I have taken maternity leave before. With my first child, maternity leave was fairly simple. I was able to show the long term substitute my classroom, introduce her to my students, introduce her to my grade level content team (who would guide her through the day-to-day curriculum), and have my baby without many worries. Of course I’m oversimplifying it, but looking back, it seems that simple compared to the 2020 virtual long term substitute.
At the beginning of the school year, I took the 6-8 ELA distance learning teacher position for the 80 students in our middle school who chose a full-time distance learning option for the school year in lieu of in-person instruction. I took this position fully knowing that I was pregnant and would have to prepare a long-term substitute to take over for 12 weeks. As my due date got closer and closer, I started to panic because I realized preparing for a long-term sub with virtual learning students would be a whole different ballgame than the “here’s my classroom, here are my students, here is the team you’ll be working with” spiel I got to give during my maternity leave a few years ago.
My mind began flooding with thoughts of showing my students’ long-term substitute how to work Google Classroom, Google Meets, our online grading system, managing student behavior online, parent communication, etc. I feel like after 14 weeks in, I am just starting to figure this world out. Luckily, I was able to prepare for our transition for several weeks, and my amazing long-term substitute spent a significant amount of time observing our Google Meets and meeting with me about all of the rest.
I put together a checklist of all the different items I could think of to go over with her that I thought I would share for anyone in the same situation as me who is preparing for a long-term substitute during distance learning.
You can access the checklist here: Preparing for a Distance Learning Long Term Sub. This will bring up a force copy link. Feel free to make a personal copy for your Google Drive and modify the checklist to fit your needs. I hope it is helpful to you!
Kasey
