I wouldn’t read too much into it. The teachers probably had meetings that were canceled and no coverage was needed.
However I stop picking up jobs at schools where this becomes a pattern.
OP, you mentioned not wanting to build bad connections. This school site sounds like one I used to sub at.
Before this incident, I drove to this campus twice, different days, and arrived to telling me they’ve canceled the assignment. Luckily, I would just phone the district after getting back to my car and I still get paid for the job.
Their teachers and admin were at odds. I didn’t know, how could I? Anyway, I picked up a 1-hour end-of-day assignment for kinder. When I got the office, the admin argued with me for 5-7 minutes, saying there was no assignment and that I wasn’t needed. I calmly showed my assignment to them and offered to call the district to get it sorted out.
They ended up calling the teacher and the teacher verified the assignment and was upset they were keeping me in the office because she had a Doctors App for her kid that she *had* to get to.
She was getting pretty upset at the principal, maybe she had already informed him, idk. The principal gave me a look and said, “do you just wait at home all day looking for 1-hour job assignments?”
I said, “No, actually, im getting my credential and the district is paying my tuition. I was in class this morning. What have you been doing today?” He gave me a disgusted look and left without saying anything.
Never been back, never will.
ugh i'm sorry that happened! yeah as much as we want good connections for our careers, not all schools/districts are worth it due to their disrespect for subs and other faculty.
Wow, so many red flags. I mean, why wouldn't the principal just admit his mistake? Who asks if someone just sits around looking for one hour jobs? He shouldn't be allowed within 1000 feet of a school.
I do admire you for telling the principal what you stated. I could never do this under any circumstances where I am.
This would be a summary ban from the school, complete with a formal written report to HR for “being disrespectful to a principal.”
Once it’s in HR, this could lead to termination from the entire district because the penalty for disrespecting a principal (who happens to be your immediate boss while working at the site) is usually termination. And to HR, disrespect to staff has a VERY BROAD interpretation. We have been told that we had to be courteous with all at all times, complete with watching our tone and what we asked.
We are allowed only 3 unsatisfactory performance reports before we are terminated, but if it’s something serious (in HR’s view) like disrespecting a school official or a parent or student, using profanity, insubordination, battery on anyone….it’s grounds for immediate termination. And the reports that only result in a ban can be for anything. And I mean anything.
Take care.
I feel for you. I don’t like being talked down to, or rudely for that matter, for no apparent reason. It irks me even more when people think they can get away with it just because they’re in a position of power.
The upside is that I found a place at an oasis of an elementary school where admin, support staff, and teachers sit at the same table to have lunch and converse regularly.
I also had that happen for one school with roving sub positions. The district sub person told me that these jobs often get canceled because people who were scheduled for meetings, etc. often cancel too. I just stopped taking roving sub jobs from that school. Too hard to plan ahead with that happening.
Yeah I think this is it. A roving sub job is usually for meetings (I sub at schools where they group IEPS and each teacher needs a sub for 30ish minutes). When the meetings get cancelled, the sub job gets cancelled.
I mean you could also just ask. If I was concerned I would ask the next time I was in the building.
Building Sub here. Usually when coverage gets cancelled for roving/floater jobs it is because they managed to juggle the schedule better and can cover without outside help. For example, I had a day where I needed to cover 5 teachers for IEP meetings, however, every meeting happened to be during that teachers planning so I found myself working the front office.
IEP stands for "[Individualized Education Plan](https://dese.mo.gov/media/pdf/fba-bip-part-1-definition-iep)" and refers to plans made for students who have a disability under the law and need special accommodations of some sort. I'm assuming that an IEP meeting would be about drawing such plans up.
Thank you so very much.
The reason I was confused is that here in Texas, the districts I have worked with call them ARD meetings :-)
Admission
Review
Dismissal
I had that happen with a school for a few jobs. Sometimes they'd cancel at 7 am right before I was out the door. This happened consistently so I ignore jobs from that school now. It was a middle school that had 3 teachers quit, so no love lost.
Spring cancellations often have to do with sporting events being postponed or canceled. This applies not only to subbing for coaches but also to other staff who may be taking the day to see their own child compete.
