Cass Spanish Class Without Spanish-Speaking Sub

DARIEN, IL – Cass School District 63 struggles like other districts in finding long-term substitutes who know the subjects they're teaching.

That was the case with the Spanish course at Cass Junior High since the beginning of the school year.

The regular teacher was out on maternity leave, but returned Tuesday. The substitute could not speak Spanish.

"We would get a subject area specialist every time if we could," Superintendent Mark Cross said in an email to Patch "Having said that, we are fortunate in our school district, to have great subs who are just great teachers."

To make it work, the teachers collaborated and moved the cultural piece of Spanish class to the first weeks of the course, Cross said.

"Our teachers who go out on leave in a situation like this are so good about planning ahead to make it as seamless as possible," the superintendent said. "We do not always have subs who hold the endorsement to teach a specific subject. If we can, we do, but this is common for subs and has been the case since the beginning of time."