I would've had if I had just stuck to one school district. And like I said, I have subbed everything from TK all the way through 11th grade. I wanted to fill in some gaps.

I have always wondered what it would be like to teach the tiniest of Tinies. I had, the lowest grade I ever taught was first grade, which I did teach for nine years. But I always wanted wondered about the TK and the kinders. Uh, newsflash, they are stinking adorable, and I loved it. It was the longest stint I did in substitute teaching, and I.

Got to actually, you know, know the students, know the routines, know the parents, and as the teacher was completely gone for a couple of weeks, I got to do some lesson planning. Oh my gosh. It was adorable. Okay. Then the other thing I had never done was I had substitute taught middle school just a little bit.

Before I became a teacher, but I had never been in high school. And particularly I have a credential to teach languages. Um, and I was interested what that would look like. So anyway, I did a lot of different things. I learned a lot of different things. Um, I learned where my comfort zone is. Let's just be honest with that.

And. Overall overwhelmingly positive experience. I will say so much passion out there. So many talented teachers, so many creative and committed teachers. You can learn so much about a teacher, even if sometimes, a lot of times I meet the teacher, maybe they're still on campus, they have a meeting, they are doing testing.

They're planning, whatever. So I get to meet the teacher, but most times I don't. But you can learn a lot just by looking around their room, what's on the wall, just all the things, right? And their students, the saddest class, I have to say, oh my goodness, these kids wanted to tell me all about it. I was, um, subbing, um, middle school science and.

I covered five periods that day, I think, and in every period, at least one child told me why I was a substitute teacher. I was subbing for the sub. The sub had been there about a month and a half, and the reason the. Sub was there, is that their teacher had died. Um, and so it, it was really sad. Their teacher had died in a car accident.

She was a young woman just really in her prime, but those kids really still wanted to talk about it. So that was kind of eye-opening. But anyway, overwhelmingly positive, so much passion, so many wonderful teachers out there. Uh, kids are funny, kids are resilient. Um. One big takeaway I will talk about a little bit more in another podcast is how dramatically different schools are.

The culture is, the vibe is. Uh, with regards to whether or not you let kids have their cell phones and earbuds, I taught at one school, I taught 10th grade, and those kids, they needed to put their device inside a neoprene, um, pocket that locked with a magnet. First thing when they arrived on campus, they just carried it around all day.

And at the end of the day. It got unlocked. Totally different vibe in that classroom than the next day. I also taught 10th grade, like a mile down the street, and those students were allowed to have their cell phones and earbuds, and I'm telling you, I could couldn't even get rollout of them. They just wouldn't engage.

I'm gonna do a whole episode on, I've just finished. Jonathan ha's excellent book, the Anxious Generation, so I have quite a bit to say on technology, so that'll be coming up. But anyway, dramatically different school cultures. I. And the other thing I really became very clear to me is some school had less resources.

They were teaching in portables. They had a lot of school pride. They had planted plants, they had hand painted planters, and their culture was. Very, very strong. It was the school where they were not allowed to have phones and another school had so many resources. They looked like a college campus, I cannot believe.

I dunno where they got the money for their stained glass windows and all the things. There was no lack of anything. All the technology, all the bells and whistles, and yet that school, goodness me, what a tough, tough, tough school to, um, try and substitute teach at. And I've got a thing to teach at too. So I've still, I've got some skills.

It's not like I was just a warm body. They sense. So anyway, also very fascinating to me. So it has been fascinating, but. Being as you are not substitute teachers listening, you are probably classroom teachers, I'm assuming, or administrators. Let me tell you how to set yourself up for success and let me tell you how to set those subs up for success.

So the first thing I'm gonna say, in all my years of teaching, yes, I had substitute teachers. It is difficult to plan for, I'm gonna say the first time, the first. Sub that you have for the year. It takes a couple of hours to really get it sorted. Why? Because I always made a template. Now, the template isn't gonna change during your schedule isn't gonna change when specials are, is not gonna change.

That little asterisk that you put, this is when these students go out to resource. This is when we have a push in for resource. Like that. Master schedule is not gonna change once you set it up for the year. So really set it up and other things to put in there that would be really helpful. This is actually number number seven on my list of, of what to do.

