Not Enough Subs? That's a Money Problem — Stop Asking Teachers to Cover Classes

Let's talk about class coverage.

It can really decimate your planning time for the week.

If you have to cover a class for a colleague who's absent without a sub and certainly administrators often are covering classes.

We saw this a ton last year, but it seems to be normal in a lot of schools to have to cover classes for absent colleagues quite a bit.

So a couple of thoughts on what we can do about this.

First of all, I think this is always going to be a thing that happens.

It certainly happened to me as a teacher.

20, 21 years ago.

You're just going to have situations where you have to do that.

But I think we've got to do everything we can to make this not a normal situation, to make it the exception rather than just the daily reality.

Because let me be clear here.

If this is the daily reality in your school, people will quit.

People need their planning time.

They need their prep time.

And it should be as rare as humanly possible for this to have to occur.

And I think there are a couple of things we've got to look at.

First, absolutely have to look at the money side.

If we are not paying subs enough, subs are not going to show up.

I mean, this is a difficult job, right?

Subbing in someone else's classroom is difficult.

And if you actually check how much subs get paid, like if you have trouble attracting subs, find out how much they get paid.

And I think you'll probably be shocked at how little it is.

And you know, if you, if you look at other options for like what people could do with their time, if they, they want to make some money, like subbing usually is not that great an option.

I think we've got to make it a better option and actually pay more and keep in mind districts budget for absences, right?

When you get sick leave, the district is supposed to budget money to not only continue to pay you while you're out sick, but they're supposed to budget money to actually cover your sub.

And I've heard some people say, Oh, our school says they can't pay us to cover classes, Because we're salaried and it's a different pot of money.

Like there need to be no excuses for this.

There needs to be good pay for subs and there needs to be pay for teachers who are covering other people's classes.

Now administrators don't get paid extra to cover classes.

That's just part of the job.

And we try to do as little of that as possible by making sure that we have enough subs.

But if you are being asked to cover classes, I think it is totally, totally reasonable for you to ask to be paid extra at your hourly rate or better because like the reality is you still have to do all that prep.

You still have to do all that planning and all that stuff that you would normally get done during that time.

So please ask to be paid.

Please help your administration understand that it is normal and reasonable and very, very common to ask to be paid extra.

to cover someone's class and also give yourself permission to say no, right?

Like you cannot always say yes to everything.

And of course we've all got to chip in now and then when we can, but like if this is happening too much, it is okay to say no and to make this someone else's problem because ultimately it needs to be the problem of the person who is deciding how much subs get paid and who is responsible for recruiting and hiring subs.

So please don't feel like you have to solve this problem yourself.

Please draw attention to the money aspect.

If you're covering classes all the time, It is because subs are not getting paid enough.

And I don't know what the right amount of money is, but we've got to pay enough to attract people to cover classes.

Let me know what you think.