Substitute Teaching

I recently started subbing for Poway Unified School District!  It took me a couple of months do to the application. There was a pre-application to get a substitute teaching certificate from san diego county involving lots of paperwork, a fingerprinting check which costs 80 bucks! Then once I go the substitute teaching permit I applied through PUSD to be a substitute teacher for the district. This involved another fingerprinting background check (such a waste of time and money to do it again), more paperwork and letters of recommendation.   I got letters of recommendation from Ginger Carpenter, Jessica Dahlquist and Gary Waldvogel. It was so kind of them to write letters for me.  I also had to make a resume, which I haven't done in 20 years! It felt good to look at my resume and realize that even thought I haven't been officially working for so many years I have been contributing to the world in some ways and that I have personally been growing in many areas and have a wide array of experience.  

I got hired about a month ago and so far I've had half a dozen teaching jobs. The way you get teaching jobs is you sign in online and can see all the sub jobs listed and then sign up for them. There are usually quite a few jobs posted every day. Many wouldn't work for me since I take jojo to school and I teach choir before school Tues/Th so I often teach at jojo's school Twin Peaks, or I take a part day job in the middle of the day so I can do my regular things like walk the dog and then still get to sub for a bit and then home in the afternoon.

I get paid $100 for a half day job (3.5 hours) and $180 for a full day.

Subbing experiences so far

1/2 day kindergarten from lunch to the end of the day -westwood elementary:  Oh my goodness! Those kids are so cute!! Love them. When I got to the school the teacher was in the class and showed me her lesson plans. She was a very sweet and soft spoken middle aged person. I walked out to pickup the kids in line from finishing their recess and a darling big brown eyed boy greeted me! There were several boys in the class who were in no condition to be in all day school. The class size of 30 kids is WAAAAYYYY too big for kids of that age.  It made me want to come home and start my own private kindergarten class with 5 kids and have so much fun with them!  

1/2 day middle school social studies - meadowbrook - kids were fascinated by the story of Louie Zamporini.   I told them the story so they'd know who I named my dog after.  One boy told me, "can you be my social studies teacher? I've learned more in the last ten minutes than I have learned all year in class" Makes me sad. I enjoyed the kids

1/2 day 1st grade severely handicapped class Adobe Bluffs - cute kids - lots of work! Tennis shoes are a must.  The teacher is amazing.

Quite a few days at Twin Peaks - social studies, AVID, non severely handicapped.  Loved the NSH class. Really nice kids.  Smaller class. Lots of school is a huge waste of time. I like the younger kids better than the older kids.

I always thought I'd like high school teaching and originally that was my life plan but now that I've been having so many days at middle school subbing, along with teaching the choir before school I really love the middle school kids!