August

Start out this month by reviewing the resources you have available. These include:

• student information (educational and health records),
• classroom furniture and instructional materials,
• the Texas Essential Knowledge and Skills (TEKS) for your students’ enrolled grade levels, and
• campus, grade-level, and paraprofessional lunch/duty schedules.

After reviewing your resources, it is time to organize your classroom layout and materials. This may include: 

• learning spaces,
• instructional materials, and
• documentation

Next, it is time to create structure with consistent systems. These may include:

• classroom rules,
• schedules (classroom, individual student, and staff), and
• common classroom routines and procedures.

Considerations for designing classroom schedules:

• How many paraprofessionals are in your room at each time block? Remember to account for when they will be away for personal lunches and/or duty. You may want to plan more complex routines and activities for when you have more staff in the room.
• Do any students who will be leaving for general education classrooms throughout the day need assistance from your staff while they are in the other classroom? If you start to notice staffing gaps for coverage, talk to your administrator about possible solutions.
• How many students are in your room for each time block? What tolerance do those students have for work? You may need to break down your larger time blocks into smaller sections of different types of instruction.
• Do any of your students require reinforcement or sensory breaks in the classroom? How long do their breaks need to be? Are these breaks supposed to be provided upon request, or can they be worked into the schedule? If they are scheduled breaks, plan for any staff coverage needed to support these activities.
• Do your students have any personal care needs that may require staff assistance and must be worked into the schedule? Students with complex access needs might have to visit the nurse regularly for medication or require assistance with feeding or toileting.
• Where are logical places during the day to work on communication? Mark places in the schedule where your staff might pay special attention to facilitating functional and spontaneous communication.
• Where might your students’ IEP goals fit naturally into the schedule? It may be helpful to mark general concepts to remember to cover during each time block.

Individual Student Schedules

After you have developed the general classroom schedule, it is time to focus on individual student schedules. In your self-contained classroom, each student’s day may look very different from their peers’ depending on their specially designed instruction. As they learn to use the schedule, the student can more easily transition between their varying therapies and classroom routines.

Using a schedule is a skill that can be generalized into many activities in the home, school, and community. Just as your students’ days may differ, so will the type of individual schedule you create for each of them. Consider the student’s attention span, motor skills, interests/preferences, and processing abilities when customizing the schedule for the student.

Graphic and text vertical schedule. Shannon Beyer-Kaminski, 2023; Photo and text horizontal mini schedule. Shannon Beyer-Kaminski, 2023; Object schedule. Shannon Beyer-Kaminski, 2023; Photo album schedule. Shannon Beyer-Kaminski, 2023

Staff Schedules

You’ve completed the class schedule and then worked out the students’ individual schedules. Now it’s time to create staff schedules. The schedule of each individual staff member within a classroom team will vary due to student needs and campus duties. In many classrooms, a staff member’s schedule may be slightly different for each day of the week, so having schedules clearly written and available for reference is beneficial. If you have students with complex access needs, consider rotating their support tasks amongst staff members. This helps students generalize skills across staff members and reduce the likelihood of staff burnout.

Your staff schedules let everyone know where they need to be and what they need to be doing throughout the day. What student, or students, will they be working with? In what area will they be in the classroom or building? What activity or task will they be responsible for at that time? Collaboration is key for classroom teams, so try to carve out time to meet regularly, even just briefly, to connect to other staff, share information and provide feedback on student progress.

Paraprofessional Monday schedule. Shannon Beyer-Kaminski, 2023

This staff schedule outlines each individual’s responsibilities throughout the day.

This sample shows the same schedule but is organized by students instead of staff. This may be useful for tracking the location of students or when building their individual visual schedules.

Write a classroom manual to keep all staff consistent with classroom expectations. A classroom manual is a folder, binder, or electronic document that contains important information about how the classroom runs. The manual may include, but is not limited to:

• the classroom philosophy,
• strategies commonly used for supporting students,
• routines and procedures used in the classroom,
• schedules,
• classroom expectations, and/or
• data forms.

When creating your classroom manual, consider writing the resource with the mindset of presuming competence of all learners. As the teacher, you must believe in your students and their ability to learn – no matter the disability or the degree to which the disability impacts the child. It is imperative that you and your staff always presume competence and seek ways to connect with and engage the students. It is an essential part of your job to help every student make connections and gain meaning from the world. This is one of the most critical components of instruction.

You may be new to supervising other adults and unsure about doling out responsibilities to others in your classroom. Texas SPED Support has the Working With Paraprofessionals document and the Field User Guide to assist you in understanding the roles of paraprofessionals and the importance of clear communication between members of the classroom team.

Learn more about Quality Indicator II: Effective Teams and Quality Indicator III: Classroom Climate in the free online courses Teamwork and Transitions and Classroom Organization, Schedules, and Positive Behavior Supports.

This month, set up the framework for the school year by organizing your classroom and creating structure with rules, schedules, routines, and procedures. As you move through September, you will continue to teach, practice, and refine your procedures. Be consistent so that the expectations for your students and other classroom staff are clear.

As important as classroom systems are, learning these can be overwhelming for students. They will need the support and guidance of your staff. At the beginning of the year, as you practice moving through the school day with your students, start with activities with minimal cognitive demands. Concentrate on learning the schedule, practicing transitions between activities, clarifying steps of procedures, and pairing yourself with positive experiences and items to build rapport with your students. You can find more information about building relationships in the September Monthly Instructional Guide.