But let me just say it to you right now. When you're setting up a template, remember you want to put in your schedule. If there are things you do the same time you go to music, the same time you go to PE, the same time every week, just set it up on a master schedule, and then you just literally need to copy and paste, but make sure in there.

More and more we have a whole cast of characters who are on IEPs, behavior plans, who don't speak any English. Maybe they, um, are diabetic and need to be able to pick up the phone and call that nurse whenever they want. Maybe they have some kind of bathroom issue. Just make a little quick. Sheet that lists those things out so that the substitute teacher knows what is legit and what isn't.

When the kid says, you know, no, I have permission to go to the bathroom every five minutes. I don't know those kids, and you know, I don't have time to read a whole IEP. Right? I the less time you give the school, you call in in an emergency. Well, that's an emergency for a sub. They have to. Get up, get out, hustle out the door.

There's not a lot of time for the front desk to fill them in. So specifically, I had a lot of issues here. Now that might be because in San Jose, you know, the traditional. It, very diverse population. Let's just leave it at that. Many, many kids, some classrooms. One, one person who, um, who I know in this area has like 10 languages in their classroom.

So it legit, there are some kids who don't speak English. So make me a list of the kids who don't speak English and who they can buddy up with, uh, who will translate for them. Hopefully there's somebody. Okay, but set up, that's the first thing for you that just set up the plan and set up the, the template, let's say before you need a sub.

So that's number one for you to be successful so that if you have to do it in a hurry, you'll be okay. It's copy and paste and just switch out the lessons. The next thing to set yourself up for success, really, it's not a normal day in the classroom. It's not gonna be. So make sure firstly, that there is plenty to do.

And that it's review. It's review. I don't wanna say it's busy work. Nobody wants to be handed out. So, you know, what did we used to call them? Shut up sheets, right? Which is like a word search or something. Something to keep the kids quiet. I mean, it can be meaningful work, but review and something easy for.

A substitute if they don't have your strengths in your subject matter, um, that they can help students with if they need to, but not something that they need to sting and present and teach. I am a teacher. I have a teaching credential. I've taught for many years. I've run into so many subs, and guess what, they were not teachers.

So it's not fair to expect them to be able to have those skills, all right. And have some yes, emergency sub plans. Now that might be busy work, but have that there. Okay? So just make things easy for yourself first off. Recognize it's not gonna be a normal day in the classroom. If today is the day that for the first time ever you need to introduce to second graders, you know, subtracting with regrouping.

You know that's a big, that's a big topic for them. Let's not leave it to a sub. Okay? So set yourself up for success. Your district may very well need you or acquire you to have emergency sub plans. Okay? So that's kind of the preamble. All right, so overall, massively happy with my experience. Diversity of classroom students, school cultures, the passion of teachers, the vibe.

Really awesome. If I were to write a book on being a sub, I would title it, uh, always Bring your Lunch and Always Wear Your Sneakers because the first thing you need to realize is, you know, maybe your school isn't as big as some of the ones that I have been substitute teaching for. But if, for example, I was put in a crest to be a roving sub, okay, half day.

I get there and I don't know how all of a sudden they read my profile. With this particular company, you have a profile that you fill out and then you get, I'm actually like a star sub because I have, gosh, can you even imagine? I get ranked ranked, I have over, you have to maintain over 95% ranking on shows up is professional.

Timely had control of the class, all the things. So I guess maybe when I showed up, they noticed that I was a, a hero they call it. I had a really good ranking and all of a sudden, oh, we had you down for a half day roving sub, but another sub didn't fill up for come for another position, which is classroom.

Can you cover that for the morning? Absolutely. Sure. Go cover the classroom. 10 minutes in comes the administrator, Hey, can you stay all day? Sure. Is there somewhere I can grab lunch? 'cause I hadn't brought lunch with me. So always pack your lunch and then always bring your sneakers. You know why? A lot of times, a lot of times that I have showed up, we're supposed to do one thing and then they say, you know what, we have a greater need.

They have to, you know, they're triaging. You know, we have a child, they're an eloper and they really need a one-on-one A. Could you do that today? Sure. Sure. Glad I wasn't wearing my heels. Okay, so if you ever think you want to be substitute teaching, bring your lunch, wear your sneakers. Okay? So here are the steps to set your sub up for success.

Some of these are within your control. Some of these are about the administrator. So the first thing. That, but I'm gonna say, have these seven things, six of them fall on you. So sorry about that. The first thing, if you are an administrator, um, please try and welcome the sub. I know lots of schools have an administrator who's very busy before school.

