The one day substitute handoff template

Page one: the ninety second orientation

• Write your name, room number, grade, and today's bell schedule at the topA substitute reads the first six lines and nothing else before the bell rings. Put the room number and exact period start times where a stranger cannot miss them.
• Name two adults the sub can physically find in under a minuteGive a name and a room number, not a title. The teacher across the hall and the front office clerk are worth more than an assistant principal who is in meetings until ten.
• State the arrival routine in three linesWhere students enter, what is on the board, and what they do for the first four minutes. Good looks like a substitute who never has to guess what happens at the bell.
• List every login the day depends onProjector, attendance, and the device cart if you use one. Verify them in October and again in January, because an expired password is the most common reason a sub calls the office.
• Mark the fire drill and lockdown routes in one line eachOne direction and one meeting spot. Nobody reads a laminated map during an actual drill, and a substitute least of all.

The bell by bell plan

• Write each period as timed blocks, not as a topicTen minutes warm up, twenty minutes reading, fifteen minutes exit ticket. Timing is the part a stranger cannot invent, and it is what keeps a class from unraveling at minute thirty.
• Name the materials and say exactly where they sitThe drawer, the shelf, or the labeled folder on the desk. Good looks like the sub finding the packet without opening a single thing you did not mention.
• Give every period a fallback for finishing earlyOne page of independent work per class, labeled by period. Assume at least one section moves twice as fast as you expect, because one always does.
• Say what happens to completed student workOne tray, one pile, one sentence. Naming the spot is the difference between finding the work Tuesday morning and finding it in twenty eight backpacks.
• Write the one sentence to use if the plan falls apartSomething like have them read silently and I will handle it tomorrow. It gives the substitute permission to stop improvising, which protects the rest of the day.

Students, safety, and support

• Print a current seating chart with first namesRegenerate it after every schedule change. A September chart in February is worse than none at all, because it makes a substitute confident and wrong at the same time.
• List medical alerts as actions, not historiesAllergy and where the response kit is, seizure protocol, inhaler location. Write what an adult must do in the moment and leave the diagnosis story out of it.
• Note only the accommodations that change how the day runsPreferential seating, extended time, a scheduled break, a paraprofessional arriving at eleven. If a substitute cannot act on it, it does not belong on the page.
• Name the students who leave the room and whenPull outs, related services, and early dismissal with times. Missing this is how a substitute marks a student absent who is sitting in speech down the hall.
• Write your hall pass, bathroom, and phone policy in your own wordsThree lines is enough. A substitute who has to invent a phone policy at 9:15 loses the room for the rest of the day and hands you a mess on Tuesday.

Close out and the day you return

• Leave a one page note back form for the substituteAsk what got done, who helped, and what to check. Three prompts get filled in honestly and ten do not, so keep it to three.
• Say where keys, badge, and the folder go at dismissalOne sentence at the bottom of page one. Good looks like the next substitute finding the folder in exactly the same place six weeks later.
• Block five minutes for your own return routineRead the note back, check the work tray, and fix whatever the plan got wrong while it is still fresh. This is the step that keeps a folder from quietly rotting.
• Refresh the banked day you just usedSwap in the next activity so you are never down to zero ready days. Ten minutes on Wednesday beats writing from scratch at 5:40 the next time you wake up sick.