My least favorite sub yet.

Last week, I had a sub on a day when I was at a leadership team meeting. I had to go back to school after the meeting, and when I got there, I went straight to my desk to get the sub notes.

Except there weren't any.

"Huh," I thought. "Weird. Okay, must be in my box."

But they weren't there either. I even checked with the receptionist; no notes had been left. Puzzled, I went back to my classroom. Once there I found Drama King and Short Stuff. After we'd planned our Saturday meeting, I asked about the sub.

"Oh, he was cool! He let me watch the movie!" Drama King blurted.

"What?"

"He let me watch the movie after we did research."

"He didn't send you out to finish your project?"

"Nope, he said that you'd left a list of kids who couldn't watch and I knew I was on it, but he said that he didn't care and we could just all watch."

And I realized at that moment that I'd had one of THOSE subs. The ones who completely ignore all directions, do whatever they want, tell the kids that they know better....the ones who give the amazing, hardworking, put-upon, awesome subs a bad name.

The plans I'd left had been simple. Take the kids to the library to do research for a project we're in the middle of, pass out copies of a conventions editing agreement for memoirs, give them 20 minutes to work on said memoirs, and then show them the start of Freedom Writers (we're going to do another seminar in a couple of days - hopefully it goes as well as last year's). Not too complicated, really. And yet.

He took them to the library, but then read a book while they worked. When they got back, he didn't pass out the handout, didn't give them time to write (he apparently told them to finish it for homework), and let everyone watch the movie, INCLUDING the kids whose names had been specifically left as not being able to, either due to missing work or to a missing permission slip.

And that's where he crossed the line. Because I've had subs ignore lesson plans before, and I just don't have that person back to my room, but this dude actually ignored a district policy on permission slips for films. That's something that could come back on me, and I'm not having that. So I went to my AP and told her the deal, and we're filing a complaint with the sub office.

I guess it's too bad for him that my kids are generally honest with me, even if they know they messed up; I think they'd rather tell the truth than lie and possible get caught. And in this case, they knew they shouldn't have watched it, but that's not on them. That's on him.

At least he didn't kill a beloved class pet - that would've been worse.

(Image credit to Hoggheff aka Hank Ashby aka Mr. Freshtags)