r/SubstituteTeachers

This year my school is introducing a study hall/elective period so that students can be pulled for additional services. This would be great if it wasn’t for the fact that theres no plan for students who don’t receive services they just split them up amongst the gen ed teachers.

It’s clear admin realized this would be a problem because they obviously put the experienced teachers with students with behavior concerns. now I’m stuck with 15 middle school boys counting every minute until dismissal

Pray for me ya’ll

I’m 64 years old, and was unexpectedly laid off from my job in the videogame industry. This was a job I was hoping to ride out until my retirement (which I’m hoping will be sometime around my 67th bday), because I knew that finding another job in this field at my age was going to be nearly impossible.

So I’m thinking about a career pivot, and teaching was always something I thought I might be good at and enjoy. And I figured I’d get my feet wet with substituting (while being aware that these can be two very different things). But now I’m worried that maybe I’m too old for this as well. I could use a reality check, however brutal it may be.

I’ve been through the Swing process and have been approved and could theoretically start accepting assignments today if I wanted to, but I don’t want to make a complete fool out of myself. FWIW I don’t *feel* old, and think I have a lot to give still. So I guess I’m worried less about my ability to handle the job than I am just being out of place and subject to ridicule. Are there any older subs on this subreddit and what has your experience been?

I work as a substitute teacher while in med school. Last year I took a long-term assignment at the high school I graduated from. Some of the staff had been my teachers, it was a very familiar atmosphere, however I still felt as the usual substitute does, unwelcome. Not complaining about this, just trying to give a feel for the situation.

I ended up leaving that one early because I wanted to get more experience in healthcare. I felt bad and guilty. I didn’t want to do it, but I also knew that I need to get my foot in the door and healthcare, which is why I’m per diem at the hospital now as a tech. I am in med school so I wanted to get out into the field. When that didn’t work out because I was falling behind in school and my grades were suffering. I went back to subbing.

This school year another long-term position opened at the same school and I took it. Naively because I did feel some negative energy. Probably due to me leaving last term. They gave me the keys at 5pm the day before school started and casually said nothing was in the room. I didn’t know they meant literally nothing…

The first day I walked into a classroom that felt completely unprepared. There were no supplies, no chair for me, a large black widow with babies and an egg sac, broken equipment such as the TV and clock, and the previous teacher’s documents and checks still sitting in the desk even though he had only left days earlier. I wasn’t set up on the school systems and there were no plans, despite being told I’d get a curriculum. There was nothing on the walls, completely blank. A broken TV. Desks all pushed into a corner. It was bad, I felt terrible walking into it and I felt even more terrible for the students.

I asked the janitor if he was busy. He said he wasn’t, but still didn’t help with any of the issues. For three days straight. I met with the department head more than once about plans and got nothing useful. He mainly talked about the extra pay he was getting for “training me” but he flaunted he was the highest paid staff member.

Students could tell I wasn’t set up to teach. Some transferred out. Not blaming them at all, I’d do the same. Some started saying “aren’t we supposed to be doing math?” A few aides even said out loud that the lack of support felt intentional. I was already carrying the guilt of leaving the earlier long-term at that school, and everything started feeling personal on top of being unprofessional. Office staff wouldn’t even give me supplies for students knowing I am just a sub and don’t get stipends like actual teachers. I just wanted to help honestly.

Mind you, I had NOTHING no curriculum, no worksheets, NOTHING and as a sub, it’s not our job to make plans. We’re not even trained on that, half of us sub because we have a bachelor’s degree and it’s work. I’ve directly been told to not make plans for students as I do not know the curriculum. Enough said. When given plans and functional classroom, I can confidently teach these kids some math.

On last Friday I killed about 7-8 baby black widows. I had it. This room felt like a safety hazard at this point. I had already asked the janitor if he had cleaned out the black widows and he just laughed and said no. During my free periods I went to district HR, told them what was going on, and asked to be removed from the assignment. They were understanding and took me off it. I felt guilty afterward for making noise and even bought them a small thank-you gift. I also left the supplies I had bought out of my own pocket with a note.

I don’t plan on going back to that specific school. I’m still subbing at other sites and interviewing elsewhere for a fresh start. But I keep turning it over. I know I left a long-term early once before. This is hitting me deeply. I’m saddened for the students that their admin set them up like this. All school districts have their issues but am I wrong for feeling it was somewhat intentional?

Hello all! I started subbing in April, and my district is starting school again in two weeks. I was surprised to see almost 130 available positions in Frontline, mostly for the first week back. I’d heard the start of school is usually a difficult tome to find work. These multi-day positions don’t specify which teacher is absent, which concerns me given that my district is supposed to have a record number of teachers quitting this year.
For those of you with more sub experience, do you have any advice about what to expect? Or any advice for how to effectively substitute on the first day/week of school?

