The investigative report also mentioned a number of other incidents that included a sub showing her students naked pictures of herself and another sub describing his daughter’s dating habits to the classroom. In addition to uncovering substitutes who make inappropriate or profane remarks, there are also the ones who are physically aggressive to students.

But what is most alarming is that in Texas, like in many other states, the school districts are not required to report such episodes to any state governing board or agency.

The districts just handle the problems themselves. And the easiest way to be rid of such a problem is to simply terminate employment and make them ineligible for re-hire. As a result, some of the malefactors who are fired from one place merely apply for employment at a neighboring school district, which may or may not extensively check the applicant’s references and past work history.
 

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The bad substitutes who continue their illicit conduct may attempt to conceal their past behavior or blatantly lie about it. And the districts that are negligent or careless in properly screening them out are asking for problems and for lawsuits.

In many ways, it is the environment of vulnerable adolescents that attracts many of these malcontents. Consequently, our education system has to be more aware about these potential predators and become vigilant about them since they are truly more elusive than the permanent school employees. Policies have to be put into place and adhered to.

In addition, parents need to be involved too. Parents need to ask questions to their children about the presence of questionable behavior from school personnel. The transient nature of substitutes may make it a bit more difficult to identify a pattern but it only takes one incident to report the school’s administration.

And parents shouldn’t dismiss a one-time inappropriate remark, especially if it comes from a substitute teacher.

It is also obvious that states need to maintain a mechanism for “incident reporting” and have it made available for all districts to access. After all, substitute teachers are state employees; therefore it is imperative that some kind of oversight be maintained instead allowing districts to palm off their bad apples to someone else.

As for the extra expense incurred for providing such a service, that is just the cost of doing business.

In fact, private companies are already concentrating their efforts in conducting background checks on prospective employees to thwart future lawsuits. Destructive and dangerous employees are bad for business and the private sector doesn’t want to pay the price for them. School districts ought to use same mentality to apply to substitute teachers.

And since a state has a monopoly on its schools, then it already has a captive audience so that maintaining such records in a database does not have to be a bureaucratic nightmare. Such a system would allow easy access for schools to instantaneously verify the background of applicants instead of inadvertently hiring potential predators.

But a database is only as effective as the data in it. As a result, legislatures have to make school districts report these incidents so that the bad substitutes can be identified and prevented from obtaining future employment at other schools. Ideally, these types of miscreants should not be allowed to hop from one school district to another as is the case right now.

It is unsettling that such incidents are occurring especially since there is no way to accurately measure them because of a lack of a database.

However, there are still plenty of very good substitute teachers out there. I have known plenty of them myself. Some are recent college graduates who want an exposure to the education system. I have also known a lot of retired military who love this type of part time work because it gives them interaction with a lot of people. My own mother was a substitute teacher for a while too and a few of my friends have done it.

Overall, schools need good substitute teachers especially since so many teachers rely on them. The pay isn’t great but many substitutes don’t look at it as a permanent form of employment. And providing a safe environment for our children is something that cannot be overlooked if we have the means to enhance it.

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