Attendance roster for a substitute

You are out tomorrow and someone who has never met these students has to take the roll. Print the month's roster now — numbered, alphabetized, nothing assumed. Free · no signup · nothing uploaded unless you turn on sync.

What a substitute actually needs

Not your system. A sub cannot read your shorthand, does not know that Maddie is Madison R., and has no idea which two students answer to the same first name. What travels is a list: every student, in a stable order, numbered so a headcount takes one glance, with empty cells they can mark however the office asks.

That is the whole design of this sheet, and it is why the useful version is the one you print before you are ill rather than the one you improvise at 6am. It takes a minute while your class list is already on screen.

Leave the seating chart with it

A roster tells a sub who should be there; a seating chart tells them who is who. The two together are the difference between "please raise your hand when I read your name" and a sub who can address students directly from the first minute. The substitute seating chart prints your real room with every name placed, from the same class list — so the pair is two clicks, not two projects.

Also worth the clipboard: a blank roster for anyone who turns up unlisted, and a class checklist if you need work handed in and recorded while you are away.

Questions teachers ask

Should I mark known absences before I print?

No — leave the sheet clean. A student marked absent in advance is a student the sub will not call, and plans change. Print the full list and let them mark what they find.

First names or "Last, First"?

"Last, First" if the office wants the sheet back, since that is the order the roll is usually kept in. First name order is kinder to a sub reading names aloud to a class they have never met — you can print one of each.

What if a student joins while I'm out?

There are blank numbered rows below the last name for exactly that. Add them to your class list when you are back and every later roster includes them.

Anything else worth leaving out?

A seating chart, if the class is one where names matter. The substitute seating chart prints the room with every name in place, which is what turns a roster into something a stranger can actually use.

One roster, every other tool

Your class list is already saved in this browser — every tool below picks it up, with no names retyped and nothing uploaded unless you turn on sync.

Ready to print: Blank attendance roster One roster per class Blank printables