Scheduling for a special education classroom, we love to hate it? Or do we just really hate it? Nothing gives me anxiety like the initial sit down of trying to arrange meeting minutes for my 4 sets of grade levels, scheduling lunches, creating my paras schedules and attempting to schedule myself a prep.
Between the multi-grade level instruction, coordinating specials schedules, lunches for students, lunches for paras, recess duties and inclusion minutes there seems to be not enough bodies and time in the day to meet the needs of all the students and allow you the prep time you need. So often many of us special educators either don't have a prep, have less of a prep time, have split preps or are losing our prep due to behavioral issues, needing to meet minutes or cover supports.
I would love to tell you that there is an easy solution to this, however there is not. I also think if there was a solution I wouldn't be writing this blog.
So how can us special educators get the prep that we need and maximize it while also covering all of the services and minutes we need to provide? Here are three common obstacles special education teachers encounter and creative solutions to help overcome them:
Students in the classroom due to accommodating multi-grade levels
When we think of the traditional prep period, it usually happens when students are at specials or recess. However, when you have multi-grade level instruction there is NEVER a time when a student is not in the room. Kids still need to be learning, engaging and doing so independently so you can get some prep work in. The question becomes, how can you allow yourself a prep when students are in the room?
Independence. Think about how you can create room for independence with your students. I found working in my self-contained classroom that my students struggled being independent when it came to academics. However, there were many other ways they could be independent that doesn't involve academics. I challenge you to make a list of the things your students could be independent at and create small stations out of it during your prep time. Play with toys? Sensory bins? Errorless file folders or task bins? Structured technology time? This is where I came up with the idea of low, academic-demanding, high engagement stations.
When I first was on the hunt for a solution to allowing me to have a prep, implementing stations was NOT what I imagined. When thinking about it, the thought of scheduling student activities for your prep almost defeats the purpose of having a prep. I originally had just free time scheduled, but it became a disaster. I spent more time de-escalating behavior and less time prepping. However, what I found was that students need unstructured time to be structured. So we attempted to create structure around stations.
I created 15 minute stations that students rotate through. Our classroom works through a lot of stations so my students have practiced the transitions and know the expectations. I utilize a classroom doorbell to cue the transition and a 30 second song embedded in a powerpoint to guide the movement to the next station. The stations I created during my prep included the following: structured computer time, independent play time and then free time on the tablet. I found these stations resulted in the least amount of behaviors, required the least amount of prep and it maximized my prep period. Here is the classroom doorbell I use to cue a transition to the next station:
Here is what my powerpoint looked like that helps to direct students to their flex stations. I found these were all activities my students could do successfully and independently while I did my prep. I find my students respond better to a heavy, visually supported classroom schedule so I included our rules for stations along the side as well.
I encourage you to reflect on your students and think about what they engage in the most and find themselves the most successful engaging in. For many of our students with special needs, they need more time in the day for choice, breaks and low, academic-demanding engagement. I think so often we feel our students continually need academic support. However, sometimes they just need to be present and engaged in something they enjoy.
Maximizing your prep period through strategy time-management
So what happens when you finally have a prep period... or sort of. I've had many years where i've had split preps, periods where I have an empty reading station and I use the 15 minutes to prep or I prep with stations happening in the room. I'll be the first to admit, it's really hard to prep when there is a lot of external stimuli happening. It's also hard to engage in a task when you know you only have 20 minutes of time. So how do you maximize the time you do have?
My life runs on lists. I have a list for everything. New student? Got a list for it. Progress monitoring? Got a list for it? Weekly to do list? Got a list for it. It can be so easy at the beginning of the week to tell yourself you know all the tasks and prep you need to prepare for the week. However, we know in the world of education, many things get added to our lists during the week and we have to prioritize them or things become so overwhelming that we don't know where to even begin. Then we end up spending all Thursday evening working until 10:00 pm attempting to get everything done.
Maximizing your prep time, means scheduling the work to complete for your prep time. (Are you finding a common theme in this blog?) I create a weekly to-do list each week that involves all of my non-negotiable tasks I need to get completed through the week with additional lines to add in tasks that pop up that need to be completed. Here is what my weekly to-do list looks like:
I remember when creating this, I sat down and made a list of EVERY thing I need to complete for the week (yes, even printing the plans is on my list). I prioritized my tasks by putting them near the top with the ability to check them off when they are done.
