When a Colleague is Sick

courtesy of Pixabay CC0 Public Domain

Last night, just as I was getting ready to shut down and head to bed last night I got an e-mail from the Math Teacher on my team that she had gone to the Urgent Care Clinic after school yesterday and learned that she had come down with Strep Throat. Obviously, with Strep Throat, she wouldn’t be coming in to work today.

Included in the e-mail were an attachment with a lesson plan for the substitute, instructions on where to find the copies of the test the students were taking today, and a link to a worksheet for her curriculum enhancement group to do this morning. I was able to access everything except the work for her CE group.

My reply to my colleague was for her to trust me to take care of things for her, and for her to rest and get well. I hope, having heard back from me, she was able to stop worrying and get a good night’s rest.

Knowing my morning was going to be a chaotic because I had to both get ready for my class as well as get my colleague’s substitute up to speed, I woke up a few minutes early this morning and got on my way. As it turned out I nearly got it all done before the Tardy Bell.

I got back to my own classroom a few minutes after the Tardy Bell expecting to find chaos. Imagine my pleasure when I walked in and, despite there being no teacher in the room, they were in their seats and talking quietly. I told the class how proud I was of them for behaving so well knowing I had extra things to take care of this morning.

Later, the issue of not being able to print out the work for my sick colleague’s CE group was solved by having the substitute bring them to join my group in my room where I began a presentation on Test Taking Strategies designed to help the students get ready for and succeed on the End-of-Grade tests. I was again pleasantly surprised when the whole group, some 35 students, was well behaved and attentive throughout the whole presentation. Several even asked good, on point questions.

There is still a lot of the day left to go, but we are off to a good start.

As always, I remain,

The Exhausted Educator