So, it's late August and you still haven't lined up steady work for the upcoming school year. Don't fret! Something might come along at the last minute. It did to me a few years ago.
It was the end of summer and I surrendered to the idea of day-to-day subbing in multiple districts to make ends meet in lieu of the tenure track teaching job that never materialized. I was sitting on my couch, playing a video game, when the phone rang. I answered a phone call from a school district I had never heard of, nor, to my knowledge, did I ever apply to this mysterious sounding place that somehow ended up with my information. A neighboring district to which I applied forwarded my application to this district who in turn called me, asking if I was available for the upcoming school year. I took the interview. It turned out that this district was nearly an hour away, but I needed a job and figured it was worth a ride to see what this unknown place was all about. They needed me to start in three days. I accepted. It was my first teaching job and it was a major challenge to get myself prepared in 72 hours, but I did it. I drove an hour each way to work every day. I left home at 6 AM, returned home about 6 PM. By the end of the school year, I logged at least 20,000 miles on my car. I've seen a lot of corn fields. I slid off a country road into a ditch. In the end, it was all worth it. I gained valuable experience and enjoyed my time teaching the students in that district.
Don't despair. Be ready for the call. There's a lot of action in these last few weeks of summer and, best of all, I can guarantee you that it will be a quick interview process. You might be working in a few weeks.
Thanks so much for this supportive entry. I recently relocated to Buffalo with New York Art Ed. Certification, and after applying to SEVEN open positions from the “WNYRIC Jobs” website, I have not even gotten one call for an interview. I graduated at the top of my class at my university and received accolades for the success I experienced during my student teaching practicum. I was a Long-Term sub for the last half of the 2007-2008 school year, but since moving to Western New York, I feel like my career has taken a nose-dive. Your experience was a morale boost I needed here in the last weeks of August. Here’s hoping!
I have received two phone (well 1 late night e-mail at 9:30PM, and 1 actual phone call) calls so far for last minute positions/interviews. One was for a two day elementary Spanish position (which the only experience I have in Spanish is from 5 years in HS). I can understand why they would be ina pinch for that position as it is only a two day a week experience. The other is for a full time reading position. I really do not want to have to spend another year subbing, only to be over looked by that district later on….hopefully the full time position pans out.
[...] There's still time to find a job for this upcoming year. You think it's over, I know. Five years ago, I got my first teaching job about three days before the school year began. I took a long term sub job about 45 minutes away from home. I remember listening to radio news coverage of Hurricane Katrina on those long drives between work and home. It's hard to believe that it has been five years since that catastrophe (the hurricane, not the job). Here's a brief article I wrote about my experience a few years ago. [...]