Substitute teaching: rewards and drawbacks

March 30, 2009 by Pashtana Usufzy 

Students get classroom experience while battling moody kids and vague teachers

Deborah Lim used to wake up at 5 a.m. to go for a quick jog. Upon returning home, she was guaranteed to have several messages. One may have been a request for her to appear at a northeast high school while another could have been a plea for her to cover an elementary school class.

For two years, Lim was a substitute teacher for the Clark County School District.

“I needed a job and maybe wanted to get into the public teaching system,” she said.

Lim, who is currently working toward her initial licensure in teaching at UNLV, admitted that she initially had trouble substituting on the wages paid by the county.

“At first, it was kind of tough,” she said. “I worked days as a sub and worked nights at Starbucks.”

She expressed that she looks back on the time as an opportunity to develop her instructing skills, but the experience was not the most pleasant.

“The only reason I would consider going back is if I could not get a full-time teaching job,” she said.

CCSD reports that it currently employs more than 4,100 substitute teachers, a number which could rise as applications come in from laid off field professionals and as budget cuts force permanent instructors to be demoted to temporary status.

On a nationwide scale, school districts have seen such a flood of new applications for positions over the past months that some counties have shut down the substitute teacher application process entirely.

“I have to have an income,” De’Ana Mauldin, a college of education student working toward her teaching licensure, said.

Mauldin plans to become a guest teacher within the next few years. She explained that she would like to save money to pay her way through graduate school.

“I have been thinking about becoming a sub,” she said

The requirements to become a substitute teacher in CCSD are straightforward and allow many college students to qualify for positions.

An applicant must have at least 62 semester credits of higher education coursework, including six credits in the discipline of education or a bachelor’s degree.

Substitutes earn anywhere from $90 to $122 a day.

After fingerprinting, an orientation and several fees, a newcomer can be assigned to any class level or school that is short on staff.

However, Lim warns, the job is not as easy as it may seem. She was often unable to open the classroom door or uncertain what the teacher had intended the students to do for the day.

“Sometimes there wasn’t a lesson plan [laid out],” she said.

Then there was the matter of keeping students quiet, she said.

“Little kids… they are more apt to listen to you…whereas with high school students, you should always have a few referrals handy,” Lim said.

Still, she said, it is easy to understand why so many applicants have flocked to school districts around the country.

“With the hiring freeze,” she said, “life is uncertain.”

Meanwhile, despite the difficulties she knows she may have to endure, Mauldin hopes to parlay the substituting experience into a job as an elementary school teacher for the county.

“I truly believe that if you can reach one kid, it’s worth it,” she said.