The fun continues with this long-term substitute position I have.  As mentioned previously, the plan was to have me teach until Christmas break, then do one transition day in January to help the other teacher return to teaching.  Well, on Wednesday before I left for Thanksgiving break, I heard that the teacher wasn’t doing well and was back in the hospital with kidney issues.  He was not doing well.  This led me to believe that he wasn’t coming back soon.  I was right.  Today at lunchtime, we were notified that he had passed-away Wednesday afternoon, right before Thanksgiving.  I was saddened by the news, but I also sort of expected it.  I wasn’t sure if I should tell the kids or wait for an administrator or counsellor to break the bad news.  I needn’t have concerned myself with this – the kids knew by the end of lunch.  My how gossip spreads!  The mood during the next two periods was sullen.  When I got home, I had some time to think about what this might mean for me.  At first, I was hopeful about the possibility of teaching for the rest of the year, but then I had this thought that without an English credential, the school may not want to keep me in the classroom.  They would need a replacement teacher who had both an English Credential and a Social Studies Credential like he had had.  I was right too: I got an email from the principal asking me how soon I was going to get my English credential.  I emailed him back that it wouldn’t be until April of next year at the earliest.  His next email was pretty short and sweet: Tell the kids tomorrow that they will have a new teacher next semester.  Apparently, I can only teach so many days as a long-term sub before the school has to hire me and they wouldn’t hire me without an English credential so they had to let me go at the end of my current contract.  It was the right decision for the given situation, though I still thought it sucked.  What about the kids?  They need some stability after a traumatic event like this (my TA had to excuse herself from class today so she could go and cry for half an hour!).  I guess rules are rules, but it’s not the best thing for the students in this case.  About an hour after the email exchange, I got a call cancelling that one transition day in January.  I guess with his passing, there really was no need for me to help anyone at the start of the new semester.  Whoever they hire will be on their own (with no curriculum and three very different subjects to teach).