How to Not Prepare for your Leave

I am currently on my fifth leave replacement. By now, I am pretty much an expert on what needs to be done and how to successfully fill in for a regular teacher. I can prepare quickly and get to know my students in no time. I am fortunate enough to be really quick with technology and can become comfortable with new grading programs right away. There is very little that can throw me off.

However, I can't exactly do everything by myself. There are a few things that I need in order to do a successful job as a long term substitute. Mostly, these things include talking to the regular teacher to find out some information. This is something that has been rather difficult for me as the teacher seems to be in a bit of denial about leaving. For the past week and a half, I have been basically just observing the classes. I have asked the teacher some questions, but for some reason she has not been overly forthcoming with information.

In the past, teachers have given me tons of information and I have almost strained my hand trying to write it all down. Whenever there was an interaction with a student or other teacher, I was brought in so I would understand what was going on. With this position, I am feeling pretty excluded from everything. I sit at a table next to the teacher's desk and try to listen to what goes on. But I am rarely directly included in what goes on. It might get better as the week progresses as the teacher's last day is Friday.

The other thing is that she does not appear to have really prepped the students for the transition. The regular teacher really needs to let his/her students know that the replacement teacher is very qualified and that they will have the same quality of education. Without that assurance, the students view the replacement as merely a "substitute" instead of a real teacher.

I will keep all of these things in mind if I ever happen to need a leave replacement. Being a long term substitute isn't exactly easy so the more the regular teacher can do to ease the transition, the better.