Substitute Teacher Handbook

Anderson County Schools is an equal opportunity employer and does not discriminate on the basis of race, creed, color, gender, religion, age, national origin, or individuals with disabilities or veteran status.

Eligibility to be a Substitute Teacher

Anderson County Schools reserves the right to deny employment to any applicant. Completion of the substitute training class does not guarantee employment as a substitute. Substitute teachers can be terminated from service at any time, with or without notice.

  • In order to be approved as a substitute teacher, a candidate must hold, at a minimum, a valid high school diploma or GED.
  • All candidates must attend a training session.
  • Substitute candidates must be fingerprinted for a background check and required drug test.

Classroom Ethics

All information regarding students, parents, and school employees is confidential. Information obtained about students, including grades/performance must be kept confidential. It is against the law to disclose information contained in a student’s personal folder, a student’s grades or the fact that a student has a special need or disability. In addition, personal information regarding other teachers should not be publicly disseminated. Substitute teachers are representatives of Anderson County Schools.

Personal religious or political beliefs, philosophies and opinions may not be imposed upon the students. Substitute teachers may not distribute religious, political or commercial materials to students without prior permission from the principal.

Duties, Responsibilities And Expectations For Substitutes

Substitute teachers are responsible for all duties of a regular classroom teacher. They are expected to monitor/supervise students in the absence of the regular classroom teacher. Each substitute teacher is expected to enforce and obey school policies and procedures.

Substitute teachers have an obligation to conduct themselves in an ethical manner in all things pertaining to school operations. The role of the substitute is professional.

Cell phones are not to be used when students are present with the exception of an emergency situation.

No visitors or guests (child or adult) may come to school with a substitute. Substitute teachers are employees of the Superintendent of Schools and work under the direction of the school principal. All substitute teachers are expected to arrive on time and to remain on the job until all students have been picked up by their parents, been put on the bus, or have otherwise been dismissed.

Substitute teachers are required to report on time for the substitute assignment and remain for the entire time requested to substitute. Substitutes are not entitled to a planning period.

During breaks from classroom duties, substitutes are to report to the school office for assignment from the principal. Substitutes are entitled to the same lunch period as the regular classroom teacher whom they are replacing.

The roles of a substitute teacher are to maintain classroom discipline and to carry on the classroom procedures as if he/she were the regular teacher. A substitute teacher has the same responsibilities and the same duties as the regular teacher, including bus duty and playground supervision. Substitute teachers should, as much as possible, follow any lesson plans and instructions left by the classroom teacher. Substitutes do not have the authority to make changes in daily curriculum except in emergency situations. Discipline should be maintained and students are to be held accountable for their work, classroom behavior, attendance, etc. Non-routine punishment (written or otherwise) may not be administered by a substitute teacher. If discipline problems arise, the principal must be notified.

Make notes for the regular classroom teacher about your day. Include information about problems during the day and any other information that you feel the teacher might want to know. If you were not able to follow lesson plans, if an assignment could not be completed or if you had to rearrange schedules, leave a note explaining why.

Pay Information

Substitute teachers that hold a current Tennessee teaching license are paid $80.00/day. All other substitutes are paid $65.00/day. Substitute assignments for an employee other than a certified teacher are paid $7.50/hour.

Dress Code

Teachers and staff members shall dress in a clean, neat, modest, and professional manner. Teacher/staff dress should serve as a model for students. Our desire is to appear professionally dressed while allowing comfort and mobility needed to serve the students to the best of our ability.

Job Injuries

If you are injured while on the job as a substitute, you must report the injury to the school office immediately. The principal or secretary will give guidance and assistance on necessary procedures and paperwork.

Safety/Evacuation Procedures

 Familiarize yourself with your surroundings so that you know how to evacuate the class in the event of a fire drill or other emergency. Fire/weather drill routes are posted in all classrooms.

 Know where the nearest exits are located.

 Have a class roster to take with you as you evacuate building.

Accidents/Illnesses

 Do not touch a student where he/she is bleeding, even if you use gloves. Provide the student with tissue or paper towels, instructing them to hold it on their wound.

 If appropriate, send the student to the office or nurse’s station for further care. If the situation is an emergency, dial 911.

 Adhere to Universal Precautions training at all times.

 Do not administer medicine of any kind to students. (No aspirin, cough medicine, prescription or non-prescription drugs.)

Complaints About Substitutes

If a significant complaint in regard to a substitute teacher’s performance or behavior is received, the substitute will be contacted by the Human Resources Department either by phone or by mail. If the behavior reported amounts to a serious breach of duties, the substitute will be immediately removed from the active substitute list. The substitute will be notified by mail of the action taken and the reason for the action. If the substitute believes the information regarding his/her performance or behavior is inaccurate, the substitute has the responsibility of contacting the Human Resources Department to discuss the information and removal from the substitute list.