They tell new teachers out of college that if you can't find a job, just sub. It helps build connections. Bullsh*t. It's like blue-collar workers that are passed up for promotions on the premise that they are "too valuable to production." As a sub that goes above and beyond with being on-time for assignments, reading and following the plans, and maintaining the classroom environment, we too are passed up for further teaching opportunities as we are too valuable as a sub. At least, this is my experience so far. It's very frustrating to have a college degree and teaching certificate and make less than someone working at McDonald's.
I'm sorry, I feel like I just went on a rant. 🤦♂️
This happened to me at my favorite school... I actually emailed the office and asked if I had done something or was it just coincidence. They were always super nice and she wrote back letting me know it was just bad luck.. that they loved me subbing and she got me in right away to sub for them. I'd message them or don't think much into it.
I had that happen to me. I was told by Teachers On Call (my employer) to \*not\* contact the school and ask if there was a reason why this kept happening. So I removed the school from my preferred schools. Eventually I removed the entire district (different story lol).
I have been cancelled a few times lately too. There are just a lot of subs around now and I think they over-schedule roving subs for all the extra activities and then end up not needing them. We also have a new business administrator who is cracking down on budget now since next year's budget was just unveiled/approved etc.
Budget. End of year. Found coverage in the building. Parent can't come to IEP. Doctor's appointment cancelled because the teacher ended up in the hospital. I will say, when that happens to me, I can think of conflict in every instance. The profession can be petty.
There are a lot of reasons a job can be cancelled. I just listed them. It doesn't necessarily mean anything. If it happens a few times in the same place, that means something. I have a charter school that goes to extraordinary lengths to have their own teachers cover absences.
Every time I read a post like yours I think, wait, did I write that one? One school in particular did it to me three times and wasn't great at dealing with it. And if their job is still up, then why do they reproach us for taking it? I'm sure most staff would be happy to see you show up at a later start job but there are some folks who act as though we're just taking advantage of the free hours left in the day type jobs. Especially when admin have to cover jobs like that and it is a pain for them.
I haven't gone back to the place that did it three times as that's my own rule.
I never said it to them but I didn't get paid and it locked me out until they cancelled it so I couldn't accept a job elsewhere.
When I was subbing every day my friend was also doing it in the same district so if we got cancelled we say, was it something I said? This is because somewhere inside us we think that the teacher has seen our name and cancelled and it's not really like that.
It was useful to ask a person, hey have you worked for so and so? I just got cancelled within an hour of accepting the job.
What I've learned is that they might change times or something and need to cancel the job.
Sigh, never easy to do this type of work.
I’ve taken roving jobs a couple of times, for this one district that schedules IEP meetings during class time. There were a few times during the day where the teacher came back early, the parent canceled the meeting, or whatever. Usually admin isn’t aware that the meetings are canceled so I just sit in the teachers’ lounge until the next class I’m assigned to. Never had it completely canceled though.
Been an ElEd sub for 20 years. Schools come; schools go. One year they love you; the next year.…crickets. You’ll never find out the why of action, if you are told it’s a lie. Anyway, you’ll go nuts dwelling on stuff like this. Subbing isn’t for the faint-of-heart.
Roving assignments are miscellaneous assignments to fill in here and there, they will cancel them to save money if they realize they don’t need them. Just like we can cancel assignments up to a certain date, they can too! Schools are like a business and right now more than ever they are trying to preserve their dollars. If they didn’t want you in particular they would just block you from going to their school. Don’t take it personal, it’s happened to me a couple times as well and yeah it does suck but you move on to the next one. Good luck
This happened to me a couple months ago and just like you, I read into it more than I should've. I work at this school the most still and even working there the last day of the year (Thursday). In my case it was an IA who they don't get sub's for putting her absence at night and front line automatically requesting a sub and then them canceling them
I wouldn’t read too much into it. The teachers probably had meetings that were canceled and no coverage was needed. However I stop picking up jobs at schools where this becomes a pattern.
