Only 70 days left in the school year. This has been a hard year and honestly, after 15 years of teaching, I am questioning my choice of profession. It is not just the extremely hard class I have this year. It is the new teacher evaluation system coming, 3 new components of literacy curriculums in 2 years after just 4 years with new math curriculum. Then there are those few parents who like to make your life miserable, new common core standards, new principal of 2 years, & an intern. That doesn't include all the technology responsibilities I have as the Technology Resource Teacher. We also lost our computer lab teacher so we hired a new one at the beginning of the year. Then he quit right before deployment. We finally hired a new person, but that was 3 days this year away from my class to conduct interviews. It's a contract year, so the bargaining surveys have already begun. This all knowing that because of the reduced number of students in the area, a school has to be closed when they reconfigure the district from a jr. high system to a middle school system. My school is one with low numbers. I suppose that doesn't include the fact that I am suppose to teach.
Thankfully I love my staff, the parent support is amazing, my principal is a great person, and I have some lovely kids in my class.
On to SPD:
I met with Michelle's parents this week to get some new ideas. She has been talking ALL the time. They are actually quite thankful because before she couldn't process information in a way that could get anything out. Now that she has learned to put her thoughts into communication, she won't stop. She also hasn't been sleeping because she has a terrible cough and with the sensory issues, that cough is too much stimulation. Mom was also out of town for about a week. I found that a weighted lap pad helps, even though sometimes she likes to wear it on her head. I put 2 thick therapy rubber bands I got from "SchoolMoves" on her chair and she liked kicking those, but sometimes she would do it and make too much noise. Her parents suggested a block of wood under her feet. Brilliant, I was trying to figure out how to get a shorter chair for her. Seriously? We also said I counted for transition with her because she is TERRIBLE at transitions. I pulled her color card the first time she didn't make it because she just stared at me. The next time she was laying under her chair and wouldn't get up. I counted very quickly and she was in her seat immediately.
No comments:
Post a Comment