Substitute Teachers Lounge
Substitute Teachers Lounge
How to and Whether to Cancel a Substitute Teacher Job
Join me, Greg Collins, as we embark on a journey through the intricate world of canceling substitute teaching jobs. In this eye-opening episode, we'll explore the decision-making process behind choosing or canceling assignments, uncovering the various scenarios that may necessitate such actions. Whether you're facing unexpected opportunities or managing challenging classroom environments, understanding when and how to cancel is paramount. Tune in as I share personal experiences from my time in elementary classrooms, where the rewards often balance the challenges, and provide practical advice on utilizing tools like Sub Alert and Frontline to efficiently manage your teaching schedule. Get ready to make informed decisions with confidence and integrity in this episode packed with insights for substitute teachers navigating the complexities of job cancellations.
This is Greg Collins, episode 269 of Substitute Teacher's Lounge, october 8, 2024. You know, I bet in all those episodes I've probably mentioned canceling teaching jobs that you've signed up for. I've probably mentioned it maybe 50 times, but they're all over the place. It's been based on situations that are happening to me. So I was thinking, man, it's time that we talk in one place for a while about canceling reservations. First of all, should you? If you should, how do you do that? What are the ramifications for doing that? What if the school or the teacher cancels your sub job? How should you react to that? And then, finally, I'm going to talk about canceling jobs. Today. This comes up all the time on our Substitute Teachers Lounge Facebook group as well, so we're going to talk about that.
Greg:Do want to mention last week's episode. It did it, well, it almost did it. It's. It's this in its first seven days it got more downloads than every episode but one this calendar year. So I knew you all were wanting to hear about elementary school. I have taught that a couple more times since then. I kind of like that first class best, the one I described last week. Some of the others were a little bit more challenging. I did work with some students that needed just a little bit extra help and I love that. One of the students was holding my hand the whole day and wanted me to sit next to them in their classes. So that was kind of interesting and I'm really glad I've gotten into that. In fact it kind of goes in with our subject because I had signed up for another elementary day it was actually a half a day that got canceled. So I got to thinking man, it comes up so often on our Facebook group it's time to talk about canceling jobs for a whole episode.
Greg:In the past I have taught or talked about, I should say, numerous times about why I have canceled jobs, but I've never really put them all in one place so that we could all listen together and understand together and hopefully you can give me some feedback as we talk about this. First of all, I am going to assume or I guess probably the best words not assume, but the angle from which I'm taking this is I am a frontline user. It used to be ESOP. I'm a frontline user. Most of you fall into that category, some of you do not. So when I physically talk about canceling jobs, I'm going to be talking about, from a standpoint of a frontline user, a schedule through frontline. I use sub alert, but it links to my front line account, so I get it. You know, maybe 30 seconds to a minute before on sub alert than I do on front line. We've talked about that before, but anyway, we're on fall break here. By the way, in Kentucky or at least mine, I guess I should say in my County in Kentucky, because the County closest to us had their fall break yesterday I'm getting pictures from one of my kids' families. They're down at Disney World right now and I hope they're. I know they're having a good time because I've seen the pictures. They're fighting the rain Looks like they're going to come back right before that nasty weather hits here in a few days, and best of wishes to all of you that are in a situation like that. So, canceling jobs All right, let me start at the most basic reason I cancel a job.
Greg:It is when I see multiple jobs, some of which I don't really care to look at right now, but at the same time I don't really care to take those jobs either. Well, I don't want to look at them anymore. I actually click the cancel button just so they don't show up on my list anymore. I can forget about them. I can either take another one or wait for something that I'd rather have. I don't do that a lot because even the ones I don't think I want to take, well, I want to at least leave my possibilities open to the last minute and I think, well, looks like that's the only thing that's going to be available. I'll take it, okay. Well, I click the cancel button. I'll talk about the ramifications of that here in just a moment. You know, if you've a prime in my mind, a prime job open up and let me define prime as this. I know that if I take too long to accept it, this is a popular enough job school teacher, teacher, whatever that I better take this thing. Well, I click accept and I book the job. Then I go back and I do my. There's episodes about this.
