The Substitute Who Stayed

I teach fourth grade at Lincoln Elementary in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, and I've been filling in for Mrs. Kowalski since her maternity leave started in February. The classroom still smells like her lavender hand sanitizer, even though she's been gone six weeks now.

The note on her desk said the finch feeder outside the window needed refilling every Thursday. I've been doing it, not because anyone asked, but because the kids count the birds during silent reading. Tyler, the one with the dinosaur eraser collection, keeps a tally in the back of his math notebook. Last Thursday there were seven finches. The Thursday before, eleven.

I didn't expect to still be here in April. The district kept saying a permanent replacement was coming—"any day now, we've got a strong candidate"—but the interim assignment kept getting extended week by week. The principal, Mr. Delgado, would stop by my classroom door between periods and say, "Hang tight, Miss Alvarez. You're doing great work with these kids."

I'm not a certified teacher. I have a bachelor's in sociology and a substitute license. Before this, I was bouncing between three districts, picking up random days, sleeping with my phone on in case a 6:20 a.m. call came through for a sick fifth-grade teacher across town. I kept my lesson materials in a milk crate in the trunk of my Corolla.

But then February happened, and I landed here, and now I know that Marcus sits closest to the window because he's saving up for glasses his mom can't afford yet. I know that Jasmine writes her spelling words in cursive even though we switched to print in January. I know that the Avery twins, Owen and Liam, can't sit together because they'll spend the entire math block drawing a comic strip about a superhero made of cheese.

I found all this out because I stayed.

The thing about being a long-term sub is that everyone treats you like furniture. The other teachers are polite, but you eat lunch alone more often than not. The office staff forgets to add you to the email list. The curriculum specialist doesn't stop by your room because she doesn't know your name. You're the person holding the chalk until the real teacher gets back.

One afternoon in mid-March, I was walking past the teachers' lounge when I heard Mrs. Calloway, the third-grade lead, say something through the open door. "They're just going to keep her until June and call it done. Cheaper than hiring an actual teacher." She was talking about me. My ears went hot, and I kept walking. I ate my peanut butter sandwich alone in my classroom that day, and I laid out the multiplication flash cards for the next morning in neat stacks, one set for each row, just to have something to do with my hands.

At home, my apartment on 14th Street still has the mattress on the floor because the box spring wouldn't fit up the stairs. My landlord's dog, a beagle named Barley, barks at the mail truck like it owes him money. I sit on the floor at night with my laptop, looking at graduate school programs with tuition numbers that make my chest hurt. My mom texts me from Waterloo asking if I've heard anything about a full-time job. I keep telling her, "Soon, Ma."

The kids started testing me around week four. That's what kids do when they don't know if you're staying. Marcus refused to do his reading log. Jasmine talked to Owen during silent reading, which she never does. The noise during library time crept up and up. They weren't being bad—they were asking a question. Are you going to leave too?

So I did the thing I'd been afraid to do. I called a parent. Not to complain, but to check in. Jasmine's mom answered on the second ring, sounded like she was at work—I could hear a drive-thru headset in the background. I said Jasmine seemed distracted and asked if everything was okay at home. There was a long pause, and then Mom said, "Her dad moved out two weeks ago. She hasn't been sleeping."

That call changed something. Jasmine's mom started coming to school on her lunch breaks to sit with her in the car and eat fries. Marcus admitted he wasn't doing his reading log because the book I'd assigned was too hard, not because he was lazy. I swapped it for one with bigger print, and he finished it in two days and asked for another.

The classroom settled. My attendance sheet stayed full. Tyler's finch tally hit twelve.

Then, on Tuesday of last week, Mr. Delgado came into my room during independent reading. He stood at my desk, which is still Mrs. Kowalski's desk, and told me the district had finally made a decision. The permanent position would be opened for applications, and I was "welcome to apply." His exact words. The lavender sanitizer sat between us on the desk, and I wanted to ask if she was coming back or not. I didn't. I said thank you, and I kept making my good-morning sign for the next day—the one with the joke of the day at the bottom.

That night, I opened the district jobs portal. The posting was there, salary range listed, plus benefits. But it required a teaching certificate. I have a substitute license. I have six weeks with these kids. I have a finch feeder that I refill on Thursdays.

So I did something I'd never done before. I emailed the school board. I wrote that I was currently teaching Mrs. Kowalski's class, that I'd been there since February 22nd, and that I wanted to stay. I included my license number and my transcripts. I told them about the tinfoil-and-toothpick models of the solar system the kids made. I told them about the reading log. I attached a photo of the bulletin board outside the classroom, the one with every student's name and one thing they're proud of. Fourteen kids. Fourteen things.

I didn't hear back for a week. I kept teaching. We started fractions, which honestly nobody loves, but Marcus said the pizza drawings helped. On Thursday I refilled the feeder. The finches came. Tyler counted, but this time he called me over to show me the notebook, not through the window—he wanted me to see the new page. At the top he'd written "Miss Alvarez's Birds." Not Mrs. Kowalski's. Mine.

Yesterday, the response arrived. The district thanked me for my interest and encouraged me to apply "once certified." The email was three paragraphs long and said nothing at all.

At dinner I heated up canned tomato soup and ate it standing at my kitchen counter. My mom texted. "Any news?" I typed out a long answer and then deleted it. Instead I wrote, "Gonna get my teaching certificate. Starting the application tonight." I hit send. Then I filled out the first form on the state education website and checked the bank balance on my phone. Four hundred and thirty-seven dollars in checking. The application fee was eighty-five.

I paid it anyway. On Friday, Jasmine's spelling test came back with a hundred at the top, and she signed her name in the corner in those curly cursive letters, pressing hard enough to nearly tear the paper.

This morning I went in early. The halls were quiet except for the heater rattling in the back stairwell. Monday announcements crackled over the intercom, and Tyler walked in with his bird notebook under his arm.

"You're still here," he said.

"Yeah," I said. "I'm still here."

Outside the window, the finch feeder swayed in the wind, silver and red against the gray Iowa sky. I uncapped the dry-erase marker, wrote the date on the whiteboard, and turned to face the start of the day.