Sub Plans- Mrs. Smith

 “Sub Plans sent to the sub account.” 

I read it again. I still didn’t understand what it meant. I was at the teacher's desk, with the typed up printed pages of Important Information to know for her class, 5th grade math. It’s September 2023, and this is my first upper level assignment and I really wanted it to go smoothly. 

What is the “sub account”...? I looked for more information on the desk. Nothing. I read it out loud this time, maybe that would help my brain recall if I had been informed of something like “sub account” before today. No. I needed help. 

Though I hadn’t yet met many of the teachers at Latimer, after bouncing around the other elementary schools for the last few weeks, I felt fine interrupting somebody to ask for help. My background in the corporate world, I developed a hesitation in asking unknown peers for assistance, it usually didn’t pan out quite right. But, I needed to ask for help. But maybe not the teacher setting up across the hall, that would be disruptive? So, rather than asking across the hall first, I went to the front office and asked Beth. Beth wasn’t sure what it meant either… back up the stairs I went, right by Mrs. Haven’s class, and apologetically, I asked the teacher across the hall from the 5th grade class for help. 

“Do you have a minute to spare!? I need some help with finding the plans for  the day. She references ‘sub account’ and I have less than zero idea what that means, and I did ask Beth first.” It all came out as one word, essentially. She understood, and I was grateful. 

She was so kind - she smiled, and immediately stopped what she had been doing and came right into the class for whom I was subbing, and went to work, waving off my apologies. Since I already had the Yellow Sub Folder from Beth, she explained to me, as she showed me where to find the logins, then proceeded to log into the substitute gmail, that “the ‘Sub Account’ she’s talking about is a gmail account to which the teachers can email their daily sub plans for the substitute assigned to access and use for that day, or few days for longer assignments.” 

The account loaded; I saw hundreds of emails, some read and some unread, but sure enough, there were the plans from the teacher for whom I was covering. “Edney September 2023 Sub Plans.” 

They were slides -so I wouldn’t need to prepare the slides for the smartboard, or the morning message and morning meeting agenda. It was all there. “Now you should be able to go to Presentation mode… and it should show right on these ol’ smartboards. We’re going to be getting new ones in each class when the renovation is complete, and that gets started next month.” 

By this time, I had learned how to work the smart board, so as she pulled up the Presentation, I got the screen set. My 10 minute panic was resolved so satisfyingly. The plans direct from the teacher were pulled up and ready with 3 minutes to breathe before the kids started arriving. 

After she, again, waved off my gratitude she headed for the door with, “I’m happy to help. We’re a team here, and we’re happy to help however we can. Good luck today.” And she was gone. Instead of panicked, I felt good. That went well. Maybe this experiment of getting back into education, my entire plan of study in college, would pan out after all…