Greg:I do my due diligence in finding out what that job entails. First, I legally go to the school website, look up the teacher's name, see what grade they're involved with, see what subject they're involved with. Sometimes it doesn't say my next step is to go to. I usually go to Facebook. I don't hack anybody's account. I don't try to go to anything private. But if that teacher has chosen to make their information public to everybody, anyway, I mean they have the option not to. But if they've made it public, I'll search for them, find them, try to find those same details about that teacher, what grade they're teaching, what subject they're teaching.
Greg:I don't look at their pictures. I might look at their picture just to see if I recognize who the teacher is and say, oh yeah, I remember that teacher. I might do that, but I won't do anything beyond that. I won't start scrolling down their pictures, anything like that. I'm doing it just to try to find out what I'm setting myself up with, after all, that if I found out, man, I really don't want that job after all. Usually I do all this within a couple of minutes. Well, I will If I don't want it after all, it doesn't mind me to click it accept it immediately and Because I might want it, and then cancel it a couple of minutes later if I find out I don't want it. Now, the reason that doesn't bother me too much. If I cancel it within two minutes of when I first accepted it, well, you know, I know, then people have basically the same amount of time to find that job. That job goes back in the listing to find that job. That job goes back in the listing. It will pop up on other people's listings again and they can accept it if they want to. So I don't feel too bad about that, even though schools know that.
Greg:I'll say it like this there's only been one school secretary. One school secretary. It's not a secretary, it's more of a scheduler. That has told me Greg, we have an opening. I might be going in there to sub on a Monday, and they said we've got an opening here Tuesday too. I see that you've canceled this teacher once in the past. Is that a class that you really don't want to teach, or was that just a special situation? So I say all that to say this these schools, if they want to know, they can see if you've canceled a job, they can see if you canceled it. They don't know that you canceled it. Within two minutes they can just see that you canceled it for whatever the reason. You know, maybe something personal came up. I've canceled for that reason too. I realized it can be as simple, as I've got to keep my grandkids that day I'm retired. I'm sorry, but I'm going to have to turn that back in. That's maybe the longest I'll go before canceling, because that might be something I picked it up. Find out I need to keep the kids four days later and I cancel it later.
Greg:I have, for sickness, canceled jobs. Not all of them will let you do this, but I've canceled jobs the morning of. I don't know what the parameters are, but I know I've canceled the job as late as 5 am of the morning. I'm supposed to go in and sub. I will not do a school that way unless I'm too sick to go into school. I don't want to make the other sick. I got to go to the doctor. I've probably done that twice in six years. I think the other time I actually was sick enough the night before that, I canceled the night before. I think the other time I actually was sick enough the night before that, I canceled the night before. So that probably gave them, you know, enough time to find a replacement for that job. Now, the teacher that submitted the absence. They will know when you cancel a job after you take it. They'll know it might decrease your chances of moving up their sub list If they think oh, he's sloppy with his acceptance.
Greg:He's just using us. He picks us up, he turns us in anytime he wants to. Who does he think he is? They could take that. I'm not sure I would blame them. Maybe if I was in their position that's the way I would look at it. But so you got to keep all that in mind.
Greg:Those are the reasons I cancel. I don't think it's unethical. It involves sickness. It involves finding a better job. I did think of one more. I forgot to write this down. If I accepted a random job, I forgot to write this down. If I accepted a random job, let's say the day before and one of the teachers calls me directly, well, I will always cancel the job that I originally accepted and take the job of the teacher that wanted me. I think that's common courtesy. You might think just the opposite, but that's what I do because that teacher went out of their way to contact me directly. They want me specifically. The other job I took, they don't even know me. This school wanted me specifically, so I would cancel the job in that situation. So that is the first part of the discussion. Even though it took me 11 minutes to get there, that's the first part of the discussion about canceling jobs when you should do it, when you should feel guilty about it and what you should know that the schools know Now. Secondly, schools canceling me.
