Dealing with difficult coworkers

I am a substitute teacher at an elementary school where Ive been working for 3 full years now. I began working in the special-ed department for grades K-2 and had a wonderful time with a great group of experienced, reliable, and helpful paraprofessionals and other professionals. This year, that department has been completely replaced and there are two new paras in particular that are well-known for their gossip even though they have been there for 3 short months (one in particular has a worse reputation in terms of being kind of rude and demanding of her assigned students and with some of her colleagues). On Friday, I was assigned to a kindergarten class with an awesome teacher, but I just so happened to get stuck with the "bad" para. She was not friendly, was trying to control the room but refused to help with instruction - and was also assigned to take care of 3 kids instead of 1 which apparently was too overwhelming for her.

One of her students was being out of control during my phonics instruction and she was not stepping in. After a third firm warning I asked the student to be seated beside me and not next to his friends (this para is in charge of keeping them away from one another). She then accosted me in front of the entire class and demanded the student sit back where he was and I was told not to "bother him again." After 5 more grueling hours of passive-aggressive comments and random child-like behaviors, the day was over and she left. I was thinking about taking this to the office but I wanted to think about it some more to make sure I wasnt being too rash. After some more reflection, I think the right thing to do is to address her behavior and gossiping directly to the principal to put a stop to it. I only heard those things up until Friday, but now I see she does not have a persona that fits in well with younger grades. Am I in the wrong? I like my job and hope to land a full time gig next year, I dont need someone trying to kill my vibe every time they see me. Thanks!

Submitted December 20, 2020 at 11:37AM by Savedup1 https://ift.tt/38kjCYN