Substitute Teacher Feedback Report (Page 3 of 5) in pdf

Effective Interventions for Academic Problems

Jim Wright

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[Optional but recommended] Follow up with a call to students’ parents to discuss the students’

misbehavior. Send a copy of the letter home with the student for parent signature.

• If the substitute requests on the feedback form that he or she would like to be contacted, call,

write, or email him or her to find out more about how the substitute’s day went in your

classroom.

Tips

Check in on the Substitute During the Day. With more and more classrooms equipped with

telephones, some teachers exert a bit of extra classroom control when a substitute is covering their

room by calling in at several points during the day. Substitutes are likely to appreciate these

phone calls greatly! If they have questions about the classroom lesson or need to know what

school-wide procedures to follow, the teacher can quickly supply this information. The teacher may

also be able to advise the substitute about how to deal with a particularly challenging student’s

behavior or even problem -solve on the phone directly with the student.

Trouble-Shooting

The substitute did not fill out the feedback form. With all of the demands on their time, substitute

teachers may occasionally forget to leave the completed feedback form for you at the end of the

day. Tell your students that reminding the substitute to complete the form might earn a child

special mention as being helpful and help the entire class to earn a reward. If, however, the form

is not filled out when you return to the room, see if you can get the substitute’s phone number or

email address to check in with him or her about how the day went. If you cannot get in touch with

the substitute, you might collect a little circumstantial evidence about how your class behaved while

you were gone. The office, for example, could check whether any students were sent from your

room to the principal with disciplinary referrals, while neighboring teachers in the same hallway

could describe for you what they observed going on in the room. If this indirect evidence suggests

that the class kept its behavior within appropriate bounds, give them the reward!

References

A special thanks to Cheryl Wlodarski, a teacher at a middle school in Central New York for

contributing many of the ideas in this substitute-teacher strategy!

Substitute Teacher Feedback Report Page 3