Disclaimer
About this site
subin and The Sub’s Handbook are published by Dan McSpirit, an individual. There is no company behind them. The site is free, there are no accounts, and nothing on it is for sale.
What this site is
The Sub’s Handbook is written from experience as a substitute teacher. It describes what has worked in real classrooms. It is not official guidance, it is not training, and it does not come from any school, district, or education authority.
Game Plan and Back Pocket produce suggested classroom material. They are starting points, not lesson plans approved by anyone.
Your school’s rules come first
Every school and district has its own policies, and those govern what you can and cannot do in a classroom. Where anything on this site conflicts with what you are told by your school, your district, or the people in the building, follow them. Nothing here overrides local policy or the instructions you are given on arrival.
What this site is not
Nothing on this site is legal, medical, employment, or professional advice. It does not tell you what the law requires of you, because that depends on where you work. Questions about your obligations as a school employee, about a particular student, or about your own employment should go to your district or to someone qualified to answer them.
If a situation feels beyond you, contact the office in your building. That is always the right call.
Accuracy
The content is offered in good faith and reviewed for accuracy, but it is provided as-is, without warranty of any kind. Schools differ, situations differ, and no written guidance survives every classroom. Use your judgment.
Dan McSpirit is not liable for any loss, injury, or damage arising from use of this site or reliance on anything published here.
Links to other sites
Some pages link to resources published by other organisations. Those sites are not under this site’s control and linking to them is not an endorsement of everything they contain.
Privacy
There are no accounts, no cookies, no advertising, and no third-party scripts on this site.
Page-view statistics. The site counts visits using Vercel Web Analytics, which is part of the service that hosts it. It doesn’t use cookies. Vercel states that the identifier it counts visitors with resets every day, so a visit can’t be linked to you on another day or on another website. Each page view records the page, the site you came from, your approximate location, and your device type. Vercel’s privacy page has the full list: vercel.com/docs/analytics/privacy-policy. If you’d rather not be counted, adding ?noanalytics=1 to any page turns it off and remembers that choice on this device until you clear the site’s data; ?noanalytics=0 turns it back on.
Stored on your device. Two features keep a little information in your browser so a page doesn’t lose your place. The Game Plan remembers which sections you’ve opened. The data tool in spreadsheet exercises keeps the numbers you’ve recorded, so a reload mid-count doesn’t lose them. This is cleared when you close the tab, and the exercise numbers are also cleared when you tap End. None of it is sent anywhere, and the exercise tool never records names. The one exception is the page-count choice above, which is kept until you clear the site’s data — otherwise it would forget every time.
Hosting. Like any website, the servers that deliver these pages process each request, including your IP address, in order to deliver them.
Copyright
The writing on this site is the author’s own work and remains his. You are welcome to share links to it, quote from it with attribution, and use the handbook in your own practice. Republishing entries in full, or using the content commercially, requires permission.
Changes
The site is edited regularly and this page may change without notice.
Getting in touch
Corrections, disagreements, and questions: info@joinsubin.org. If something here contradicts what you have actually seen in a building, that is the most useful message this site can receive.