All year long I’ve been the phone police, the gum police, the toy police, everything you can think of.  At the high school level, I’m thinking I’ll drop that and just let things be.  Depending on the class of course, and what they’re doing.  There’s no way I’m going to let kids have a phone out during a test, at least not before they turn it in.  Same thing with the iPods.  At this point in the year, it’s just not worth it.  High school kids know how to act, and if they’re not going to behave there’s not much anyone can do about it.

Middle school and elementary school kids, I’m still deciding on them.  I don’t like the idea of having different standards for following the rules, especially when the logical part of my brain tells me that I should be easier on kids when they’re younger.   Since all of the days I have scheduled already are for high schools there’s a good chance I won’t have to make that decision.

1. I had no shot at all of getting to the next level since that would mean working every day.  Honestly, since I started about 2 months into school I’m surprised I can get this one.

I could still get to some of the elementary schools by 7:15 like I’m supposed to if anything there would actually show up.  Nobody would know the difference.

There’s over an hour until the middle and high schools start.  Plenty of time for someone to realize they shouldn’t be at work or to have an elementary school child get sick and make them leave, in which case I could go for the rest of the day.

Stupid state testing though.  3rd-8th grade is doing it.  It’s not timed, so who knows when people will be done.  Besides, you have to be trained to administer the test and I’m not.  The teacher doesn’t have the test until right before it’s given.  We had to get it delivered from the office yesterday.  My wife says they’re probably delivered in an armored car^[1].  This will be going on until the 21st.

Oh well, I have 3 weeks worth of school days to get the missing 3.5 days I need.  Some of those are half days so it cuts things down a bit.  But I don’t want to be there on those days anyway.

1. I instantly had visions of armored cars roaming the halls of the middle schools here.  Maybe that’s what some of the kids need to behave.

The teachers have been told rather clearly that the notes area is not there for them to request subs and they’re supposed to call and let the subbing people know who’s coming in or to just tell the sub to show up.  Some people do it anyway.  Which is a bit annoying if it’s a job I would have wanted because I know that I’ll be taken off of it.  But if they do that they also give you the next thing that comes up, so it all works out in the end.

Then there was this gem.  I’ve blacked out the names because I don’t see any reason to give the subs any grief.  I’ve cropped out the teacher name because I don’t think it’s any of our business that the teacher didn’t want certain people in the class.  And really, we can have no idea why the teacher didn’t want either of these two in her room.  Maybe they didn’t make the kids work.  Maybe the kids didn’t behave.  Maybe one of those two is always there and the teacher just wants someone different.  Hell, maybe the teacher knew that these two couldn’t or didn’t want to do what the class was going to be doing that day and the teacher was saving them some grief..  Really though, it doesn’t matter.

What does matter is that now these two subs have us wondering what they did to have a teacher say they aren’t welcome back in the class.

The jobs are a lot less plentiful right now.  I have the website reloading every 5 seconds so I can grab something quick.  I’m not really paying too much attention to what the job is, which is why I’ve picked up a 2 day assignment in Kindergarten for after the break. 

I did have a PE job tomorrow.  That got taken away from me for whatever reason.  I’m going to tell myself that they wanted to assign it to a specific sub and put it into the system wrong.  It makes me fell better.

I did have a job yesterday in middle school.  I could have picked up a 3 day assignment for Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday.  But I need to be somewhere ready to take pictures at 4:30 on Froday afternoon.  The middle schools here get out at 3:45.  I took too long trying to figure out if I’d have time to get over there, find parking, and get myself set up.

Waiting sucks.  I can’t start doing laundry because there’s a chance I could get called or pick up something where they want me there 10 minutes ago.  I can’t really go anywhere either.  I mean, I guess I could and just have my phone with me.  But I’ve picked up jobs online a lot more often lately then getting calls.  Granted, I’ve also picked up most of my jobs the night before or earlier.

And those half days aren’t helping either.  I’d be ecstatic to pick up a half day for today.  But all of the ones that are showing up are for the rest of the week and I don’t like grabing half days in the future because it means there’s no chance in Hell that I can pick up a full day.

1. I don’t care what the name of it technically is.  I was at a school recently where a girl was reading the Bible during recess.  That means I can call it Christmas Break if I want to.