NEWS & UPDATES

February 2006

We've gotten a lot of calls from certificated substitutes who are worried because they aren't getting very many calls for teaching jobs. January and February are traditionally slow days for absences and this year is certainly following tradition. We had a couple of busy days last month, but for most of the month teaching jobs were scarce. February definitely looks busier than January (thank goodness) and by March we should be keeping you all as busy as you'd like!

Keep in mind that this month we have no school on February 17 and February 20 due to a Learning Improvement Day and President's Day. If you get called for a teaching position on either of those days it is (probably) an error. Give us a call and we'll get it straightened out.

We've had some questions recently from substitutes who have accepted "Supplementary" assignments and want to know what that means. A Supplementary assignment is simply a job that is not associated with a specific district employee. Among other things a supplementary assignment can mean that you will be at a school as extra help, it can mean that you will be in several different classrooms as a rotating sub, or it can mean that you are substituting for a vacant position. Certificated supplementary positions are paid at the regular certificated rate and classified supplementary positions are paid at the rate appropriate to the job classification.

Please make a point of keeping an accurate record of your assignments. We strongly recommend you keep a calendar with future assignments noted in pencil. Once you have completed the assignment you can ink in a confirmation. The substitute office has a good record for accuracy, but we're only human and mistakes can happen. When you keep track of your substitute activity it not only puts your mind at ease, it makes it faster if we should need to correct an error.

Towards the end of each school year the Substitute Office staff run reports in anticipation of sending out Letters of Assurance and Letters of Non-Assurance. One of the criteria we will use in determining who is sent an assurance of a place on the 2006-07 substitute list is your availability. We expect that each substitute on our list will work a minimum of two days per month during the school year. Please do not call the Substitute Office to learn the number of days you have worked. Please do look at your monthly activity printouts which accompany your pay check to determine the number of days you have worked this year. If you have worked less than an average of two days a month you might want to plan on picking up more days during the busier spring months.

About those half days … there has been some confusion, largely due to subs giving SubFinder credit for having more brain power than it possesses. Remember, it's only a computer, and while it can do some things really well - like simultaneously sort through hundreds of subs to find a qualified employee, call multiple subs and assign jobs - there are some things that it just cannot do - like reason.

When you accept a half day assignment SubFinder doesn't understand anything other than that you have an assignment for a specific time period, from 8:30 am to 12:00 pm for example. Based on that information, SubFinder erroneously understands that you are available again at 12:01 for another assignment - even if that assignment is on the other side of town. SubFinder doesn't realize that it is not okay to call you in the classroom to offer you an afternoon job and it doesn't realize that you can't science fiction "beam" yourself across the city to a distant school. If you don't want to be inundated by SubFinder calls when you are in the classroom you will need to enter a "Do Not Disturb" date range for the time you are teaching.

You will recall from careful reading of your Substitute Handbook that we state: "Do not accept a position unless you are willing and able to fulfill the entire job time requirements." This applies to half day assignments. Do not accept a morning assignment and an afternoon assignment at different sites and expect that the schools will allow you to leave early and arrive late in order to accommodate your drive time between sites. When you do this it can cause problems for the school as they scramble to cover time that you aren't there.

Now - taking all of the above regarding half days into consideration we do anticipate several days this year when demand will require us to match substitutes in AM/PM assignments. We do this on an emergency basis and we will contact you with this type of request, but PLEASE … wait for our call! Thanks.

Substitute orientations for new-hires are held prior to School Board meetings twice a month. Old timers are welcome to come for the first half of the orientation, which is the informational half. The second hour is intended for newly hired substitutes to fill out paperwork.

Orientations are from 4:00-5:30 at 200 N. Bernard in the Administration first floor boardrooms on the following dates:

Archived Updates
January 2006