Education: Substitutes face variety of issues

Re: “Why are teacher sub openings on the decline in Tacoma schools?” (TNT, 2-21).

Substitute teachers face a variety of issues when covering a class, and many tell me (I retired from teaching) that they feel an unwillingness by school staff to accept a difference in teaching method during the absence.

What I have noticed with many teachers is they seem to only accept particular subs or methods used in their classroom. One teacher even told me she will never accept any variation of how she teaches her students. That is a turnoff to many subs.

What the Tacoma School District also does is it requires subs to accept any job available to them. If they reject jobs, the automated system will refuse to allow jobs to be available to them, particularly if the sub wants to teach in particular schools, or teach long-term in a particular classroom for student-teacher continuity.

This story was originally published February 23, 2016 at 11:29 AM with the headline "Education: Substitutes face variety of issues."