Build a Positive Culture Around Substitute Teaching at Your School

Are you happy with what happens when your teachers are absent?  If the answer is no, you are in good company. Substitute teaching is an area of frustration and source of daily stress for most principals.  It’s also an area where most principals feel little ownership or effectiveness, because it’s usually structured as a centrally managed pool of gig-based employees or contractors who work across schools.  

Sound familiar?  

We’ve got good news.  You can start to shift the culture around substitute teaching at your school and, because so few leaders focus on this, small changes can have a big impact.  At Substantial we help schools and districts attract and retain more substitute teachers, with the goal of improving student learning when teachers are absent.  Even in the toughest labor markets, we’ve seen these school level strategies have a measurable impact on improving sub coverage and getting more repeat subs. By far the most impactful thing school leaders can do is to make your school a great place for substitute teachers to work by building a positive culture around substitute teaching at your school.

Big picture, here are three things to pay attention to:

• Negative Talk About Substitute Teachers:  How do you and your teachers talk about substitute teachers?  Pay attention to the meta narrative you share about the skills and motivation of substitute teachers.  If you are assuming that things won’t go well, chances are those assumptions are weaving their way into how you prepare for subs and how you treat them on campus.  Also look at the signals you send students about substitute teachers. Think about the stories about substitute teachers in popular culture – from Miss Nelson is Missing to Keenan and Peele, they often portray subs as mean and incompetent.  We need to actively work to counter this cultural narrative if we want subs to be successful.
  
• Framing as an “Operational Challenge”  Ten percent of instruction in the US is delivered by substitute teachers (or via worksheets filled in by small groups of students sitting in the back of other classrooms when there is no sub). Be clear, what happens when teachers are absent is fundamentally about instruction, it’s about the experience our students have every day.  Framing it solely as an operational challenge leads us to de-couple what happens with subs from our aspirations for improving instruction. In an era when principals are asked to be instructional leaders, “operational” can also be a code word for “not a strategic place for leaders to focus.” Resist this narrative and challenge yourself to bring leadership and strategic focus to 100% of instructional time, not just 90% of the time.
• Thinking of Sub Prep as an Individual Practice:  The quality of sub plans is a point of tension for most teams.  Close the door and teachers will point the finger at each other: “I leave great plans, but that’s not true for all of the teachers at this school.”  Principals often reinforce this by talking about how great their plans were when they taught. This misses the point. Your goal is to develop a short list of substitute teachers who work frequently at your school.  That means they will be working across classrooms, filling in for different teachers. Set them up for success by establishing school-wide expectations for behavior when there is a substitute teacher. Consistency and knowing what to expect helps everyone – the sub, students and your support staff – have a more successful day. (We’ve made a tool to help you with this, check out SubPlans)

Ready to start building a positive culture around substitute teaching?  Here are five ideas for small things you can do today:

1. Convene a Student Round Table:  Ask 3-5 students to talk with you about what it’s like to have a substitute teacher.  Ask what ideas they have for helping to make things work better.

    

2. Call a Sub and Learn Their Story:  Call a substitute teacher who has recently worked at your school and ask if they’d be willing share their experience with you.  In addition to asking about their experience at your school, ask why they were drawn to substitute teaching and why they keep doing it.  These personal stories can become a source of inspiration as you change your own perceptions of substitute teachers and what’s possible.

    

3. Emergency Plan Gallery Wall: The fastest way to see the differences in how teachers prepare for subs is to pull out your emergency plan binder and flip through it.  This is even more effective if you pin up the plans so that you can look at them side-by-side. Imagine you are a sub working in different classes every day.  Would these plans be easy to follow?

    

4. Mock Walkthrough of Sub Arrival:  Ask your office staff to walk you through what happens when a sub arrives at your school.  If possible do it as a role play. Get yourself in the mindset of a sub newly arriving at your school, then take notes about both what information you get and how it feels.  Chance are you are getting the best case version of what happens, so also debrief how consistently things happen. Just bringing focus to sub arrival will cause most teams to up their game.

    

5. Pull Your Data:  In most sub assignments systems principals can run reports.  Pull your data and examine it. In particular, identify the number of subs who worked 6+ days at your school the prior year – these are your frequent subs.  Also look at how subs land in the assignment. Your goal is to have most sub jobs “prearranged,” meaning your teacher or office staff reached out the the sub before entering the job.  

We know your plate is overflowing and it’s easy to get stuck in reactive mode when it comes to substitute teaching.  But we’ve seen firsthand that investing a little bit of positive energy around this under-loved facet of school life can make a big impact on your ability to attract and retain substitute teachers.  Next time you are juggling to figure out how to cover a class with no teacher and no sub, challenge yourself to block 30 minutes on your calendar for proactive work around substitute teaching.

Looking for more inspiration and a nudge to take action?  Substantial has a monthly email with seasonal ideas for small steps you can take to build a positive culture around substitute teaching, designed to make it as easy for you to take action. Sign-up for the Small Steps email here.