SO, I think the toughest lesson I learned last school year (and there were many) was that my classroom cannot run without me. Should be flattering, right? But it really isn’t!!

I was injured and although I am still recovering, it took months before I could get the Work Comp doctor to clear me to go back into my classroom. I know my colleagues held images of my days spent in PJ’s binge watching Netflix! That is so very far from reality. My actual days were spent listening to reports (better described as complaints) about how my class was running and writing sub-plans, including all the prep work required. Which completely sucks all by itself, but then when you go in every morning to find that most, if not all, of what you had prepped for the day or two before hasn’t even been touched yet, you get completely overwhelmed with frustration.

Do you know what makes prep work fun? Or if not fun, at least keeps us motivated to do it? (And why we are spending our summers “off” doing it?) At least for me, the payoff comes when I get to actual use what I have prepped with my students! Seeing them learn from it, or seeing for myself that my new file folder game/activity/task box was a swing and a miss! And that was not happening for me. I would spend my days prepping and then go in the next morning to see it was a complete waste of my time!!!

My para’s made it very clear that they are not paid enough to “teach my students”, or clean up after them or themselves by the looks of my classroom! Instead they threw my classroom routines and schedules out door in exchange for all day play time and recess…and then complained to me that student behaviors were off the charts! WELL DUH!! When students lose their routine, and have no structure, they get bored and act out. This is a universal truth and students with severe special needs are not different in that respect. Their acting out behaviors may be different from other kids but the cause is the same.

So that is a whole lot of complaining in the guise of a background story. The lesson learned…I need to train my paraprofessionals better. I think I have discovered it is not enough to tell them the ‘what we do’ but I need to get them more invested by teaching them the ‘why we do’.  I also need to be more of a leader and less like a friend. I would never tell my administrators that it is “too hard so I am not doing it” because they are my bosses, not my friends. I need to somehow foster more of a “let’s figure this out” environment than a “give up and complain to a friend” safe place.

So that is how I have spent a lot of my summer time. In addition to prepping for my students and their new school year, I am prepping for my para’s. I get them for one whole day before the school year starts. A day they usually look forward to as time to catch up and gossip about their summers while I try and squeeze in a meeting packed full of important information. This year I am spending that entire day to train and prepare them for my ‘new and improved’ classroom. Hopefully at the end of this day they will take them that we are a team, and it is their jobs to teach the students in our classroom, to take data, and clean up after themselves! EVEN WHEN I AM NOT THERE!