January 24th, 2020 

Hello everybody,
How are you doing? I’m doing well, even though next week, I will have my first midterm.  By the time that you’ll read this… I will be starting or have already started my internship semester. But everything is okay… this may seem strange to suddenly see a post from January 2020, but I’m bumping this post from other scheduled posts, because… it feels pretty important for you to know?

Last year, I scheduled a post about working in the area of Montreal, and now that I’ve gone through a little bit more, I just wanted to keep you all up to date with the process with the Commission Scolaire Marie-Victorin, because if someone with my experience now had been close to me and telling me about these things a few days ago, I feel like they would have reassured me.

Disclaimer: Before you start reading, I want you to know that this is just my personal experience with the whole process, and it may not happen to you specifically.

A little bit of weird background information… which you can skip!

After my first internship (TESL 466), I accepted to substitute for one day, but in order to do that, I needed to at least start the process of applying as a sub in the Marie-Victorin school board. I applied in November 2019 (oh! a year ago by the time this goes up! Time sure flies by, huh???) and I was accepted within the next few days through email (which was very strange because I didn’t do as much as my friends who had to submit so much more) after I sent in a few transcripts to prove that I was a full-time student in an education-related program. Because I was accepted, I went and did my subbing.

It took awhile before I was able to get any information to get paid. I only just (today as of the writing of this post!) got an email to go meet up with people in order to submit my official files. All of this to say that… if this is your first time working for the school board, DON’T PANIC if you haven’t gotten anything yet. It’s normal that they are… a little bit slow…?

Here are the few things you need to know about this School Board

Disclaimer: These are according to my experience. It may have changed by the time you read this, or it might be very different for other people.

1. Management is not always there.

• If you are calling at any time of the day, even if the school board says that they are open, you need to save a voice message and they will get back to you whenever (not all the time).
• If you are emailing them, they also may not answer. It’s preferable to call.

2. At first, you don’t have to send much of anything 

They email you once in order to ask you to send them proof that you are a student and a transcript of your grades from any university degree you have. They emailed me almost immediately afterwards and accepted me as an official sub. Hurray!

From what my friends and I understand, once you are past this, you can actually start subbing already until they email you, but you will not be paid until you have officially met with them and stuff.

Later on (in mid-December), I received an email that gave me my Matricule number (it’s a 9-digit number that is pretty much your ID).

3. Websites 

So, for this particular school board (I don’t know if it is the same for others), you need to know about the three super important websites:

1. The Candidacy website
   1. (which you need to keep updated with your availabilities, because it’s linked with the other websites)
   2. The first “username” (with numbers and letters) that you receive for this website is only to submit the candidacy
   3. After you receive your Matricule number, you need to log in to this website with it and input your NAS as well as your availabilities for subbing.
2. The Subbing website
   1. In this website, which you will need to log in using your Matricule number, you will receive the next schools in which you can go sub, if you are not contacted directly by a school.
3. The pay website
   1. You also log in using your Matricule number, so wait until you get that. In this website, you can see your schedule as well as the pay that they have sent into your bank account.

3. What to do when they actually DO email you 

They will email you (maybe two months after (from November to January, REALLY)? or immediately after (my friends from other school boards Commission Scolaire de Laval and Commission Scolaire de Montreal were contacted pretty quickly and they had their meetings pretty quickly)?). You need to call them and they will call you to give you a date.

While waiting for them to call or while waiting for the date, prepare the originals of each of these documents which you may have prepared already from my other post”:

• The card or the official document of your NAS (Numero d’Assurance Sociale) or Social Insurance Number
• Specimen cheque or cheque sample
  • As long as it’s printed from the bank’s website, then it’s fine, they say.
• Proof of your Canadian Citizenship (either your Birth Certificate or card)
• All OFFICIAL diplomas and grade transcripts since high school until your most recent schooling
  • January 27th, 2020 update: I was so nervous because it costs A LOT to get these transcripts… but they reassured me today and said they will let you keep the official transcripts and diplomas, but they will only make official copies of them for their files.

4. What you’re expected to do once you’re there 

Apparently (because I haven’t gone through it yet), you need to fill in an ID sheet and a police check documents. I’m guessing, if it’s like how my friends did it, then I will have to go to the actual school board to introduce myself and they will apparently also tell you what to expect and how subbing will work.

I’m not sure what it will be about, but I will keep you posted!
Have a great day, I really hope this was helpful in any way,
See you all next time!
PV