Ms. Life in Limbo, our wildly popular contributor, recently reported that an interviewer asked her why she hadn't been "picked up" by either of the two schools where she had been sent to substitute as a member of the Absent Teacher Reserve (ATR).
Before I expand on Ms. Limbo's answer, allow me to take offense at the term "picked up." Are ATR teachers like hookers waiting to be "picked up" in a hotel lobby? Or are they like criminals who are "picked up" by the cops?
Members of the ATR are teachers. They are employed by the DOE, and they have done nothing to justify a termination of their employment. They are looking for a regular appointment within one school, where they can use their talents for the benefit of the students.
When the DOE sends an ATR teacher to a school as a substitute, it does so more or less randomly:
*Early Childhood teachers are sent to middle schools;
*Early Childhood teachers are sent to middle schools;
*Reading teachers are sent to schools that have just closed their Reading programs;
*general education teachers are sent to work with a Committee on Special Education;
*high-school teachers are sent to elementary schools;
*Science teachers are sent to cover for Art teachers;
These haphazard placements are a disservice to the students, and are certainly no help to the ATR teachers who are looking for permanent positions.
*You might be the most wonderful Reading teacher, but the principal who just excessed all his Reading teachers has no interest in you;
*you might be a great Science teacher, but your new principal will never get to know that by watching you struggle to teach art;
*you might be a great Early Childhood specialist, but a total failure at trying to control a room full of 7th-graders.
These are some of the major reasons that ATR teachers are not often hired by the schools where they substitute. They might want to be "picked up," but they are sent to the dance in ugly-duckling costumes and find themselves hugging the walls. Anyone who thinks otherwise has never been a member of the Absent Teacher Reserve.