Uh, I worked in a school where the administrator never showed up before school started, so you know, it. If best experience I ever had, that admin came and welcomed me, gave me a tour of the school, showed me where everything is. If you need supplies here, if you need, you know, to put your lunch in the staff room here, here's a number to call me or my cell phone if you have a problem.

Because a lot of times the standard document I've given said, call this number if you have issues and it's the front desk and you call it, and it just goes to voicemail repeatedly. 'cause the admin, you know, the secretary is busy. So that was the best experience I ever had. You know, more than likely what it looks like is some poor frazzled.

Um, secretary at the front who just literally, if hands me a key, sometimes I don't even have a key and they'll say Somebody will let you in the room. Okay. But then I can't leave the room if I decide I need to run and do something before school starts, or I want to leave on a break and go to the bathroom because I need to close the door behind me and now I'm locked out.

So it. I will get a key and a bunch of attendance, um, rosters, and they'll just hand it to me and say, send it within five minutes with a kid. Okay? But nobody's told me how they want that filled out. Some schools want a check for every kid that's there. Some schools only want an A for when the kid is absent.

Um, and so I feel bad to have to ask when obviously the secretary is really stressed. So best of case scenario. Somebody can welcome the sub and show them around. I understand. Not very realistic. Second best is, let's say you are a secretary. You know, there has never been a time where I have been checking as a, in as a sub that a teacher hasn't walked past the front or an older student hasn't walked.

Past the front. There is nothing to stop the secretary saying, Hey, Mr. Smith, or, Hey Johnny, can you, do you have a minute? Can you please show our guest teacher, show them where the room is? You know, don't hand me a map like I, that's not in my skillset. A map. It's gonna, I can figure it out, but it will take time.

And we don't have a lot of time before school starts when we show up. So yes, grab a. Hopefully the secretary will grab a kid or grab a staff member to at least show them to the room. Alright, so that's not in your locus of control, let's say. So let's hope those things happen. But here are the seven things that you can do as a teacher to set your sub.

And then consequently your students up for success. First off, if you write on the lesson plans, uh, here's the password to the, um, let's say the technology. Okay? Some schools I show up, they, I. Also hand me a laptop. It's the sub laptop and it has a stick note on it that says, password blank. Password for projector.

Blank. Right? But that's great to have the passwords, but how do they all play nice together? If I've only worked on a PC and you hand me a Mac. Or one room I was in and I literally, I did manage to open the Macintosh. I did find the lesson plan. Okay. And then I had the password for the projector. I, where was it?

There was, I couldn't find it. I could see it in the ceiling, but there was nowhere I could find a switch or a panel or, so have someone in your room. Trained to use the tech. If you teach older kids, that's easy. On the lesson plans, you're gonna say. Um, here's how to open, you know, the laptop so they can look at the lesson plans beforehand.

You know, Trevor, Johnny, Sarah, whoever lists two or three super reliable students who know how to turn on the tech or, so that's number one, instructions on how to use the tech. You might opt for no tech day. That that's easy. Handouts for students, that's less exciting for them these days, I find. But regardless.

If you don't, especially if you teach lower kids, then here's strategy number two and that is have a buddy have another teacher. Let them know, Hey, I'm gonna be out tomorrow. Can you please check on my sub and turn on the tech for them? That's how we always did it. Um, when I was teaching, I would just have the teacher next door.

I'd let them know. Or if it was a last minute call in, I would just call 'em on their phone, you know? I knew 'em. Hey, tomorrow, this morning when you come in, just make sure the tech is set up for the sub. Okay? Have your besties. Look in on them and make sure they have everything they need. Okay? So that's number one.

All the tech issues, number two, and this is huge. Please have a buddy teacher where the sub can send a student that's having a hard time. Right, because yes, we are told here, call the office if there's a problem. You know what? I feel defeated if I need to call an administrator. When I was teaching in the classroom in 20 years, I called an administrator twice.

Right, or suddenly as a sub, I'm supposed to have the confidence to call an administrator and literally say, um, I can't handle this class. I mean, that's not the issue. Usually it's one student or two students who are really having a hard time, and I need them removed from class, and I don't trust them to go to the office by themselves.

