When in Rome-I Hear Ya!

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Home : 2005 : May : 4

When in Rome-I Hear Ya!
By Carol

Doug,
Your right. If no one in the school enforces the cd/cell rule and you try to, then it will definitely back fire on you and the backlash will not be pretty. I've subbed in those kinds of schools, over the years,
and it is better to go with the flow; you're 100 % right. I call them containment centers.
But, if your not in one of those schools you better be careful as we subs get in trouble for things the regular staff does not.
Case in point. I was working an SDC class yesterday and the instructional aide went on line while I was teaching a math lesson. She was looking up the

hotel where her daughter is staying in Korea. I know subs who have been written up or excluded from schools for using the teacher's computer during prep time or during lunch.
One school I was at last summer was all up in arms because some sub was seen talking on her cell phone-supposedly-in the classroom. They wanted her fired and strung up on the flag pool. I thought well this all, much to do about nothing, but over 20 years I have seen and heard it all. Since we are at-will employees without unions we can fired for nothing without due process.
I once subbed for a teacher who used the school's fax machine to fax a message to one of her doctors (Yes she had more than one doctor it seemed.) begging him/her to write a script for Prozac. She had inadventendly run out of meds and had no refills and couldn't get a hold of the prescribing doctor for some odd reason.
She had just moved into her new house, she was stressed out, and her other doctor or he/she was out of town or something. It went on and on and it definitely sounded like drug seeking behavior to even a lay person like me.
Long story short, her fax got inadvertently mixed in with some worksheets she had xeroxed for me. She went off to her workshop and sent the pile down to me with a student aide. She had no idea I saw it and I never told anyone about it. But if I had done that I would have been fired on the spot as soon as the teacher read the fax for (1) using school property to conduct personal business and, (2) for being a suspected drug-seeker.
My point. Be careful.