I am subbing an art class today, and I had this kid come so many times during my free period that I could not get my stuff together. First, he came as soon as I got to the class at 8 am to use the gumball machine; then he came during my free period to get a band-aid; then he came again to store his lunch in this teacher's refrigerator, and he just left because he wanted to use the gumball machine again. I'm not sure why these students expect a sub to act like their regular teacher. This kid was pounding on my locked door. It was the entitled attitude that got to me.

As a substitute, I have had pencils thrown at me. I’ve kids roll their eyes, mumble names, ignore me, etc.

But never while I was driving a bus. My child tells me horror stories about how mean the students are to the bus driver, what names they yell at him from the back of the bus, how they leave trash on purpose for him to pick up, how hot it is on the bus and how much the bus riders complain. Well, yeah. My child told me he is mean, and I said I would be too. I couldn’t take that either.

Are there any substitute bus drivers here?

It's weird with no cell phones in class, but I kind of like it. I only do high school, and the kids get patted down and have to put their cell phones in pouches until the end of the day. It's pretty wild.

I work for a staffing company (not Kelly) and was just hired on last month. Already, I have received negative feedback for a two-day sub job at a 1st-grade class that was insanity. The main thing I am concerned about was that I left the students "in danger". Which...is not what happened at all.

The first thing I will address is that there was a student with an IEP who hit students, and he was sitting next to them in a close block of four, like everyone else. The only thing that the teacher's notes said was to call an extension to get the Behavioral Interventionist in the room. Well, the student not only hit a child during transition but threw a girl and slammed her chair and her desk on the floor. Of course, I immediately called the extension and got the guy in there. They kept the student in the BI's office the whole day, and the second day he needed to come back because he was hitting kids again. There was nothing about de-escalating the student; just call the BI, which is what I did.

So the next thing I will discuss is that the internet went down all afternoon, and nobody at the school bothered to tell me. Why is this important? Other than the fact that I couldn't do a lot of the afternoon activities because they involved videos on YouTube. The phones to call people were down. So, did the whole incident with slamming kids on the floor happen in the afternoon? I WOULD NOT BE ABLE TO CALL ANYONE!!!! Was I supposed to leave the students in the room alone to find someone?! Nobody bothered to help me except for one para, who was shocked by the students' behavior.

Which gets me to the next issue. This was a "gifted" first grade class. I understand that little kids can be rascals. But these kids were over-the-top feral. I told them multiple times to stay on task and work. The students, multiple times, to my face said, "Yeah, but it's Friday, so I will just do this Monday." "No I will do this Monday." "No, I am going to play instead."

No, no, no, no, no.......I already made this too long, but the students just told me straight to my face no, they were not going to do anything.

I already made this post too long, so I won't bother going into all the details, but this was unlike anything I have ever seen in regards to just not caring about what a teacher says. The para was not happy with the class, told them she expected better, and the students were even giving her attitude back about not wanting to follow directions. So there was somebody that could back me up. I left a long note on the teacher's desk with my phone number. Maybe it was thrown away, but the feedback said I left the students in a dangerous situation without any explanation of what was "dangerous," and that I told them we could complete the work on Monday. Which I did NOT say, and I tried telling the students MULTIPLE times, but they kept being defiant about not doing this.

Thank you for reading this long post. My main question is: do I respond to this, and how do I keep it professional? Has anyone dealt with an issue like this before, and how did you handle it? I am lucky to work in a high-paying district with lots of work, but I am already worried that I might have to start looking for another job.

Would any of you accept a 3 week job for a subject you don't know and teacher you have not subbed for at all? In a MS.

ETA: I did not accept. I have subbed for this teacher maybe once. It is humanities. Not sure I would get a subplan. Worried about how much cooperation I would get fron other staff.

Rather than take a bullet I decided to do the painful thing of wait for more jobs. In the past I accepted 1 week jobs simply because I had the subplan for a week or 2. And I knew the teacher. All it said was the duration, no sub plans mentioned. Usually, the admin contacts us but this was on frontline.

For some reason since the school year started i have only been able to see job postings around 4 am or 5 am they all pop up at the same time versus before you could get a notification anytime during the day. Also each job i have tried to pickup keeps saying a sub has already been assigned. Idk if this is a glitch or a problem from
My district. I work in the inland empire SoCal. Has anyone else experience this?

Greetings!

