Half days are just crazy. The schedule says one thing, but you never know what you’re going to get.
Morning half days really should be treated just like full days. There’s always the chance the teacher won’t come back on time or at all. I always bring a lunch with me anyway just in case I’m still there.
Even though your day is done halfway through school, that doesn’t mean you get to leave. If the teacher isn’t back you can’t just leave the class unsupervised. In my districts it works out to be that if the teacher is 15 minutes late you’re there for what’s counted as a whole day[1].
There’s also the chance that you can get called and asked to go somewhere else that day. Once my wife got an extra half day’s pay because of this on top of the pay for the whole day she actually worked. So having a lunch ready is the way to go. In fact, just treat every day as if you’re working the entire time because you never know what will happen.
Afternoon half days are a bit easier. I always eat lunch before I go just because schools are not exactly the best places to eat in the world. The worst part is that the class has seen the regular teacher all day, so sometimes they can think they’ll get away with things or get your off track in the transition time when you arrive. I’ve only had afternoon half days in middle schools, so that problem goes away when the kids change classes.
- On a slightly related note, my wife once had a day where she was at the school for about 45 minutes. The original sub left after taking the class to their special area. When the teacher called to say she’d be late my wife got the assignment She sat in the classroom reading her book and the classroom teacher came back before the special area class was over. As a bonus, the sub plans actually had something for the kids to do after they got back from the special area class. [↩]
The Anatomy of an Off Day
I’ve had a few people tell me that it must be nice to have so many days off or to be able to take a day off whenever I feel like it. I will admit that taking a day off to play video games or watch the newest video from Chrontendo is nice. But what I don’t feel like enough people realize is that days off aren’t all fun and games, and that most of the time they’re worse than days that I actually work.
The job starts before I go to bed when I make lunch for the next day. Since I can get called at any time I don’t want to have to spend time making a lunch. I’ve also had days where I didn’t do this and forgot to put something in there. Clothes get put out too, but that’s mostly a habit I got into during a period where I wasn’t working everyday and had to scramble to get something out when I got an unexpected job.
The day starts at 5:30am no matter what. I don’t know when people will be out[1] so my thinking is that I should be ready just in case. The calls from the subbing agency start at 6, so this gives me a chance to have my computer started (to check for jobs online) and be out of the shower before that starts.
Grabbing jobs is competitive by nature. I don’t go get breakfast until my wife is out of the shower and is able to watch for jobs. When I finish making breakfast I bring it back to my computer to eat and watch for stuff.
Then I sit around watching for jobs until about 8:30. I read stuff online while I do that, or the paper. But the majority of the time is watching the page with jobs reload.
After that I get things done around the house.
From reading this I can understand how people might think it’s an easy day. But I don’t get paid if I don’t work. On a slightly more whiny note, by the time 2:00 rolls around if I haven’t worked it feels like it should be a lot later. It really throws your sense of time off.
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