Fines Doubled in Work Areas: A Policy Idea for Substitutes?

December 14, 2005

At the start of our teaching career, we spent a short time substitute teaching in Philadelphia, before being hired as a full-time teacher. Since then we've been called upon scores of times to substitute for single periods during the school day (called "coverages") when a per diem sub cannot be found.

Substitute teaching in the inner city can be more like baby-sitting or supervised chaos than anything having to do with education. At times the entire period is spent praying to the time gods to help speed the rotation of the earth so freedom from just one particular group of little darlings can be granted.

We're reminded of our experiences by reading a substitute teacher's blog entries in Get Lost Mr. Chips (hat tip: Joanne Jacobs). Recent entries concern the plethora of electronics gadgets students bring to--and use in--class, and having to position his chair in a doorway to prevent the class from recreating Exodus. We've been there, and it isn't pretty.

It's enough to make one reconsider one's career, but does it have to be this way?

No. We wrote about a straightforward approach to school discipline last year in "The Solution to Discipline Problems: Empowered Administrators and Teachers," and here again is our four-bullet plan:

• Set reasonable and fair limits.
• Select consequences for violations of these limits.
• Communicate these guidelines clearly to students.
• Follow through: do exactly what you said you'd do when students test their limits.

If a school doesn't have discipline under control, then there's little hope for the substitutes, save for those special souls who have the gift of being urchin-whisperers.

Sure the teacher in the classroom is the "first-line defense" against classroom disruption, but substitutes have it especially tough, for several reasons.

First, they're on the kids' turf, not their own. Substitute teachers don't have their own classroom, and must usually supervise the students in their room. Not owning one's turf only works against a sub, giving kids the upper hand. For example students might go in the absent teacher's closet (or log on to the computer) and when the sub tries to intervene, there's the handy comeback, "But our teacher lets us!"

Second, substitutes don't teach the students regularly, thus the sub can't fall back on the "keep them busy" routine that works so well for new teachers just trying to stay afloat. Sure the sub can come prepared with work, but there's little recourse if the students chose to ignore the sub's instructions.

Third, substitutes don't usually know the students' names. This makes discipline enforcement especially difficult, since any serious altercation will inevitably arrive at the draining "what's your name" game, which has myriad possibilities for the miscreant, and few of them work out well for the teacher.

Fourth, not only do subs not know the kids' names, but they also probably don't have a rapport with them or their families. Regular classroom teachers have probably already been tested by Johnny Rotten, and have probably tried various interventions to get him to behave, such as using consequences and contacting Johnny's home. But when a sub walks in, it's like fresh meat for the Johnny hibachi.

Lastly, subs usually lack the authority to do anything with misbehaving students. Regular classroom teachers might have an entire infrastructure for discipline, from detentions to clean up duty, but none of that is available to a one-period-only substitute.

So what we propose is a modification of the school's discipline policy. A school must first have a policy, and a good starting point is the Ladder we wrote about last year. But we'd add a proviso for subs: "Consequences Doubled in classrooms of Substitute Teachers."

If fines can be doubled for speeding in work areas on the highway, why not give subs "a brake"? Substitutes have the deck stacked against them in every period they serve, thus they deserve some leverage. If students knew they needed to behave for their regular teachers, they'd be doubly cautious when having a sub.

Giving substitute teachers some clout shouldn't be such a foreign concept.