Eli5 – How do schools use substitute teachers? How do substitute teachers make reliable income?
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It REALLY depends on the local school board and how they manage things. I’ll tell you how it works where I live.
I live in eastern Canada. There are 2 schoolboards in my city, 1 English and 1 French, all of public the schools belong to one or the other.
In order to qualify as a teacher here you need to have 2 bachelors degrees, 1 in education and another in your subject, you need the first degree done in order to get admitted to the BED programs here. A BED can often be done in around 2 years though since there’s no electives involved.
Anyway once you have your credentials you register with the province, then contact the local schoolboard to get added to the sub list. This gets you a login to an online portal.
Now at the school level, they often call in the same sub teachers over and over again. Most schools have 2 or 3 subs that they like working with and they try to stick to just those. If a school gets in a bind or is just being lazy they can post the opening on the online portal.
Substitute teachers wake up very early. They check their phones for calls from the schools that they work with, and they try to pounce on anything that gets posted to the portal. Subs get paid a day rate for teaching something around $175 a day.
Our Canadian Employment Insurance system also comes into play here. Once you have built up enough hours worked within the past 52 weeks you are allowed to apply for EI benefits. This will pay you for the weeks that you don’t work very much. As a general rule, if you work 1 day you can collect EI for the others and come out OK. If you work 2 days you will almost always earn slightly less then if you worked 1, and if you work 3/4 or 5 days you’ll earn more. So most subs try to get as many days as they can. Overall this EI system really helps smooth our the slow weeks, but it’s not what I would call a reliable income.
While doing all this scrambling every day, subs are also always on the lookout for a coveted “long term” spot. This is normally someone who retires part way through the year, or someone who goes on a maternity leave. Schools have a lot of leeway with who they hire for long term spots so it’s often their favorite subs who land those positions.
Long term spots are key because they give you some kind of credit with the teachers union. Once you have the equivalent of 2 years long term subbing you qualify as an internal applicant just like any other union member, so it’s basically easier to get a permanent full time job at that point.
Most substitute teachers fall into 2 categories. New teachers who are trying to get hired full time, or retired teachers looking to make a little extra cash. There are some obvious tensions that occur between these two groups. Most new grad teachers where I live sub for 3-5 years before being hired full time. Those who want a faster track will often gain teaching experience by traveling to remote teaching locations (such as Northern communities).
But overall most subs are just people looking to get a foot in the door of the industry they have trained for. And yeah, it’s really hard to make a reliable income and that’s why people generally don’t sub as a career but rather a stepping stone to a career.
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