Back to School...Back to School...To Prove to Dad That I'm Not A Fool!

Ok, so I know I didn't blog alllllll summer (#sorrynotsorry) but let's see if we can start this school year off right. I've been in my classroom since August 1 trying to make it look just right and didn't officially start back until the 15th. But that's ok, because by the time we officially started back, my room was 80% done and I was able to focus more on the team meetings and planning aspect. Was I prepared for the first day of school today? Can I get a big NOPE! I felt totally unprepared this morning as students came strolling into my room at 7:40- BUT everyone ate, told me they didn't want to go home, and went home with the right people- so I'm calling it a successful day! Of course, I completely forgot to take any pictures of my classroom before the kids got there...so I took them this afternoon (pardon the supply bag mess- I promise, all the supplies are organized and stowed away now). Enjoy my 2016-2017 2nd grade class reveal!

This is what I started with....just a pile of stuff everywhere. And some of it belonged to the teacher that was in there before me (who was in Jamaica at the time...). It was a pain working around her stuff because I didn't know what she was going to be taking with her or leaving behind.

This was the first project I tackled (with my best friend's help- HI MICHELLE!). I love portable word walls for so many reasons, but their space-savingness (yes, I made that up) takes the top spot! And as Michelle can attest- this took a lot longer than any sane person would have spent on it...I mean about 4 hours (with a lot of taking it down and putting it back up to make the spacing line up). Trust me when I say my best friend is better than yours. :)

Writing area! This will be a Daily 5 rotation area with plenty of writing papers for students to write whatever their hearts' desire.

Cozy little reading nook. My students are already arguing over who is going to sit where (which being the first day of school, I'll ignore...but tomorrow- no arguing!) The supply buckets will hold any and all materials that my students will need for an Daily 5 rotations (or modified Daily 5 as it will most likely end up being)

Small group reading. Ignore my mess of supplies, please!

Classroom library (I promise I have color-coordinated boxes on the way!) and what will be Learning Scales (Please, don't even get me started on those things :( )

Front of the room with WBT rules, thinking maps, objectives, and a Mimio (*squee!!*). My desk area is off to the left of this picture.

Gathering area. We use this for calendar math, read-alouds, and during Daily 5 rotations for quiet reading areas. Also, my 1:1 technology cart (*double squee!*).

Book Boxes and my "Jazzy Work" wall. I love, love, love how this wall turned out and can't wait to start putting up my students' best work! :)

It was a lot of sweat and tears (thankfully no blood), but it's done. The kids love it and it's home now. On a side note- they told me they didn't want to go home today (and my incredibly-hard-to-reach-been-warned-about-this-kid-by-numerous-adults student told another teacher he likes me!) so I must have done something right with them (or it could be the fact that I let them play with play-dough this afternoon lol).

It's With a Heavy Heart...

This post is difficult for me to write and therefore hard for me to share...so please bear with me.

When I started teaching 9.5 years ago, I was in love. I had an amazing class full of what I call vanilla-deaf kids (meaning they were just deaf- there weren't any other concerns). They were unable to meet the demands of a general education classroom, but they were functioning kids nonetheless. I loved that class. Sure, there were behavior issues (aren't there always?), sure there were compatibility issues (mostly stemming from the fact that these kids had been together since Kindergarten and they needed new friends), sure there were academic issues (otherwise they'd have been mainstreamed), but overall it was great. The following couple of years were good too. Not as great, as the higher kids had moved into the other room (I can't teach them forever, right?), but still good. And then it happened. The downfall...I had never had a problem teaching the same kids for up to 4 years (K, 1, 2 and usually a repeated year), but then a group of students came in that weren't functioning. And I mean that in the nicest way possible. But let me explain- they came in with severe behavior issues, severe academic issues, severe social/emotional issues, no parent communication...suffice it to say they were/are the toughest group I've ever had to teach. I watched as one of my student's emotional issues got worse and worse and there was nothing I could do about it because no one believed me (except for those of us in the trenches everyday). It got to the point where I was being beaten up daily and not lightly either- I was being punched in the face, bitten, kicked, scratched, hair pulled, told to f*** off, spit at, and just generally abused. I had no support from the parents or administration. I was basically told that because I was an ESE teacher it was part of the package and I was expected to take it. Needless to say, this was where my love of teaching this extremely special group of students began to wane. I felt completely drained- mentally, physically, and emotionally. I was forced to watch as one student's mental health took it's toll on her and the rest of the class as I was unable to teach everyone else while attempting to handle her. This went on for 4.5 years and got worse and worse each year. And the lack of support from my administration also got worse and worse as they refused to do anything to provide support. The day they removed her from my class and placed her in the classroom next door, they assigned her a unique aide (a paraprofessional assigned directly to her needs)- which she's had ever since. That action showed me how much my administration disrespected me. I was angry, beat down, sad, and ultimately disenchanted with the entire system.