Just for the fun of it, I asked Google about how Frontline detects automatic scripts and bots that snatch jobs in a millisecond. As we know, using this can result in a total ban of the substitute teacher from Frontline itself, not just the district.

Well, the AI answer stated the following. Of course, AI can be wrong, but the anwer really makes sense:

Frontline Absence Management (formerly known as Aesop) detects bots by tracking inhuman behavior patterns, unrealistic server request speeds, and browser fingerprints. Because Frontline's Terms of Service explicitly prohibit using software or "bots" to automatically accept jobs, they actively monitor the system for automated scripts.

Frontline's security infrastructure identifies automation tools using several primary technical methods:

1. Request Frequency and Speed (Rate Limiting)

• Unnatural Refresh Rates: A human manually refreshes a browser page or the mobile app every few seconds at most. If an account sends requests to the server multiple times per second (or perfectly every 5.0 seconds for hours), the system flags it as a script.
• Instantaneous Acceptance: When a job is posted, a human must look at it, process the information, move their mouse or finger, and click "Accept." If a job is accepted within milliseconds of appearing on the server, it triggers an automated alert.

2. Behavioral Biometrics

• Lack of Mouse Movements: Humans interact with web pages unpredictably. They move the cursor across the screen, scroll, and hover over elements. Bots interacting directly via the web HTML or API do not generate these organic movements, making them easy to spot.
• Keystroke Dynamics: When a human types a login or password, the time between keystrokes varies. Bots input text instantly or with mechanical precision, which behavior-tracking software flags instantly.

3. CAPTCHA and ReCAPTCHA Challenges

• Frontline integrates tools like Google ReCAPTCHA to separate humans from software.
• These tools run background checks on your browser history, Google account login status, and micro-movements. If the background check is suspicious, it triggers a visual puzzle that standard automated bots cannot solve.

4. Digital Fingerprinting and IP Tracking

• Cloudflare / Web Application Firewalls (WAF): Frontline runs behind security layers that scrutinize the incoming connection. They look at your browser’s "user-agent" string, extension data, and hardware configurations.
• Data Center IPs: Many custom scripts or hosted bots operate from servers (like AWS or DigitalOcean) rather than normal residential internet providers (like Comcast or AT&T). Frontline automatically blocks or flags requests originating from data centers.

5. API Discrepancies

• Many bots try to bypass the visual webpage entirely and send data requests directly to Frontline's backend API.
• Frontline routinely changes its internal API endpoints, security tokens, and encryption headers. When a bot tries to use an outdated or structurally incorrect API call, the server recognizes it as unauthorized software.

I am looking to change careers into elementary school teaching (k-6) and in the meantime while I take the test, I would like to be a substitute. I received an interview link to schedule a time for the public school system (substitute teaching) and the soonest one was 9/9/2026. That is a little over three weeks? is that a normal time frame to wait for an interview? That seems a bit long no? I really would like to teach and I’m a little bummed it’s gonna be maybe 1-2 months before I can even be a sub teacher.

I looked briefly online and it said it was like a special-ed teacher, which makes me very nervous as what "special ed" is can range from Deaf kids (I'm fluent in ASL, that'll be fine) to kids with behavioral problems that I don't feel qualified to handle. Please advise, and thank you in advance.

Hi everyone!

I moved to the US about 5 years ago. I have no teaching experience at all. I’m currently doing the process to become a sub. However it absolutely scares me that I have no formal teaching experience whatsoever. My only related experience is I was taking virtual art classes during Covid lockdowns. Has anyone with a long career break and no teaching experience gotten into Subbing. Please advise. Thank you for your time.

I was just hired for a district and upon setting up my account, there were 0 postings from now till the end of the year.

For those in SoCal, when does it start to pick up for you?
The district I joined encompasses more than 10 schools so I thought I’d be ok. Now I’m considering either looking at more districts or just looking for something for stable :/

Hey everyone! So i am trying to get into subbing in CA. I wanted to see how long the process is. I applied to a couple districts mid/end of July. As soon as positions opened up i applied. I’ve only heard back from one and have an interview beginning of September.

I’m ready to work but does this process usually take this long?? After the interview, how much longer until I can start?? I’m ready and looking to sub while in the process of getting my teaching credential but I need to start ASAP to afford rent 🥲. I’m just worried because it’s taking SO LONG

I am in the process of getting my 30 day sub permit. I’ve done everything it’s just pending evaluation which I hope districts would see that and hopefully expedite the process.

I know there’s a lot of new subs here! I’ve been subbing off and on since 2018, and I’ve worked in three different states. I’ve subbed every grade from pre-k up to high school. I’m happy to help ease anxieties or answer questions about different classes.

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