If the complaint/concern is less serious, the substitute will be asked to come in for a conference. At this conference, the nature of the complaint will be discussed and appropriate actions to address the problem will be decided upon. If continued complaints are received, the substitute teacher will be removed from the active substitute list.

Once a substitute has been removed from the active substitute list, reinstatement will be made only upon the recommendation of the Superintendent of Schools.

An individual school can request that a substitute teacher be restricted from substituting at that school. Such requests will be honored if the school has a reasonable basis for the request. Depending on the circumstances and the nature of the reason for the restriction, the substitute may or may not be notified of the restriction. If several schools request restriction of the same substitute, the substitute is subject to being removed from the active substitute sist. The substitute will be notified, by mail that such removal has occurred.

An occurrence of the following behaviors may result in immediate removal from the active substitute list:

  • Using profanity in the presence of students;
  • Endangering students by leaving them unattended for inappropriate amounts of time or by falling asleep in the classroom;
  • Making sexually or racially inappropriate oral/written comments or displaying inappropriate graphic or physical conduct, or subjecting students to racial or sexual harassment;
  • Using alcohol or unlawful drugs on school premises;
  • Insubordination;
  • Willful violation of school rules/regulations;
  • Willful refusal to follow instructions and or lesson plans left by the classroom teacher; or
  • Any other inappropriate behavior.

Upon removal from the active substitute list, the substitute teacher in question will be notified of such removal in a timely fashion, by mail.

Social Media

Guidelines for teachers and particularly substitute teachers are important and beginwith these recommended practices:

Friends and "friending'

  • Do not accept students as friends on personal social networking sites. Decline any student-initiated friend requests.
  • Do not initiate friendships with students
  • Remember that people classified as "friends" have the ability to download and share your information with others.

Content

  • Do not use commentary deemed to be defamatory, obscene, or slanderous. Exercise caution with regards to exaggeration, colorful language, obscenity, copyrighted materials, and derogatory remarks or characterizations.
  • Decide whether a particular posting puts your effectiveness as a substitute teacher at risk.
  • Post only what you want the world to see. Imagine the students, their parents, your administrators visiting your site.


  1. Go the extra mile. Ask if you are needed to perform extra activities, i.e. bus duty or lunch duty.
  2. Email or leave a very detailed report of how the day went.
  3. Volunteer to help in other classes when on a prep period.
  4. Be positive to students, other teachers, administrators, and office staff.
  5. Smile and say "thank you" a lot.
  6. Develop a business card with your name and contact information. You could also note that you are, "Available on short notice."
  7. Introduce yourself to other people in the building.
  8. Leave a list of students who were on-task and helpful instead of a list of students who were off-task.
  9. If you have a degree in music or art, or some specific skill, be sure to contact teachers who teach that content area specifically.
  10. Attend conferences and things that you know teachers where teachers will be.
  11. Work to improve your classroom management skills.
  12. Dress professionally. Even on "casual Fridays."
  13. Follow the lesson plans. As a substitute teacher I am not sure how important the work is for the whole unit, so I do exactly what the permanent teacher asks me.
  14. Leave the classroom as clean as you found it.
  15. Ask the secretary if there is a preferred list and if s/he would put you on it, if s/he feels comfortable.
  16. It takes time to become trusted as a substitute teacher, so go to the same schools as often as you can.
  17. Be positive when in the teacher's lounge.
  18. Grade papers when possible; alphabetize assignments to make grading easier for the permanent teacher.
  19. Arrive 20 minutes early to substitute teaching assignments.
  20. Volunteer time without pay.
  21. Network with teachers.
  22. Always have extra activities available in case there is extra time in the class period.
  23. Teach in special education classes.
  24. Be cheerful when the school secretary calls you. Thank him/her for giving you the opportunity to teach.
  25. Tell the students if they want you to come back to let their teacher know.
  26. Be a team player. Be more helpful than is required.
  27. Attend extra-curricular events so teachers, students, and staff can get used to seeing you around.
  28. Brush up on your math skills, not many substitute teachers enjoy teaching math.
  29. Carry a SubPack with you to substitute teaching jobs.
  30. Just do a really good job.

Substitute Tips from: Substitute Teaching Division - STEDI.org

Substitute teaching is a unique and difficult job. Although the classroom can be unpredictable, there are some things you can do to increase the likelihood of it being a good day.

Arrive 20 minutes early.Arriving early to your substitute teaching job will allow time to review the lesson plan and gather the necessary items you will need.

