The latest update

Ah, a holiday weekend. A perfect opportunity to catch up on some stuff and get all of my readers up to date on how my teaching career is going. And let's just say it's a very mixed bag right now. Lots of subbing, of course, but not quite enough math. Short term, of course, I need the money worse than anything else, so I'll take whatever job I can get. Fortunately, thanks to the online sub system, lots pop up, and I've generally been able to get middle and high school jobs. I've even gotten requests from teachers who don't teach math, which is probably a sign that I'm at least doing something right.

And things may move further ahead very soon. First off, I had an interview this week. It was for a middle school math intervention job several miles down the road. Half my time would be working with students in an additional catch-up math class, and half would be working with small groups in regular math classes, where I would not be the primary teacher. It sounded ideal, but I was told that I would know on Friday if I got it. No call, so I suspect I didn't get it. (No surprise, as I bobbled a couple of the interview questions.) But that's all right, as the job at the local high school is still open, after over a month. And there may be some development there, sort of. I was actually teaching math there one day, and the principal came in. Almost immediately, students were telling him, "Hire this guy!" I guess I'd already made an impact! This led to a brief chat between the principal and me about my background and qualifications, and now he knows that I'm a math guy. So now that seed has been planted, at least.

One other development is that one local district is already advertising for math teachers for next year. In fact, it's the same district where I just had the interview. As I already have a current application in, I'll write to personnel soon and see what I need to do to update it.

And now for a rant: Hey, if you're a regular classroom teacher, and you know you're going to be gone for more than a day, it would be terrific if you could arrange things so that you can get the same substitute teacher for the whole time. I have had an awful lot of jobs of late where I'm the second or third sub they've had in a row — which I don't even find out until I've worked with the first class. I understand it happens when teachers get sick and it's day-to-day, but how hard would it be to call in before the day is out and tell the secretary that you're going to be out another day, could you see if my sub can work another day? (Personally, unless I've had an extremely horrible experience, I will, and even under some circumstances cancel a previously scheduled job to do so.) But what really gets me are these teachers who know they'll be out in advance, and don't plan for one sub. I always leave my phone number and e-mail address, so should a teacher want me ahead of time, I can be reached directly.

Okay, everyone, thanks for letting me rant a little bit. I will, as always, keep you all posted on any further developments.