But I soldiered on. I tried to get back to teaching the rest of the students in my class- but then another behavior issue came about. This time SEVERE ADHD.  Again, we were in survival mode. This was the next student I watched get worse and worse. He's unable to retain any information and needs someone sitting directly next to him to control his behaviors. It's absolutely ridiculous. We've tried EVERYTHING to help him, but nothing is sticking. I mean, I've never been a proponent of medication but this is a child that we were practically begging the parents to look into it (they continue to refuse to even consider it, by the way). Summer came, and, again, I'm exhausted. My own health and well-being was suffering and I couldn't take much more. I took the summer to regroup and began to believe that next year would be better- I came up with ideas and ways to help my students become more independent and to generally function better. And there was a bright spot- a new principal was coming in and who knows what that would bring (mostly negatives, by the way). I started this year with 3 new students, 3 returning, and 1 that came to us in December. But here's where the problem lays- my classroom has become a dumping ground for these unique kids who have a plethora of issues and oh, yea, can't hear on top of it. And in our county their deafness trumps everything else, so they'll always be placed in a D/HH setting regardless of their disabilities. And in more and more cases, that's not the best placement. Without violating HIPPA laws, let me just say that of the 7 students I currently have only 3 are functioning close their assigned grade level, the rest are below a Kindergarten level. There are expected to be 3 students coming in next year all of whom are way below their assigned grade levels in addition there are severe medical concerns too. I know that it's not these kids' faults they were handed this life. They do the best they can. But the lack of support, communication, and desire is unbelievably draining.

Let me be clear- I have the utmost respect for teachers of physically disabled and intellectually disabled students. I know I could never handle that. It's not for me and I'm perfectly willing to accept and admit that. But now that's what I'm being expected to teach. My degree is in Deaf Education but I'm no longer teaching those vanilla deaf kids anymore...I'm still in love with the idea of teaching these very special learners, but that's not the reality anymore.

I never wanted to be part of the statistic of special education teachers that leave the field due to burn out or various other reasons (it's something like 20% annually). I never wanted to give up (which is how I see it, whether that's accurate or not). But I know that I can't continue like this. I dread getting up and going into work everyday and I'm not happy. So, for my own health and well-being, I'm choosing to exit this particular field of education. I was lucky enough to have a great friend who got me an interview at a different school and I've opted to take on a first grade general education class next year. It's extremely bittersweet. I'm sad to be leaving the school I've called home for the past 9.5 years and the friends I've made. But I'm looking forward to a change net year.

If you've stuck with me throughout this long post, know that I'm grateful for you reading to the end. This post was written on an emotional roller-coaster and so it's longwinded, maybe too honest, and maybe jumps around without clarifying (sorry!). I'm hopeful you can understand where I'm coming from and not resent me too much. I hope you continue to check back for updates (as I'll still be blogging, just with a new purpose), and I hope you appreciate my honesty. For those of you who continue to trudge through the mud daily, know that I continue to respect and admire you for all that you do. I know what you're going through, and should you ever make the same decision I have, know that you'll always have my complete understanding and support.


With love,

Donors Choose Project

My classroom is in dire need of technology. My Smartboard is over 10 years old (and is no longer interactive), my teacher laptop is almost 10 years old, and we have no student computers. So it's been my goal to get at least one student computer for my kids. They LOVE using mine when I let them...but alas, it just wasn't meant to be. I tried twice to get that project funded through donorschoose.com but no such luck. :( So, back in August I thought I'd give it one more try with an iPad instead as they are cheaper than some computers. I'm honestly not sure how, but somehow I managed to get it fully donated! My kiddos were SO EXCITED when it finally arrived around December. Of course I had to set it up and download some apps for them to use before I could turn it over to them. :) We had many discussions (and still occasionally have) about the proper use of the iPad (don't walk around the room with it, no pictures, etc.) Then I created a schedule for each day of the week (which got thrown out the window when a new student showed up lol). So now we just take turns. And they are loving using it! I'm so incredibly grateful to each and every person that dug deep into their pockets and helped fund this project. My kids are also incredibly grateful too- though they lack the language to tell you that. ;)

From the bottom of our hearts- THANK YOU! <3

Shapes and more Shapes

I teach two math groups- one is working on first grade standards and the other is working on kindergarten standards. This month, my higher group has been focusing on subtraction skills while the lower group has been focusing on shapes.

