Teacher absence creates need for replacements

By Cameron Ibrahim
Staff Writer

When a teacher knowingly leaves Mira Costa mid-year, it causes transitional issues for his or her students. Teacher and administration foresight pertaining to teacher leave is necessary to minimize the disruption to the students’ learning environments, regardless of possible abrupt teacher absences.
A teacher may have to leave school either temporarily or permanently, sometimes on short notice in the case of injury or illness. This causes problems for the administration, requiring them to hire replacement teachers on short-term notice for short-term positions. It is also a choppy transition for students to adjust to a new teacher mid-year.

Mira Costa has residential substitute teachers on call who are able to take over the classroom during a short absence. For periods longer than a quarter, such as a maternity leave or extended illness, a replacement teacher is required. According to Costa Principal Dr. Ben Dale, it is sometimes difficult to hire a replacement because most qualified applicants are looking for a long-term job.

When a teacher has prior knowledge of his or her absence, he or she is expected to notify the administration so that it may hire a substitute or replacement. He or she is also expected to come up with a lesson plan in conjunction with the chosen temporary teacher, as well as the two department heads to ensure that the correct curriculum is covered. Teachers with any advanced knowledge of their absence must be responsible to plan lessons and communicate with the replacement teacher to make this major change less stressful.

When transitioning, students often have difficulties adjusting to the difference in teaching style between the current teacher and prospective substitute. While nothing could completely alleviate this discrepancy, hiring a teacher earlier would allow the replacement teacher to sit in on the class. This would allow him or her to understand what the students’ and teacher’s expectations are and allow students to acclimatize to the new teacher.

While this process only serves to cover scenarios where there is prior knowledge of the teacher’s absence, it would offer an incentive to replacement teachers by extending the prospective length of the employment.

In the inevitable case that there is little to no warning of a teacher’s absence, the department heads should help the residential substitute by implementing a program in which students study the book and instructional videos at home. The substitute could then learn the material along with the students and be able to help them in class with homework and questions. This reversed learning environment should be implemented until a more long-term solution in available, such as the actual teacher providing lesson plans to the substitute or the district hiring a replacement teacher with the appropriate credentials.
Although both these solutions require cooperation and time from the district and other teachers, having a previously agreed upon plan would benefit both the afflicted teachers and students.