It sure as hell took long enough and yet somehow it feels like it came fairly quickly. "It" was the last piece of the new job puzzle. The great county of Gloucester New Jersey moved with glacier like speed to issue my substitute teaching certificate. Yours truly is now an official substitute teacher. There were a lot of administrative hoops to jump through but zero training. I have to admit, I was/am scared s**tless. The scheduling coordinator talked me off the ledge and advised me to take a lot of aide assignments until I felt comfortable. The teachers I have met and worked with have been fabulous.
The school district uses an automated system that calls the house and asks if I am interested in a job. We got a call at 5:15 in the blessed am! There is also an online system to select jobs. The problem is there is not a lot of detail in the job listings. I found out the hard way this is deliberate! My first assignment was with a lot of special needs Down syndrome preschoolers. One kid was emotionally disturbed and screamed almost nonstop.
I smartened up and learned to research the teacher named in the assignment. 'Child Study Team' translates into 'tough crowd'. It is still ok to volunteer for these jobs, but if you don't have special education training, such as myself, you have to know what you're getting into.
I was lucky in the sense that there were other aides there and one of the more experienced women took the screamer. I couldn't imagine how on earth the amazing teacher didn't run screaming from the building herself and somehow managed to conduct class! The first day was thankfully only for a half day. I was wiped out just from that! I was only visiting that room for one day. I couldn't imagine how these people deal with that every day for a whole school year. These people need capes!
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