Question for Administrators of a School District

I am not an administer but have taught in a school. If I were her, I would ask to set up a meeting with the principal rather than email. I would just be upfront and say, "I hope I didn't overstep my boundaries because of X,Y and Z." And then see where the conversation goes. She can also state why she feels she needs the aide. She should keep in mind that it's not as simple as just putting in the request and getting the aide, there's a lot that goes into determining this.

The teacher who left on maternity leave put the sub in an awkward position by having her ask for an additional aide. The actual teacher is the one who should have put in this request along with her reasons why...and it probably should have been done before she went on maternity leave. I think the request may have been taken better by the actual teacher.

First and foremost, she is not a full time employee nor an official employee of the district. She way over stepped her bounds by contacting anyone. That should have been done by the classroom teacher. The naivety of your friend is unfortunate but lacked common sense. Districts do not hold subs and long term subs in high regard. I was one for 3 years - little to no respect except from the team I was directly working with. Principals have no reason to even have a conversation with a sub much less deal with them on a basis such as this.

To your question, a groveling conversation with the principal would be in order but NOT w/ HR or anyone at admin.

You don't have to be an administrator of a school to see that your friend way overstepped her bounds. She should have spoken to the principal before any communication with the administrator. I also think it seems like the teacher might have set her up to do something that is not really the place of a teacher -going above the principals head to get additional staff. The teacher might have seen this as a sneaky way to get the district involved in her classroom situation. At any rate-she is just a sub and should have realized the pecking order. At the very least talk to the principal FIRST before going above his head.
The only way to possibly fix this is to make a sincere and humble apology to the principal about this -saying that she did not realize what she was doing and just going on what she thought that she was supposed to do per the classroom teacher.

Why did the teacher on maternity leave ask her to do this?
She got the ball rolling on this by asking the sub to stir the pot on her behalf and the sub will take all the flack from it.
Chain of command is important in any organization and I think the teacher figured a way to do an end run around the principal by asking a naive newcomer to do something the teacher would have got in trouble for had she done it herself.
Talking to the principal might help if she can apologize (she realizes now that she over stepped her bounds, it won't happen again) and successfully lay the blame on the teacher who told her to do this.
Talking to anyone else would only make things worse.

Oh boy, so she went and talked to a district supervisor about needing another person in the classroom. That means that she circumvented the chain of command, she basically skipped the principal in this conversation.
The proper way would have been to notify the principal of the teacher's request for another aide and let him take it up with the district or allocate someone already at the school. Yeah, that would be a big no-no.

Just imagine you are a someone's boss (aka principal) and your subordinate goes over your head to your boss (aka district supervisor) and tells them they need help. Basically that is implying that YOU (the principal) aren't doing your job AND next time the supervisor contacts you, you won't have any idea what is going on. Most people would be offended over this.

I the principal is typically reasonable and approachable and she feels confident about it, I would schedule a meeting and apologize for overstepping my boundaries and assure that it won't happen again.

When I was a sub , a principal asked me to do her dirty work. She wanted me to write up a boy so he would be suspended and the parents could not take it out on the teacher. I refused. It was an inappropriate request and when the parents got a lawyer, my reputation would have been trashed. I stayed out of it.

Chain of command. She is the SUB and the teacher is using her. I would move on after this assignment,

Is she trying to get a fulltime job? She has NO chance at this school and maybe not at this district.

Here's what I got out of this post.

The friend basically got the principle in the dog house with the admin and is annoyed with your friend about it. Rightly so I would imagine, they might have been blind sided by the admin calling up and wanting more information about this parent's concerns and why they hadn't been addressed. The principle might have been planning on bringing it up in a more timely manner in a way the admin would be more receptive or something.

It happens. I would tell her to simply to put it down as a learning experience. Not to do that anymore.

I would also tell her if she gets a quiet moment with the principle to ask her if she can have a word with her then try to bring up that she felt uncomfortable passing on messages from the teacher to others and ask the principle how she should handle it next time it happens. That puts the original action back on the teacher and shows the sub/friend didn't mean to step on anyone's toes. This may make a huge difference to the principle. It's different that saying "I feel tension between us since I sent that message to the admin, how can we fix this?". That makes the blame hers and basically says "You're acting oddly towards me". The way I suggested makes it an "I could use some advice" type of situation instead.

The teacher is quite able to pass on her own message to the people who are responsible for her classroom needs. She is communicating with the sub so she has the ability to communicate with others too.

I'm not an administrator but I have worked a lot in schools.

If I understand the situation correctly, your friend told the district admin. that the class needed another aide.

First of all, the teacher shouldn't have told her to say that. The teacher should have done it herself. It is not a sub's place to tell admins or principals that another employee is needed. The teacher has a phone and a computer, -- she could easily have relayed the message herself, even while on maternity leave.

I have always found that the direct route is the best. She should go to the principal, and tell him/her that she feels like she did something wrong, and she would like to clear it up. She should make it clear that she was only relaying the teacher's message.

One time, years ago, something like that happened to me. My direct supervisor told me to tell our boss that we needed something (can't remember what), so I did, and my boss got mad at me, because she felt it wasn't my place to be telling her that. The woman who was my supervisor sat there and didn't fess up and tell our boss that she had told me to say that, so I took the brunt of it.

Anyway, just tell her to talk directly to the principal and apologize, while letting the principal know that she was only relaying the teacher's message.

What Ina and B. (and everyone else) said. Chain of command. This one's pretty obvious.

The substitute is dirt to the principal now. Move on sister. Even an apology is too little too late.