Here are some tips for teachers who are preparing for a substitute to visit their room. These will help you to help me do a better job for your students. Remember that a substitute is a guest in your classroom who wants to do a good job. They do not know where things are kept or the procedures for your classroom, unless they have been there before. Substitutes also realize that your absence may be an emergency and that you might not have had time to plan for their visit.

Planning for a substitute involves more than leaving your lesson plans open to the page for that week. Everything that a substitute will need for the day should be where the substitute can find it. A substitute should not have to tear the room apart to find what they need.

• Please have complete and accurate lesson plans available. Nothing is more frustrating than to find indecipherable lesson plans written in what appears to be hieroglyphics. In order to do a good job teaching your students substitutes need to know what lesson to teach, what to assign for homework and the basic procedures that you follow in your classroom.
• Have everything that will be needed for the day located where I can find it. Please don't expect a substitute to locate worksheets or other materials in your room. Have another teacher help find what we need if you don't want your things disturbed.
• A seating chart is especially handy in taking attendance, maintaining order, and noting what students were misbehaving. Please take the time to ensure that this is updated and neat.
• Is there a list of pull out students and the times that they will be out of the room?
• Substitutes will also need to have a copy of the bell schedule, what day it is if your school follows a six day rotation or a schedule that is different from what might be otherwise expected. The names and times of any students in pull-out programs. Locations and times of special classes like art, physical education, music, and library.
• Have you left a schedule of where I need to be and at what times? This is very important for teachers who do not have a regular classroom.
• Have any and all special forms ready to go. If your school uses bar coded or scantron forms for attendance leave these where substitutes can find them. The same holds true for the lunch selections, if I need to send that to the office or cafeteria.
• Is there more than enough work for the students with instructions on what must be done and what is not necessary to complete that day?