I took my to-do list one step forward with a weekly task list. This is where I really planned my prep periods. I planned what I would do each day of the week during my prep time. This really maximized my time spent on my prep because I already knew what I was going to be doing. I wasn't taking the time attempting to decide what to do and wasting the little time I had. This task list was the ultimate reason I felt I became much more efficient at my prep and planning. I was able to maximize those 15 minute increments of time I had available between stations because I knew exactly what I needed to start prepping. Here is what my task list looks like:
If you have a split prep like I do, you can even categorize your tasks by how long they will take. I often find that I don't want to use my 20 minute split prep or the 15 minutes between stations to begin planning my 90 minute reading block. When I have an excess amount of tasks for the week, I will often categorize them by colors based on how long they will take to complete. 15 minutes, 30 minutes or 45 minutes or more. All the tasks that will take 15 minutes or less I highlight in green. Then I find, when I have those 10-15 minutes of unexpected free time I can focus in on all the green tasks.
If you struggle getting situated during your prep and following through completing tasks, I encourage you to make lists, prioritize your tasks and categorize them in ways that help you complete them.
Both my weekly to do list and task list are available for a free download in my TPT store:
Prepare for periods of dysregulation
I always found that it was the easiest for me to get my prep during the student lunch/recess times. I wasn't missing out on core academic times and there were the least amount of students in the room. Students who funneled back into the room after recess could be redirected to join in on the flex stations and it didn't necessarily matter if they had previously missed some stations.
However, this time often yielded the most behaviors and periods of dysregulation for students. It became far too common for me to get a radio call for assistance during that time. Why? Well, lunch and recess for our students tend to be loud, unstructured and chaotic. And for many of our students, they don't thrive well in that environment.
My paras typically do most of the lunch/recess supports for our students. So I find that I schedule their lunches right before or after their support duties. We also know these times will be trying for our students so we need to prepare for that. We often have many team meetings to thoroughly talk through the best way to support the students and decide what visuals, strategies or supports the student would most benefit from to mitigate behaviors. It's so important to constantly be debriefing and analyzing those times and how we can adjust to make the student more successful.
I've had years where recess has been a hard transition in for my students that often resulted in intense behaviors from social situations during unstructured environments. Behaviors after recess often cut into my prep time and period. We knew our students would struggle with that transition in, so we took the time to create environmental supports to foster that positive transition in. Here are some things we did to help support that transition and ensure I wasn't responding to behaviors during my prep time:
-Students transition in to low-demanding activities that they enjoy engaging in
-Students come in to a sensory supported time with low lights, peaceful music and sensory support activities to choose from
-Play a clip of a movie or show for students to transition into
-Students who particularly struggle with social situations can transition in with a staff member to an alternative environment from the classroom to take a break
-Allow a staff member to be available to debrief situations with students. Students should know they can access that staff member at any time.
-Have students come in and journal or reflect on their lunch/recess time and share that reflection with you or a staff member later on
-Have predictable plans and structure in place for when students enter back into the classroom
-create a visual or structured steps that are consistent each and everyday that you reinforce
Not all of these suggestions can mitigate every behavior, however many environmental supports can help increase positive behaviors and problem solving skills. This also allows the time a student's body needs to re-regulate and be able to be actively engage back in the classroom environment.
Another common issue that often arises when scheduling and maximizing your prep is ACTUALLY scheduling yourself a prep.
Scheduling yourself a prep and not feeling guilty about it
I'll be the first to admit, I went my first two years of teaching without a prep. I had this ENORMOUS guilt that if I wasn't spending every minute of the day with my students then I wasn't servicing them enough. I felt that if my administration didn't see me de-escalating every single behavior, then I wasn't doing my job. I was responding to every behavior during the day, responding to emails and working through my lunch, and taking work home every night with me.
Moral of the story, I got burnt out. Just because we are servicing multi-grade levels, multi-abilities and our room is a revolving door does not mean we always have to be actively engaging in what is happening. It takes a lot of self-restraint to not actively engage in the classroom environment when you should be prepping. It's ok and necessary for you to have that time. You NEED that time. Take ownership over your prep time. I think it's important that we realize we have paras, instructional assistants and support staff for a reason. We have such talented people in our classrooms to help run our classrooms. Give them that guidance and ownership. If you don't have paras or instructional assistants to help you out, create time where students can be independent.
Don't sit in guilt waiting for a time when all students are out of the room to schedule yourself prep time. Odds are if you are teaching multi-grade level, that won't happen. Create the time for yourself. Be ok with prepping when students are in the room. You are doing enough for your students because your prep period is an extension of you preparing for your students.
If you are struggling finding the time to schedule a prep and the strategies you are trying just aren't working, I encourage you to reach out to other special educators in your building. And if you are the lone special educator in your building, reach out to your administration. It is necessary you have a prep and it is essential to your mental health, self-care and work/life boundaries. Your kids deserve the best of you, not what’s left of you.