Substitute Coverage Evidence Audit

Protocol status

The reviewable signal is not the fill rate alone; it is whether each absence, assignment, arrival, release, and correction can be reconstructed from a dated source and matched to the classroom that received coverage.

This page describes a review design and its proposed controls. It does not report an executed sample, measured outcomes, or evidence that the controls improved performance.

Review protocol

Planned review sequence

1. Define the eligible population as every scheduled classroom period in a fixed school-week extract, including classes that were ultimately covered by an internal teacher or combined with another room. Record the extract date, the schools, the bell schedule version, and the count of periods.
2. List the fields required for each absence
3. Name the authoritative source for each field. An absence approval comes from the absence system, not a voicemail; an arrival time comes from the check-in record, not a recollection; a time adjustment comes from payroll with a reason. Mark every field that has no source.
4. Stratify the sample by school, absence type, credential requirement, and whether the class was covered internally. Include same-day absences and unfilled periods so the review does not describe only the easy assignments.
5. Classify each exception by cause
6. Report the population, the sample, the field-level evidence, the exceptions, and the limits. Retain the extract, the board, the payroll comparison, and the checklist version so a second reviewer can reproduce the result. The review does not evaluate whether a leave was legitimate.

Operational implications

A high fill rate can coexist with weak evidence if internal coverage is never recorded.

Arrival time and release time answer different questions and should be stored separately.

Credential gaps are a pool design issue, not only a scheduling issue.

Cancelled absences must remain in the population so the denominator is honest.

Internal coverage needs the same owner and confirmation as an external substitute.

The protocol measures record quality; it does not establish whether a particular absence was approved.