So. I don't want to send them to an admin, but I would love to have known a different classroom. I can send them to where the teacher knows that student, or even if they don't, they know that they gotta behave. And in either way, it's accomplished. What they need is getting that student out of the room and then put it on your lesson plan so that I can show the kid, look, I'm just following your teacher's plan.

Yeah, I'm gonna pick up the phone and I'm gonna, you know, maybe my teacher, my buddy teacher is Ms. Smith, and I'm gonna say, Hey, Ms. Smith, I'm the substitute covering with Mrs. Jones today. I have a student who would probably, uh, function better in a different roommate. I send them to you. I. Right, easy. It's done.

The students's out the room, my sacrificial lamb has been sent. The rest of the students get the idea, this lady means business. And I can just literally say, I'm following your teacher's plan. Because what happens is a lot of times I have found, I get bullied as a substitute teacher for whatever reason.

Especially in the middle and upper grades, students have a degree of confidence and comfort in criticizing and attacking adults that I have never really experienced when I was in school. Um, you don't like me, you're just picking on me 'cause you're a sub. Uh, you are racist. One student told me to go back to Mexico, which.

Really made me laugh. I'm not entirely sure why on earth. I think they were just trying to get me rattled and, uh, I know better than to engage. Right. What, what about me would make you think that, that, that it's just crazy. Uh, I mean, sure enough, if they said, go back to England, but. Anyway, I had to bite my tongue and not make a snarky comment.

But, um, kids know the buzzwords. Oh, you're making me uncomfortable the way you are looking at me. Um, no, I'm giving you a teacher look, 'cause I've asked you to sit down four times and you haven't done it. So if I can just say I'm following the teacher's plan that she left. This is where you are going. Okay.

So have a buddy teacher. We don't wanna be calling the admins one. We don't wanna do it 'cause we're embarrassed. To be honest, and two on the times I've had to activate the, let's call the front desk plan. All I've got is an answering machine, so make sure there's a buddy teacher. Alright? And then again, have them check in that you can use the tech, right?

Okay. Number four, if you know you're gonna be out, this only works. If you know you're gonna be out, would you please set up some kind of bribe with them? I don't care. You know what the currency is. I don't if, if, if your class works more with rewards, Hey guys, if you're great for the sub, you can have five extra minutes of, um, recess or we'll play some games of Kahoot, or I'll let you listen to music for an hour tomorrow.

You know, age appropriate. If so, either a bribe or if your class doesn't function so well with the positive, you know, some kind of threat. I hate to say it. Listen, if you don't behave for that sub tomorrow, here's what's gonna happen because. Honestly, they care about what you think about and they do not care what a sub thinks about them.

They really don't. Honestly, they do not care. It is a free for all. It is. Let's just see what we can get away with. Um, suddenly they forget the rules and just let them know. Hang something over their head. Let them know, listen, we're gonna have a guest teacher tomorrow. Treat them with respect. You know the rules, get the work done, and show what a great classroom community we have.

And he, and I'm going to ask them to leave me a note specifically with names. Okay. Which I always do, but let the kids know to expect that. All right. Next. Have some emergency busy work. You never know. I can some this app, I work with this third party vendor. Some schools it says, come prepared with lesson plans.

Well, a good Lord, I'm a teacher. I can do that. I think that's a very unrealistic expectation of somebody who has not been a teacher to show up with lesson plans. And even if I show up with some things that I've organized, I don't have your copy code. If I'm teaching high school, I can't make 150 copies of that.

So have some emergency busy work set aside that they can do all. We are getting there. Number six, policy please. In writing on your template, have your policy on phones, Chromebooks, chargers, eating in class, going to the bathroom, are the kids allowed inside the cupboards? Are the kids allowed to sit wherever they want?

Put it all in there. I know it takes time, but I've gotta tell you, even if the school tells me. Because I always ask, what is your policy on cell phones? What do I do if a kid has a phone out? What's policy on earbuds? You know, I'm gonna ask 'em a few quick questions, and then I get in the classroom and then I hear from the student, no, she lets us.

No, he lets us. So I want it in writing on that lesson plan that I'm just literally gonna pick it up and say, no, here's what your teacher said. I'm following the plan. That way they can't say it's me personally, that's, it's the plan and I'm following it. So even if you are somebody who ordinarily lets kids eat in class, um, you know, have their Chromebooks out one classroom, some kids really did not speak English and they didn't have enough textbooks.

