Scott Anstett thought his college classes and student teaching had prepared him for his first substitute-teaching job at Denny Middle School in West Seattle.
Then, on his first day of school, a couple of his rowdier students jumped out the windows of his portable classroom.
“They were going a bit nuts,” he said recently. “They knew I was a sub, so they put me to the test. … It was a culture shock.”
Anstett stuck with it, and spent four years in a string of substitute jobs in Seattle Public Schools. But he might have given up on the profession if he hadn’t landed a permanent job last fall, teaching art at Aki Kurose Middle School, and if he hadn’t met Don “Mac” MacInnes.