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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]DS reports no subs, presentations and exams this week. A few parties on Thursday and Friday. He as at least one essay due in class on Friday.

Teachers being in class is always variable. It has been rare for DS to have subs during this week over the 9 years he has been in school but that could be an anomaly[b]. The data shows that this is a week where there are lots of subs [/b]and lots of absences. Do your thing, just don’t expect that the teachers are required to get your kid caught up. I think most make an effort to get missed work to kids but they don’t have to.

I remember being in school in the 80’s and asking friends to let me know what the assignments were and to give me copy of notes when I missed school for some reason. The teacher wasn’t providing that info, I called and asked a friend. I am not sure why things would be different today. [/quote]

Parents should write the board and request the number of subs this week. They should send it to the principal as well as gatehouse to discourage further rude and badly received communication.[/quote]

For what, exactly?  Do you want the schools to be closed all of December?  Then another group of parents would be upset.  Teachers are professionals that are allowed to take vacation days off also.  [/quote]

Yes, teachers can take vacations, and so can parents. If a principal is going to say “our teachers will be teaching” he should have more respect for the parent body that to lie.[/quote]

Yup. They are most definitely not teaching right up until break. They are administering tests or bs group projects to kill time or have subs. lol.[/quote]

My entire grade-level subject area is giving a short quiz AND teaching an entire lesson tomorrow/Friday.

My son will be absent from 2nd period on Friday because he has a cardiologist appointment, so he spoke with his teacher about what he will be missing in his class. He is missing a quiz, notes on a new concept, and classwork related to that new concept, during which his teacher always pulls small groups for reteaching. That sounds like teaching is occurring.

As a secondary school teacher, I can 100% guarantee you that no secondary teacher is "killing time." There is no flexibility in the curriculum that would allow for "killing time." [b]We can barely get through our curriculum as it i[/b]s.

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But some of you can have your classes taught by a sub all week so clearly the time pressure is not acute on all of you. Again, I don’t see anything wrong with this. But a principal shouldn’t be saying Teachers will be in the classroom when they will not.[/quote]

One of my teacher friends has been out all week because she's in the hospital, in the critical care unit. Yes, her classes are being taught by a sub all week. Her sub is a retired teacher who used to be her department chairperson, so her sub is fully qualified to teach her classes. I'm so sorry if her principal "lied" and said she'd be in the classroom when she's not. How incredibly inconsiderate it is of her to have a serious, potentially life-threatening medical issue the week before winter break!

I've been teaching for 30 years and have only had a sub a handful of times who is not either a retired teacher or a retired professional from the field in which I teach. I feel confident that my subs have been able to handle instruction when I have been required to be out. I average 4-5 days out per year, though there have been years in which I've missed zero days, and years in which I've missed more than 25 days (such as when I had to have  surgery, followed by two different serious illnesses over the course of the school year). In case you're wondering, though, I AM planning to be in my classroom all of this week.

Not all teachers who are out this week are on vacation. Just like everyone else, we experience deaths in our families, illness, injuries, emergencies, and other life events that are not always under our control. The time constraint/pressure IS acute /critical for us, so we get stressed when we have to be out. Unfortunately, our family members don't plan their deaths around school holidays, viruses don't wait for weekends to hit us, and surgeons don't care about making surgical arrangements convenient for our school schedules. We are doing the best we can. It would be nice if every family could show a little more empathy and support instead of jumping to the conclusion that we are out partying when we are absent.[/quote]

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