Students have been showing disrespect to substitute teachers for many years on end. Some may not even realize how their actions quickly turn into ignorance.

We’ve all witnessed the students that make fun of substitutes, or say negative or even racist comments towards them. Some have even given nicknames to substitutes that commonly cover for our teachers.

Many of us have seen the way other students react with substitutes, even though the value of respect is heavily enforced on us as Monte Vista students.

With that being said, not all students at MV are always disrespectful to students.

Tara Saghir, fellow junior, shares her perspective on the treatment of substitute teachers at our school.

“Most of the time students are pretty respectful to substitute teachers,” Saghir said. “But occasionally I do see students messing around in class, but they aren’t always rude to the subs.”

Junior Aniya Gill, president of the MV Bully Project, feels strongly about the topic.

“I see a lot of students that always disrespect subs because they think they can get away with anything,” Aniya said. “Subs don’t have that much of an affect on students because we see them once or twice and thats it; but either way I would still respect them for that amount of time.”

The way some of our students have been treating substitute teachers is inappropriate and disrespectful.

The fact that the substitute is simply there for one class period on a particular day does not justify that it would be okay to treat them with less respect than we would treat our actual teachers.

So what makes it okay to treat substitutes like they aren’t our teachers?

Students have been known to trick the substitutes into avoiding a lesson plan, or even convincing the substitute that the use of cell -phones is allowed during class for that period.

My little sister, a seventh grader, says that some students try to make the substitute teacher look stupid by making up rules which the substitute will easily to agree to.

In a class of mine, a couple students always convinced our substitute to have our class go to another class to watch a video or etc. However, this takes away from time doing things that our actual teacher has prepared for us.

Also, this could result in the teacher getting mad at the substitute for that day if the students hadn’t gotten their work done.

Yes, we all love to do anything that will distract us from actual class time and we love being able to do or act how we want. But is the presence of a substitute the appropriate time to do this?

Not only is this form of disrespect evident in the way we treat substitute teachers, but also in the way we deal with our servers, waiters, etc. in our daily lives outside of school.

Rumors have spread about waiters at Starbucks purposely messing up orders if they don’t like the way a customer is talking to them. Some have even said waiters will write profane comments on drinks/ cups.

Considering these people are here to help and assist us with our needs, is it okay to treat them poorly or with disrespect?

Hailey Woram, senior, is a waitress at a popular local restaurant, where she’s constantly dealing with customers, some ruder than others.

    “The way I deal with rude customers is by staying calm, listening to what they’re saying, and trying to be as apologetic as possible,” Woram said. “It’s hard to not take things too personally but sometimes people are just having a bad day and you can’t let that ruin their experience at the restaurant.”