Maternity Leave

I haven't mentioned it before, but the day has come: one of my colleagues is leaving to have a baby! This is really exciting... and is not going to be easy for us. We gave her a fairly light schedule this year, to minimize the impact of her absence, but she's still teaching 7th grade Communication Arts. We have to find someone good to cover her classes, not just a warm body - for sooooo many reasons. The region assured us that there are many excessed teachers out there waiting for "permanent substitute" (oxymoron of the year) positions. But they informed us last week that the principals who have these teachers are finding tricky ways to hide their identities, so they can stay and do various jobs for those schools. *sigh* If I were a principal, I'd probably do the same thing, but it's not really the right spirit, is it?! We set up a schedule to cover her classes on Monday, making use of a new part-time teacher that we finally got the money to hire, but people are giving up preps and the kids will lose consistency. I spent an hour calling folks on the per diem sub list to see if we could find someone, with no luck. I think the region will eventually find a permanent sub, because it's cheaper than paying per diem subs, but until then it'll be rough going. And even when we find a permanent sub, who knows who that person will be? Subject area? Level of experience? Willingness to really teach, not just supervise, the kids? The rumor going around among the kids is that when their teacher is out, no CA homework. She disabused them of that notion by assigning all the homework through February today! Still, if no one keeps up with it, they will quickly stop doing it...

Anyway, the most important thing is that she have a healthy baby and not worry during her time off.