Assemble a SubPack.A SubPack is a bag of resources that you can take with you to each substitute teaching job. The items that should be included in a SubPack might include: filler activities in case the lesson plan doesn't take the whole time, a basic first aid kit, medical gloves, tickets to hand out to those students who are on task, etc.

Greet the students at the door and direct them to a starter activity.Show the students that you are a professional by greeting them at the door and directing them to a starter activity. A starter activity is an activity that each student can work on individually for about five minutes. You might have them write about their weekend, tell you about their best friend, or maybe the permanent teacher already has a starter activity planned. It is very important to get students on task immediately.

Follow the lesson plan.Follow the lesson plan. Follow the lesson plan. Did I mention to follow the lesson plan?

Spend the class period walking around the classroom and rewarding appropriate behavior.The best way to increase appropriate, on-task behavior is to reward it with a smile, nod, ticket, or even leaving a list of students who were behaving appropriately for the permanent teacher. Believe it or not, research has proven this to be one of the most effective classroom management strategies.

Have fill-in activities available for students who finish early.A student who is on-task is less likely to behave inappropriately. Have some fun activities available for students who finish early.

Leave the room the same as you found it.Make sure to clean up the materials you used. However, resist the temptation to leave the room cleaner than you found it. What seems like chaos to you is organized chaos for a permanent teacher and you will not want to cause frustrations by rearranging his/her materials.

Write a substitute teacher report for the permanent teacher.Leave as detailed a report as possible of what went on during the day. The permanent teacher would love to know any details you can leave.

By implementing these few, simple strategies, you are increasing the likelihood of having a successful substitute teaching day.

Older student activity:

Ask each student to write a summary of the day’s lesson that could be used as a text or tweet or Facebook status. Encourage students to use internet shorthand to keep summary under 140 characters. Havestudents share these summaries with each other and leave a few for the permanent teacher to help show what was covered.

Be sure to adapt this to fit your situation!

You've probably learned how helpful it is to have a few activity ideas that you can pull out in a pinch. Here's one idea that's flexible and easy to adapt to different situations.

Draw the following chart on the board:

Tell the students to select one item in each category and begin writing. They have ten minutes to complete their project.After you can have students read their stories to each other.

When asking questions to an entire class, you want to make sure each student is engaged and gets a chance to respond. A teaching strategy that can help with this is Think/Write/Pair/Share. There are four steps involved with Think/Write/Pair/Share.

Step One: Think. The teacher asks a question and allows a few seconds for the students to process an answer.

Step Two: Write. Students write down their answers.

Step Three: Pair. Students turn to a neighbor and briefly discuss their answers.

Step Four: Share. The teacher calls on a few students to share their answers. The teacher then conducts a brief class discussion.

The Think/Write/Pair/Share strategy is a non-threatening way to encourage all students to participate and answer questions while reducing the embarrassment associated with getting an answer wrong.

Being prepared for any old thing is sound advice and should be implemented by substitute teachers. A way substitute teachers can be prepared for any old thing in the classroom is by putting together aSubPack. ASubPackis like an emergency kit for the classroom. It should contain a variety of useful and necessary classroom supplies and materials.

The contents of aSubPackshould be organized into four categories:

  • Personal and Professional Items
  • Classroom Supplies
  • Rewards and Motivators
  • Activity Materials.

The specific contents of yourSubPackwill be personalized to fit your teaching style and the grade levels you teach most often.

The following are some ideas of things to include in yourSubPack:

Clipboard:Carrying a clipboard provides quick access to a seating chart, the roll, and anecdotal records, as well as creates a sense of authority.

Disposable Gloves & Plastic Bags:Whenever youencounter blood or bodilyfluids you should weardisposable gloves to helpsafeguard against many oftoday’s medical concerns. Aplastic bag can be used in anemergency when you mustdispose of items exposed toblood or bodily fluids.

Newspaper:A newspaper can be used as the basis for a story starter, spelling review, current events discussion, and a host of other activities

Tangrams:Tangrams are geometric shapes that can be used as filler activities, as well as instructional material to teach shapes and geometry

Tickets:Tickets are a great way to reward students for appropriate behavior. Students can use tickets to enter an end-of-the-day drawing or redeem them for special privileges and prizes

The number one trait of a successful substitute teacher is having a collection of resources in aSubPack. To be confident and prepared, a good substitute teacher will enter a classroom with a set of tools, much like a builder would enter a construction site. No one wants to begin a lesson plan and then discover that a simple item, such as a pair of scissors, cannot be located. Likewise, when a lesson plan receives a "boring" response from students, introducing a motivator idea from aSubPackcan bring a renewed enthusiasm for assignments.