We concluded this unit by making shape clowns. I got the idea from Cutting Tiny Bites. And, boy, did my kids love it! I started by giving them each a white piece of paper and having them draw a big circle on it for the face. Then they got to pick whatever color paper they wanted to make the various parts of their clown. It also double as fine motor skills practice which my kiddos sorely need. :)

 

 

Now, I know you don't know my kiddos, but each of these clowns shows their personalities perfectly. :)

I also came to the conclusion, that I needed a behavior plan for my kiddos (well, more accurately for their parents). Sadly most of my kids' parents aren't able to communicate with them (I don't even want to talk about that). There's been a ton of behavior issues between my boys- honestly, this group of boys is not a good combination. And my poor girls are getting stuck in the middle trying to keep the boys from acting out. So...I had to come up with something. I searched around on the internet (pinterest and TPT) and found this from The Kinder Polka Dot Patch. I needed to tweak it a little bit to better fit my needs...and I'm loving it! I also translated it into Spanish for a parent of mine that doesn't speak English (man that was fun...thanks Google Translate and my amazing aide, Christina!)
I made one for each month of the year and I know it's the end of January, but I'm starting to use them tomorrow! I hope this helps.

January...already?!

Yes, I know, I've been slacking. Honestly, I have no excuse other than December is a crazy time for a teacher. This year it  entailed a new student the day before an important field trip, an important field trip, being told at the last minute that we were to perform a song at our school's holiday show, 3 IEPs, my yearly formal observation (the final week before vacation!), and Polar Express Week...crazy, right?

Every year our district participates in Signing Santa. The adults (or at least I do) calls it controlled chaos. Imagine 50ish kids of varying ages (3-14ish) thrown into a school cafeteria with carnival like games scattered all around and basically left to socialize and play as they see fit <insert cringe face here>. Each year it's a big production and each year the kids love it! They get to talk to Santa, perform a song, play games, earn prizes, and take home presents. To them it's a huge success. To me it's draining, but I'm ecstatic that they have so much fun.

The day we got back from this field trip I was informed that we were to perform a song at our school's holiday show the following week... luckily we had just performed a song at Signing Santa and so we made our lives easy and recycled the song. :) Seriously, these kids are troopers- one of them literally learned the song in less than a day seeing as he started the day before this field trip. For your enjoyment here's a link to view the video of them performing at the Holiday Show (the end is the best part): Holiday Show

*For those of you that know sign language, don't judge the glossing too harshly, we were on limited time and it had to be kept simple for the little ones :)

**Michelle, we had the principal in tears over this and Jeanne approved, so the glossing is perfect in my opinion ;)

Center Rotations

Wow, so it's already November. I completely missed blogging about anything October related...it's been that kind of year. I know, I know, it's just beginning. But let me just say, that since I have 6 kids in my class and 3 of them have been with me for at least 2 years already, it doesn't feel like it's just beginning. It feels like it never ends (and they wonder why I refuse to teach summer school to my kids every year). Honestly, I love my kids, but the 6 of them together are a terrible combination...but I digress. The point of this post is to discuss how I do my center rotations. So- on with the show.

This year, for the first time ever, I managed to build in a dedicated half hour to centers. For anyone reading outside the state of Florida this might be a bit of a shock...after all most of you guys have school days that last 7 hours- here in Florida ours are only 6 hours. I never thought I'd day this- but I could really use that extra hour! Anyway, after some back and forth, I decided to dedicate this half hour to IEP related activities and centers. Because my kids are all on such different levels I felt that it was the only way I could monitor and collect accurate data on their specific goals while still managing to teach 3 different grade level standards. And, quite frankly, I'm happy I made the decision to do this.

So, how does it work?

Well, I have two of those plastic 3-drawer storage things and since I have 6 kids that worked out perfectly! Each kid gets their own drawer. And then I made life simple, and just created a rotation. Each kid gets the iPad once a week (except for 2 that double up because they can actually handle playing together) and work/counseling the other days. Each week I change out the centers as needed and the night before I put all of their materials for the next day's center in their drawer and they're ready to go!

Now, I admit there are some drawbacks. Namely being that all my pullouts are done during this time (which is also a blessing) so I don't have 5 days of centers with most of my kids so data collection isn't as smooth as I'd like. It also means that fun activities I have planned that I want to complete during this time aren't always completed. There's pros and cons to everything. 

