Dear Substitutes,

The first snow is here and with this we’re getting into snow days season. Snow days are kind of a double-edged sword: you get a day off when you and everybody else most likely don’t want to go to work – yeah! On the other hand, your nicely lined-up subbing job gets canceled and you don’t get paid that day – boo!

However, there’s good news and that’s where the attached pink sheet comes into play.

For every snow day that you were scheduled to work and got canceled, the District will pay for a day of Professional Development. So, last year we had three snow days, thus if you were canceled on all three days, you earned three paid PD days.

There’s more good news: after 30 days of service in a 12-month period (does not have to be consecutive days), you earn another paid PD day; and a second paid PD day after 45 days of service.

So, when totaled up this makes 3 PD days from snow days plus 2 PD days from 30/45 days of service = 5 paid PD days. I usually take these days in the summer, when I have more time and there are more PD offerings available.

Now the Pink Sheet: please look at the attached example sheet. You’ll need the name and date of the workshop and whether it’s morning or afternoon or both. A workshop of 3.25 hours or more is considered a full day, 3 or fewer hours count as half days. For the school you can enter either ICSD (the District Catalog) or BOCES (the TST BOCES Catalog). These catalogs are accessible via the Frontline Education portal

http://tinyurl.com/yhqem6q6

through which you may register for workshops and through which you get the proof of attendance/Frontline My Learning Plan printout, the next item on the Pink Sheet.

A piece of bad news here: you need 30 service days to get access to the Frontline Education Portal. The good news: Sharon Warren sharon.warren@icsd.k12.ny.us can set you up quickly once you contact her.

The last item on the Pink Sheet is ‘Reason for Absence’. Here you enter the reasons for which you claim the workshop to be paid: snow days with the actual date plus the confirmation number of the canceled job. It’s a good idea to keep a record of this information – I simply copy and paste all my scheduled assignments from AESOP into a spreadsheet once a week. Also, the History Tab in AESOP is your friend;-)

Lastly: the other possible ‘Reasons for Absence’ are 30 days or 45 days of service. Keep track of your days of service every year – the District will as well to verify the validity of your claim.

That’s it – happy PD-ing!

Mike Darwin Yerky

ISA VP