Insanity and a request for tips

[Ms. Kelly]

I am a second year special ed teacher. My first year went pretty smoothly so this year was supposed to be a piece of cake, right! WRONG! I am overwhelmed by caseload. My school which is also the entire district doesn't have the money to hire someone to come in and assist me. This year has gone so poorly that I have been advised all ready tht my contract might not be renewed.

Anyway, here is the problem....I have one kindergartner (first time in my program but he's a repeat kindergartner), 2 second graders, 2 fourth graders, 2 fifth graders, 1 sixth grader who just pops in whenever he needs help, 1 seventh grader, and a homeschooled 8th grader. I'm a resource teacher. Most of my kids have difficulties in reading, spelling,language arts, or a combination of those.

My supervisor wants me to have a place in my room that kids go to when they walk in and get an assignment or an assignment sheet. The idea being that if I am working with other students, that student would have something to keep them busy. The problem? My kids aren't independent readers. I'd end up stopping my lesson in progress to offer assistance to the other students.

I tried to do a Class Within A Class so that my students would always be actively learning something but after only 10 days of this my principal wanted me to go back to serving my kids in the resource room...She said it was because one teacher...well, oops, then she said it was "several" teachers said that they felt like I was putting the responsibility to teach my kids entirely on their shoulders.

How do I maximize instruction time for each of my kids under these circumstances? We're almost finished with the second quarter. I can't ask teachers to change their schedules and I can't pull my kids from other classes such as Art or PE...I feel like I've been given a bowl of Jello and the daunting task of educating all the kids using only that...HELP.

[Hunbun5]

I taught in a self contained classroom several years ago and even though I had an aide I was continuously frustrated by the amount of individualization that was needed to run my room.

I don't have a solution for you but for me the answer was folder work and a listening station. I had a folder for each student filled with papers that they could do independently - word searches, ABC order, handwriting, matching, etc. I made sure the papers were connected with what we were doing in the classroom as much as possible.
When I was working with a group or individual and the others had nothing to do they had to go choose something from their folder work folder until I could spend time with them.

I also recorded several books on cassette tapes and taught each student how to operate the machine. They could choose the book they were interested in and listen to the tape until I could turn my attention to them.

I would also try to have parent volunteers whenever possible and consider using my older resource students to work with the younger ones on simple tasks under your supervision.

Don't give up. It's a ton of work, but once you get a stash of activities ready things may fall into place for you.
Good luck,
Sherry

[Ms. Kelly]

Thanks for the advice. I'm going to try the things that have worked for you...I think my situation has come to the point that I'm just going to have to try and muddle through the rest of this school year and look for a new job next year...One that will give me the support I need whilebeing less concerned about money and appearances...