The Sub Year in Review

Since I haven't been called in weeks, and it's now August, I'm going to assume that's it for subbing for the 2008-2009 School Year.

Here's a look back over the past year:

I didn't get a lot of steady work until almost November. Uggh. No wonder I was so broke. Things got better in the second half of the year and I was usually working almost every day, except during this dry spell that happened to coincide with a period of time where I was constantly sick (which worked out nicely). I did a lot more middle school jobs than in the past, and have decided that 7th and 8th graders aren't so bad. The schools I probably worked at the most were Jefferson High School, Jackson Middle School, and Whitford Middle School. I was at West Sylvan for almost an entire month as well.

Job Types:

Art/Graphics: I didn't do any arts classes, but I did pick up a TV/Video production class one time. That was an easy gig because the kids came in, got right to work, and didn't need me to do a thing. I always wish I would get more calls for art.

ESL-You rarely get calls for ESL jobs, but I always take them when I get them. I think I had 2 or 3 this year. One was at the elementary level, the others were at the high school level. ESL is fun for me because I usually get to do actual instruction (yay!) and dust off some of my best language games.

Language Arts and LA/SS: I did several of these because it's my endorsement area.

Paraeducator - Life Skills: I did this quite a bit, but not as much as in the past. These are some of the most fun jobs though-I'll readily admit that I love going to PE and other electives with the kids.

SPED/Paraeducator/SC/Emotional/Behavior: This was a new specialty area for me and I did it quite a bit this year. One big thing I discovered this year is that I'm really good at working with kids in self-contained behavior classes, and I rarely have the kinds of trouble you would anticipate with kids bearing this label. Most didn't seem to mind having me around and were pretty cooperative (or at least no worse than they are with their regular teachers). This is probably the job classification that I did the most because once the word got around, everyone wanted me to sub for them, and I was totally fine with that.

SPED Learning Center/Paraeducator/Learning Center/Resource: I did this quite a bit as well. You get a lot of calls for this during IEP season.

SPED Autism/Paraeducator - 1:1: I did several one-on-ones this year, mostly with kids with Autism spectrum disorders who were in mainstream classes. A few were in self-contained programs. It's one of my favorites because I like working with kids with Autism. Beaverton has all kinds of cool specialized Autism programs that I love working in...wish Portland would do this as well.