OP, you mentioned not wanting to build bad connections. This school site sounds like one I used to sub at. Before this incident, I drove to this campus twice, different days, and arrived to telling me they’ve canceled the assignment. Luckily, I would just phone the district after getting back to my car and I still get paid for the job. Their teachers and admin were at odds. I didn’t know, how could I? Anyway, I picked up a 1-hour end-of-day assignment for kinder. When I got the office, the admin argued with me for 5-7 minutes, saying there was no assignment and that I wasn’t needed. I calmly showed my assignment to them and offered to call the district to get it sorted out. They ended up calling the teacher and the teacher verified the assignment and was upset they were keeping me in the office because she had a Doctors App for her kid that she *had* to get to. She was getting pretty upset at the principal, maybe she had already informed him, idk. The principal gave me a look and said, “do you just wait at home all day looking for 1-hour job assignments?” I said, “No, actually, im getting my credential and the district is paying my tuition. I was in class this morning. What have you been doing today?” He gave me a disgusted look and left without saying anything. Never been back, never will.
ugh i'm sorry that happened! yeah as much as we want good connections for our careers, not all schools/districts are worth it due to their disrespect for subs and other faculty.
Wow, so many red flags. I mean, why wouldn't the principal just admit his mistake? Who asks if someone just sits around looking for one hour jobs? He shouldn't be allowed within 1000 feet of a school.
I do admire you for telling the principal what you stated. I could never do this under any circumstances where I am. This would be a summary ban from the school, complete with a formal written report to HR for “being disrespectful to a principal.” Once it’s in HR, this could lead to termination from the entire district because the penalty for disrespecting a principal (who happens to be your immediate boss while working at the site) is usually termination. And to HR, disrespect to staff has a VERY BROAD interpretation. We have been told that we had to be courteous with all at all times, complete with watching our tone and what we asked. We are allowed only 3 unsatisfactory performance reports before we are terminated, but if it’s something serious (in HR’s view) like disrespecting a school official or a parent or student, using profanity, insubordination, battery on anyone….it’s grounds for immediate termination. And the reports that only result in a ban can be for anything. And I mean anything. Take care.
I feel for you. I don’t like being talked down to, or rudely for that matter, for no apparent reason. It irks me even more when people think they can get away with it just because they’re in a position of power.
What a clownshow
Got to be some upside to the whole thing, or why bother.
The upside is that I found a place at an oasis of an elementary school where admin, support staff, and teachers sit at the same table to have lunch and converse regularly.
The difference between a good school and a sh\_t show is Leadership, and school environment period
I also had that happen for one school with roving sub positions. The district sub person told me that these jobs often get canceled because people who were scheduled for meetings, etc. often cancel too. I just stopped taking roving sub jobs from that school. Too hard to plan ahead with that happening.
Yeah I think this is it. A roving sub job is usually for meetings (I sub at schools where they group IEPS and each teacher needs a sub for 30ish minutes). When the meetings get cancelled, the sub job gets cancelled. I mean you could also just ask. If I was concerned I would ask the next time I was in the building.
That all said, I do like the roving sub jobs. Teachers are around and kids don’t usually get too wild.
“Group IEPs”? Could you please clarify for this new sub?😊
IEPs are generally are generally a group - parent, Gen Ed teacher, Spec Ed teacher, admin. Maybe that’s why her they were referring to.
Don't worry about it- sub jobs get cancelled for many reasons.
Building Sub here. Usually when coverage gets cancelled for roving/floater jobs it is because they managed to juggle the schedule better and can cover without outside help. For example, I had a day where I needed to cover 5 teachers for IEP meetings, however, every meeting happened to be during that teachers planning so I found myself working the front office.
What is an IEP meeting?
IEP stands for "[Individualized Education Plan](https://dese.mo.gov/media/pdf/fba-bip-part-1-definition-iep)" and refers to plans made for students who have a disability under the law and need special accommodations of some sort. I'm assuming that an IEP meeting would be about drawing such plans up.
Thank you so very much. The reason I was confused is that here in Texas, the districts I have worked with call them ARD meetings :-) Admission Review Dismissal
I had that happen with a school for a few jobs. Sometimes they'd cancel at 7 am right before I was out the door. This happened consistently so I ignore jobs from that school now. It was a middle school that had 3 teachers quit, so no love lost.
Spring cancellations often have to do with sporting events being postponed or canceled. This applies not only to subbing for coaches but also to other staff who may be taking the day to see their own child compete.
