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I don’t need to tell you how many teachers feel like it’s less work to go into school sick than to write plans for a sub. If I wasn’t contagious, I showed up to my classroom every day, because planning lessons for six subject areas and prepping/organizing all the materials was a massive job. Not to mention, I’d come back after an absence to see our beautifully organized classroom looking like a tornado tore through, and be faced with a complex web of reported behavioral issues and interpersonal disputes between students that I now needed to deal with.
Depending on my class in any given year, it was sometimes really hard to fully relax or disconnect from what was happening in the classroom during a sick day, and I know I’m not alone in that. I’ve heard from teachers who will Skype with their classes multiple times a day when they’re out in order to keep things on track. They say moms and dads never get a day off, and I feel like it’s the same for teachers: If your students are in the classroom that day, you still feel a bit of responsibility for what’s happening, even when you’re not there.
So what’s the solution?
Unexpected absences aren’t really unexpected: We know they’re going to happen from time to time. So even though you don’t know when, you can still do the bulk of your preparation in advance, and set up your expectations and routines to make things go more smoothly. Here are 5 tips to help.