Greg:I'll go way back, and this is kind of comical. I was when I just wanted a job every day six years ago Still do that for the most part and I was so excited it took me up until 7.15. I'm glad I took a shower. 7.15 for a job to pop up. It was in the high school. It was 20 minutes away. I accepted it, jumped in the car and about halfway there I get a tone that says your job has been canceled.
Greg:Well, I found out what happened. The teacher had posted it. When I accepted it, the scheduler kicked me off of the job because they wanted one of their normal five or six subs that they always give first crack to to take that job. And you know what? I didn't like it at the time but I understood it later because at that very same school, probably within just a couple of months, I became one of their top five or six subs that they call all the time. I'll even tell you this there is a teacher that requested me for a half day at that school.
Greg:I picked it up. She sent it to me directly. I picked it up and I was sitting around the day before I think it was a Monday job and I was sitting around on a Sunday afternoon, probably watching football, whatever, and all of a sudden that job is canceled. And I'm thinking well, that was a friend of mine that I was subbing for. Did she change her mind? Well, I could have just said nothing and let it go, but I figured what the heck? I know her well enough. I've texted her from time to time because her kids are in sports, things along that line.
Greg:So I texted her and I said hey, did something come up? Is there a reason why the job got canceled? And she actually told me. She said oh no, she said I thought you canceled it, I thought you changed your mind. I guess the scheduler canceled it. And she contacted that schedule and said listen, I want this person in my job. Well, the scheduler contacted me, apologized. She said now, mr Collins, I'll be honest with you. We actually have a full day job. If you'd rather take the full day job instead of the half day job, we'll give that one to you. And I did. And my friend understood. And all of a sudden, since I did that for them, I was on their preferred list. They call me all the time now.
Greg:Now, with that in mind, I was on their preferred list and I got asked to do three long-term sub-assignments in that class. One I fulfilled it completely, one I didn't. And in my mind I tried to convince myself. Okay, my brother has invited me to go to a basketball tournament. I honestly canceled it for that I told them. I said you know, I'm retired. I really should not have signed up for this long-term role. I really want to do some stuff with my family. They understood, although at the same mind, I really don't think. I think the ramifications of that is, or at least it would be, if it was me, you know, he might do that again. He might not think he's going to do that again, but he might do that again. So we'll probably lean towards others when it comes to long-term subs.
Greg:And the real reason why I canceled that job, if I was honest, now I know this. Now there was one class in there that aggravated me to death. It was only about five or six students that misbehaved. It was so bad that even the better students in the class they were yelling at the bad students. Why can't you act better than that? You're a senior in high school and that's one of the reasons they asked me later. Some of the students said, man, are we really the reason why you're leaving? And I said, well, maybe that was part of it. But you know, my brother wanted me to travel with him too. So that was the other part.
Greg:So that I regret that in the future. So that I regret that In the future, if anybody offers me a long-term job, I'll take it, but only after I analyze my calendar thoroughly and know that it's over a time period where nothing like this will come up. Now I might need to keep my grandkids sometime, but you know, that's just a matter of finding a sub for a sub. They don't care as much about that. But it's really. You know, I told you I regretted it and I did. It's really not proper for me to make a long-term commitment to them. I did it later on, for a family reason, a second time. So if they never ask me to do it again, I don't blame them. If they do, they're probably better than me, but I wouldn't do that again in that situation. So that's a lot of stuff about canceling jobs. That's how I feel about it.
Greg:You might listen to this whole episode and say I don't agree with anything he said. You might listen to this whole episode and say I don't agree with anything he said. Well, that's okay. But I'll close with just saying, if those of you in frontline don't know how to cancel the job, it's easiest to do it on the website. Just pull it up, log in, go down to the job. There is a button all the way to the right in green, at least on my screen that says cancel. You click it, a pop-up occurs and you can cancel it right there. You can also, of course, schedule a non-work day and then no subjobs will show up. You won't have to be bothered with them if you're not going to work that day. So that's some things you can do in frontline. So that's all I've got to say about canceling. You do what you need to do to make yourself move up that substitution list and don't do anything that's going to make you move down.