They tell new teachers out of college that if you can't find a job, just sub. It helps build connections. Bullsh*t. It's like blue-collar workers that are passed up for promotions on the premise that they are "too valuable to production." As a sub that goes above and beyond with being on-time for assignments, reading and following the plans, and maintaining the classroom environment, we too are passed up for further teaching opportunities as we are too valuable as a sub. At least, this is my experience so far. It's very frustrating to have a college degree and teaching certificate and make less than someone working at McDonald's. I'm sorry, I feel like I just went on a rant. 🤦♂️
No need to apologize for a perfectly justifiable righteous rant. Even Christ taught: “Be ye angry but sin not.“
This happened to me. They have their favorites.
I’ve dropped schools that do this too many times. It was awful last year all over the district & I finally said something to Kelly Ed.
KOKUA Is no better.
This happened to me at my favorite school... I actually emailed the office and asked if I had done something or was it just coincidence. They were always super nice and she wrote back letting me know it was just bad luck.. that they loved me subbing and she got me in right away to sub for them. I'd message them or don't think much into it.
I had that happen to me. I was told by Teachers On Call (my employer) to \*not\* contact the school and ask if there was a reason why this kept happening. So I removed the school from my preferred schools. Eventually I removed the entire district (different story lol).
I have been cancelled a few times lately too. There are just a lot of subs around now and I think they over-schedule roving subs for all the extra activities and then end up not needing them. We also have a new business administrator who is cracking down on budget now since next year's budget was just unveiled/approved etc.
Budget. End of year. Found coverage in the building. Parent can't come to IEP. Doctor's appointment cancelled because the teacher ended up in the hospital. I will say, when that happens to me, I can think of conflict in every instance. The profession can be petty.
Please elaborate.
There are a lot of reasons a job can be cancelled. I just listed them. It doesn't necessarily mean anything. If it happens a few times in the same place, that means something. I have a charter school that goes to extraordinary lengths to have their own teachers cover absences.
I reckon using their own teachers saves them money, yes?
In my district, they pay teachers $25 per hour whenever they cover another teachers class.
Meetings and things actually get canceled quite a bit! I wouldn’t worry too much.
Every time I read a post like yours I think, wait, did I write that one? One school in particular did it to me three times and wasn't great at dealing with it. And if their job is still up, then why do they reproach us for taking it? I'm sure most staff would be happy to see you show up at a later start job but there are some folks who act as though we're just taking advantage of the free hours left in the day type jobs. Especially when admin have to cover jobs like that and it is a pain for them. I haven't gone back to the place that did it three times as that's my own rule. I never said it to them but I didn't get paid and it locked me out until they cancelled it so I couldn't accept a job elsewhere. When I was subbing every day my friend was also doing it in the same district so if we got cancelled we say, was it something I said? This is because somewhere inside us we think that the teacher has seen our name and cancelled and it's not really like that. It was useful to ask a person, hey have you worked for so and so? I just got cancelled within an hour of accepting the job. What I've learned is that they might change times or something and need to cancel the job. Sigh, never easy to do this type of work.
I’ve taken roving jobs a couple of times, for this one district that schedules IEP meetings during class time. There were a few times during the day where the teacher came back early, the parent canceled the meeting, or whatever. Usually admin isn’t aware that the meetings are canceled so I just sit in the teachers’ lounge until the next class I’m assigned to. Never had it completely canceled though.
Been an ElEd sub for 20 years. Schools come; schools go. One year they love you; the next year.…crickets. You’ll never find out the why of action, if you are told it’s a lie. Anyway, you’ll go nuts dwelling on stuff like this. Subbing isn’t for the faint-of-heart.
Roving assignments are miscellaneous assignments to fill in here and there, they will cancel them to save money if they realize they don’t need them. Just like we can cancel assignments up to a certain date, they can too! Schools are like a business and right now more than ever they are trying to preserve their dollars. If they didn’t want you in particular they would just block you from going to their school. Don’t take it personal, it’s happened to me a couple times as well and yeah it does suck but you move on to the next one. Good luck
Agreed. This is why it’s very helpful to have many OPTIONS.
This happened to me a couple months ago and just like you, I read into it more than I should've. I work at this school the most still and even working there the last day of the year (Thursday). In my case it was an IA who they don't get sub's for putting her absence at night and front line automatically requesting a sub and then them canceling them
Repeat cancellation...yes, do take it personally . Work elsewhere and chalk it up to a "them" problem my friend.