In Spanish. And so some students really did need Google Translate and the best way to do that was on their phone. But the teacher let me know that, let me know who the students were and nobody abused that policy. But please just put it in writing. 'cause even though you think it should be obvious that they should be in class, it should be obvious that they don't go.

In my cupboards, it should be obvious that they only go to the bathroom one at a time. And they take the pass, but it isn't, and the kids are gonna try and, um, just get one over on the sub just because they're bored and it's something fun to do. So put it right there on your lesson plans. Can they, what do we do when a kid says to me, I don't have my Chromebook, I don't have a charger, I can't do the work.

Nope. She lets me go in the cupboards and I'm having a panic attack because they're going through supplies like they're, you know, nothing. Okay, so put it. On the sub plans and then what I mentioned before, have just a quick list of students now, certainly, here's the students who can help you. If you have any questions, have three or four reliable students on there that can, yeah, help me with the tech, or I can go quietly to and just say, Hey.

Is, you know, what does your teacher let you do about this? And know that they're going to give me a good answer. I'm always gonna do it discreetly so the rest of the kids aren't like, oh, you know, you are naing on us. Right? But kids are mean. But, um, you know, I'll do it discreetly, but I wanna know who's gonna give me a reliable answer.

And I also want to know, yes, if there's somebody who is on an IEP gimme some bullet points, what are the three things I need to know? Right. If somebody is on some behavior program where they need a quick break, tell me what I need to know. Tell me who doesn't speak English and who they, who can translate for them?

I. And if there is nobody Yes. Can I, can I let them have their phone and do Google Translate? Um, tell me what, specifically what language it is so that I can use Google Translate on my phone. You know, are they diabetic and they need to watch out? And if they're slumped over their desk, or if their buddy says, Hey, I think they need to go to the nurse.

Okay, just gimme a quick hit list. Bonus if you have a seating chart. You know, but don't stress yourself about a seating chart. I mean, if you're little, they're gonna sit in their seat and hopefully they have the name tag on their seat. But you know, it doesn't, I feel bad when teachers go to a lot of trouble to give me a seating chart for every period, for middle school and high school.

I don't even know the kids' names. How do I know where they're sitting? They just mess around and try and hold one over on you. That's how they act. It's how we acted for subs. Well, not me. 'cause I was like a very nerdy little. I would've been the reliable kid who got nervous when other kids weren't doing what they were supposed to do.

I'd be the kid who was like, guys, we're not supposed to do this. Right? That poor kid up the front, or anxious 'cause people aren't doing what they're supposed to do. That was me. But as a general rule, I. When I was a kid going to school in the seventies, it was just, let's wind up the sub. That's what they do.

It's what they do. No judgment there. That just is a fact. So set yourself up for success. You do not wanna come back from having been gone from a day and a half to unravel the drama. Right. We call that playing crime scene CSI. You don't have time for that. You already lost a day of teaching. You don't wanna have to waste time unraveling things.

Okay? And you should be able to leave. You should please. Be able to have, take the time you need if you're sick, if your kids are sick, if your mama needs to go to the doctor and you wanna be there to advocate for her, you should be able to do that. You are a human first and a teacher second. Right, but I know the stress it causes when you leave your precious cherub students with a stranger, it does not always bring out the best in them.

So there it is. And if you're ever interested in. You know, Hey, what's it like to be a sub again? Um, you know, reach out to me. I'm happy to tell you. And if you are in San Jose and you use, uh, not your school district, but that third party, I don't wanna say their name for subs. Hey, it might be me. It has happened though.

I've showed up to campus and, um, a teacher was just, wow. Didn't, didn't, weren't you presenting at. California Teacher Association. Yes, I was. I was your presenter. And here I am on the on the yard watching the littles on their tricycles, and what a beautiful thing it is. So anyway, that is it. I hope. I hope that your next sub experience is, is you know, is positive and that your students do not feel stressed that you just left them with some random stranger.

And again, the biggest thing you can do is have a buddy system. Have your teacher bestie. Check in with the sub, check in with the kids, pop their head in the door on their prep period and just say, Hey. Remember, I'm right next door, just wanting to make sure everything's going okay. All right, that's it.

Support each other and until next time, create your own path. Bring your own sunshine.