I'm still trying to find ways to tweak this process so it's better for my kids...if you've got suggestions I'd love to hear them! :)

Finally- a Schedule!

It's September 16th and we've just now gotten a final schedule nailed down. This, unfortunately, is completely typical.  Schedules are a nightmare for us. In all we spend about 24-30 hours creating, revising, changing, changing again, changing a third time, adding in something else, and then hitting the save and print buttons on our schedule. It's utterly exhausting.

Let me just start with telling you how many different people are involved in this: 2 teachers, 1 mainstream teacher (this varies from year to year),1 itinerant teacher (who works with 3 different schools and doesn't come on Wednesdays), 1 speech/language pathologist (who works with our cluster, the ASD cluster, and a pre-k class), 1 family counselor (who works with 2 different schools and is here only 2 days a week), 1 occupational therapist (again, only here 2 days a week), 2 paras, 1 general education teacher (to pair up with for specials), 1 interpreter (this varies depending on needs), and 11 students (this varies from year to year). Can you understand now when I say that schedules are a freaking nightmare?!

So let's start with the beginning (those things we can't control). We come back to a finalized lunch and specials schedule. Yay. Not- it usually doesn't work and then we have to beg to get it changed. Luckily this year it wasn't too bad- just a switch from the teacher we were supposed to pair up with to a different teacher to pair up with. So no big deal.

Then we have to work around the mainstream teacher's schedule (because God forbid they work around our schedules). I miss the good old days when our former Assistant Principal used to ask us first about what times we'd like lunch and specials...This year we have 4th grade mainstream students. And the 4th grade team has a schedule that is the complete opposite of everyone else in the school- they do reading in the afternoons in order to have a complete 90 minute block...which means that things are messed up for us here in the cluster. Normally both classes do reading in the morning because we can make better groups that way (and that's when the itinerant teacher is here). But not this year. I have reading in the morning and the other class has reading in the afternoon because that's when the mainstream kids come back here for ELA help. That made things really hard for everyone else because we're not allowed to pull students from their ELA block for anything other than reading. And math is being taught first thing in the morning and we can't pull from that subject either.

So, now the itinerant teacher can't see the mainstream kids because she leaves before they come back to us, and we end up pulling the others from their academics. Definitely not ideal. The rest of her schedule was relatively easy to figure out. But her not coming on Wednesdays really blows. It means that the small groups I normally have in my room become whole class and it's a mess.

The speech/language pathologist goes to the ASD cluster in the mornings because that's when we usually teach reading. And she gets built into the rotations in their schedule so it's imperative that she's over there every morning. For me that's fine because it's my reading block and I already have the itinerant teacher helping with groups. But it ends up that the SLP has to pull from the afternoon reading block (shhhh) for one other kid and have a before school speech group with the mainstream kids. Luckily she's awesome and flexible.  :)

Now on to OT and counseling. Our family counselor is just as awesome as our SLP and she's incredibly flexible. She eats lunch with the kids and generally works with them whenever she can. Our OT is great too. She tries her best to fit our kids in at decent times (during their centers or recess if necessary). This year all of this has worked out for me! :)

Each class is assigned one para and that makes their schedules easy too as we just have to arrange a half hour lunch and a half hour break sometime during the day for them. Easy peasy. The interpreter follows the mainstream kids' schedule and then because they're in with the other teacher in the afternoon she's able to go with my students to specials and interpret for them. That's a good thing because it's really hard to ask for another interpreter for just a half hour a day. Like, impossible- seriously won't happen. So that actually worked out in my favor this year- unlike previous years where we've been forced to send a K-2 class to specials with 3rd graders because that's when the interpreter was available. Not cool.

And of course we have our own classes to schedule. I have 6 students in Kindergarten-Second grade. Talk about scheduling troubles. All of them are on standards (though some shouldn't be) which means I have to expose them to grade level materials. Tell me how to do that with a second grade student who functions at about 3-4 years. :( Luckily (this really is my lucky year) my 6 students divided up decently into 2 groups. Both working on a Kindergarten level, but one a little higher up.

All in all, I got really lucky this year. My scheduling was relatively simple. And now that everything is settled, it seems to be working for all involved. :) Below is the final schedule for me, the SLP, the itinerant teacher, and the family counselor. What's not listed is OT times, para schedules, and the other class' schedule...good grief.

I sincerely hope you all have a much easier time with your schedules at the beginning of the year. I wouldn't wish this nightmare on anyone :)