Substitute Teaching: …And take attendance!

Schools are crazy when it comes to recording attendance. I have had frantic office clerks calling me every 10 minutes to check on attendance. No one cared that my trials in the unruly class were in vain. The only thing that mattered was entering attendance in a timely manner. Some schools would not release me at the end of the day unless I obtained a certificate from the attendance office that I achieved my main duty. Sometimes it means wondering through five different offices to find a willing staff member to issue the release form, after begging them for help.

At one middle school, a good school turned bad, I had an unruly 6^th period. Students didn’t bring books on purpose so that they can go to their lockers. They were continuously talking rather than working. All of a sudden, an administrator walked in. I was quite relieved to get the unexpected help, and told him about the misbehaving cases. The administrator listened to me politely but seemed to be completely unconcerned. He was not there to help me with misbehaving students. He came to reprimand me for not entering attendance yet!

It feels like nothing that you do in the classroom matters as long as you have taken care of the roll, and yes, entered it to the computerized system. You are measured only by this ability to enter attendance promptly! And maybe with good reason… Maybe it is an amazing accomplishment after all. Finding a functioning computer is a challenge, and figuring out how to operate it is even a greater challenge.

First, not all computers are created equal. The power bottom can be hidden below the desk, under the monitor, behind the screen. Some schools have laptops, some have apples, some very old computers covered with dust, and it is always an adventure. Once you figure out how to turn on the computer you have to be creative about how to log in. sometimes it follows a certain pattern, sometimes not.

Next, you have to find the site, and enter the code to the attendance system. It is made out of 8-10 characters, numbers, and upper and lower case letters. When you see ‘I’ it might be ‘1’, upper case letter ‘I’, or lower case ‘l’. ‘0’ can be a zero or upper case letter ’O’. After three attempts, the system locks you out for unspecified time period, before letting you renew your trials, hopefully with more success this time.

And then, unexpectedly, you are kicked out of the system and you have to start all over again…

No wonder then, that your main test as a sub is entering the attendance…