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For some, substitute teaching is a part-time job. They sub a few days a week and do other things to make money, or their spouse works and substitute teaching provides a little extra money. But I am a full-time substitute teacher who relies on income from subbing to make ends meet, and the last three years I haven’t missed one day. Many people are surprised when I tell them I work every day. “You work every day, even the first day of school?” they ask skeptically. Yes, I have worked the first day of school each year as well as the last day before Christmas break -- and first day back from Christmas break.
People find it hard to believe that a teacher who has had the summer off would miss the first day of school, but this year, for example, a teacher wanted to be present for his child’s first day of kindergarten, and I was called to sub. The rest of the first week I filled in at a middle school that had still not hired a computer teacher.
Emergencies happen; teachers have surgeries or a family member requires immediate attention. Suddenly, the school needs a substitute the first day of school, or the day after spring break.
Last year, when an English teacher was scheduled to grade advanced placement exams out of state, I finished out her class the last week of school, administering final exams and then grading them.
To sub every day, one has to hustle, which means checking early in the morning for someone to call in sick, or late evening for a job opening the following day. Though I have had long-term assignments, some for two months or longer, it has been mostly single day jobs that have kept me employed.
Subbing every day takes me all over the county, to three or more school districts and assignments that can be thirty miles apart. Teachers and staff have gotten to know me so they will plug me in advance or call me first when a teacher is out ill.
With the economy in my state of Michigan the worst in the nation, I am grateful to be able to substitute every day, and comforted to know someone out there needs my services.
Richard Martinovich
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