Angela Kulcsar shares three ways to keep classroom assistants and service providers informed about schedule changes: a dedicated board in the classroom, hallway calendars with sticky notes, and a staff binder with student information and upcoming events. Treating assistants as professionals means giving them accurate information so they can do their jobs well.
If you run a self-contained classroom like I do, you probably have several assistants, and keeping in communication with your assistants throughout the day and making sure everyone is on the same page and everyone has all the information can be a struggle. That's something that I've been dealing with this year, and I think that we finally got a really good handle on making sure everybody's on the same page. I'm going to show you 3 ways that I communicate with my staff to ensure everybody knows what's going on at all times. In my classroom, I have 5 assistants, and I know that seems like a lot, and it is a lot. I promise you, we have really intense and, um, complex needs in my classroom this year that really does support the need of 6 full adults in the classroom at all times. Between 3 different grade levels and all of my students, there are people in and out of the classroom all day long. And what we find happening is that we'll mention something in passing and then not everybody's in the classroom to hear it. This happens when assistants come back in the room with information, or I come back in the room and I just tell whoever's in here. And what we found is not everybody had all of the information to make the informed choices that they did, or to show up on time for something— book fair, spring pictures, field day, you name it, it is in the spring. And so that creates plenty of opportunity to where we have miscommunication in the classroom. So my goal this year is to nix the miscommunication before it happens. So we put 3 things in place, and I think they're working really well to make sure that we are all on the same page. The very first one is like the simplest thing that you can do. If you know of a schedule change, you write it on the board. This literally says schedule change. It's right behind me. It is right in everyone's face. The rule is, if you are in gen ed and a teacher tells you, oh, PE moved, you immediately come to the classroom and write it down. You don't just tell people, you write it down. That way everybody knows, everybody's on the same page, and there's one place in the classroom to look for schedule changes. This alone has been a game changer, and it's not hard, it's easy to do. And normally we can manage it if it's just like word of mouth, but with so many changes, writing it down is definitely the way to go. Another thing that we did, we have 3 self-contained classrooms. One here, that's mine right there, and then we've got a couple over here, and then we've got a whole other wing. So all of our related service providers walk down this hallway— speech, OT, PT. I've got an auditory specialist, our district audiologist walks down this way. All of our assistants use this because this is the way to the bathroom, and so you have to go through this hallway to get to the bathroom. So we put these giant calendars with sticky notes on the wall that tells us the schedule changes and what's happening for that month. So March is already filled, um, and April is looking pretty juicy, and May is a little sparse, but it won't be by the time we're done with it. This gives all of our related service providers a go-to spot to be able to identify if there's a field trip or what's going on, if maybe they weren't included in the loop. A prime example of this would be book fair. Book fair is important. I want our students to be able to go with their gen ed class, but our related service providers probably were not on that spreadsheet email. So in order to negate that and to make sure everybody's on the same page, they get to walk past here, and then any email that I get with dates or information, I forward right to them. I'm not going to lie, my assistants can help keep me on track too because they have the calendar, they have the schedule. And we all help each other out when we see this. In fact, my coworker just had a baby and we are so excited for her, but she went a little bit early, so she didn't necessarily have everything special written down for her maternity sub. So now everything's in the hallway, everybody knows everything, it's easy peasy. Just one more way to keep us all on the same page. So if you've followed the Autism Helper for a while, you might have seen this. This is my staff binder. I put this together for every adult that's in my room. It has everything from our para handbooks in there to student information about allergies or medical needs, student preferences— what do they like, what do they not like— so when staff come in, they have a really good understanding of the students that they're servicing. But also we put in monthly newsletters and monthly goals. So our monthly goals are just things that we're working towards together as a classroom. So for instance, I've got a student that's really been biting a lot lately, so we put a plan together of how we're going to address that, and then it's in our monthly goals. Now it's in writing, everybody has access to it, and they have it in their staff notes. So now, in addition to— in our staff notes, I'm putting all of the schedule changes that I know and making an upcoming dates page. So now, in addition to just our goals, I am adding a staff notes page that indicates any changes that I know that are coming up and upcoming dates. So for example, our zoo field trip or the farm field trip that our school takes, uh, field day, those kind of things. And I give just a glimpse of the upcoming events that I know of. Then we talk about those as a staff and figure out if anything needs to change or if I missed anything. Those 3 things are so simple and anyone could do them, but I promise you it really does help with staff communication. When you enter my classroom, I assume that you are a professional and that your time is valued. And so I feel that same way for my assistants. They are professionals, they are here to help students, and they can't do that if they don't know the changes in their day or in their schedule. Not to mention in the student's schedule, that's a whole other ordeal. Um, and we can't help students be successful if we don't know the changes that are coming. So it's really important your entire team is on the same page. I would love to hear how you handle schedule changes and you communicate in your classroom. So if you've got tips and tricks, I love learning from you. Definitely drop them in the comments. I would love to read them. Until then, here's hoping you survive the busy season, also known as spring. Take care, guys.
