The field of education is WILD these days. We are picking up the pieces from the chaos of the last few years, and many staff and teachers have left the field. Heather from Full Sped Ahead has some really tangible strategies for managing staff shortages in special education. While having vacancies in any area is challenging, it seems to be pervasive in special education and Heather has done some of the heavy lifting for us.
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Let’s be honest, we all know that we are short staff this school year. We know, there are high staff shortages. We are down custodians, bus drivers, support staff, administration and teachers. Every school has open positions available.
Somehow, us teachers are here to pick up the slack of the unfilled positions. I have even seen administration cleaning toilets after school from time to time. These staff shortages will continue to increase.
The bottom line is, we are tired. We have been underpaid and under appreciated for years. Now, admin expects us to increase our caseloads and workloads for the same pay. It’s a lot.
I want to share a few things that I do to prevent my own burn out and save my sanity. As you may or may not have known, my classroom started the school year in August with 0 assistants. It was me and 7 students.
What do you do without any assistants?
I have a confession, I started the year with my rules, routines and expectations as I always did. My expectations must be lowered. I was crushed, I was not able to uphold all my expectations for myself and my classroom. However, staff shortages in special education programs will require a LOT of flexibility.
After some self-reflection, I learned I needed to let the little things go. Ultimately, I was only one person and was only able to do so much. Many of our lessons became whole group instruction and group work. I quickly realized, I couldn’t monitor and support all the students at one time.
Most importantly, we focus on independent work so that my students learn how to work alone for a minute or two without my support. Looking to read more about that? You can read what we do every year before academics are taught.
Ask students to help
Afterward, see what simple tasks you can delegate to your students to help out; make copies, run a note to a teacher, submit attendance, pass out papers to each student. These save me seconds of time to press send on an email.
Remember, your students want to help out! Furthermore, this gives them a sense of responsibility and works on independent and executive functioning skills as well. We have seen over the years how giving students important jobs that truly need to be done (instead of menial or contrived tasks) boosts self esteem, creates built-in breaks, and does help alleviate some of the small stressors that staff shortages in special education classrooms face.
Get 3 things done a day
Every day, I get 3 things accomplished from my to-do list. This makes me feel less overwhelmed and burned out. On those busier days, I may only get 1-2 things done.
Therefore, if I’ve been putting off making a parent phone call, it goes on my list. This has helped me feel more accomplished that I’m getting through an ever growing to do list.
Each Friday or Monday of the following week, I put 3 things on each day of my calendar to hold myself accountable. If it’s a busier day, I may only put 1 or 2 things on that list.
If you need a TO-DO List, join my private Facebook group. There is a free To-Do list in the Files section. Make sure to answer the questions to join!
Finally, I share this because I want you to know you’re not alone if you are experiencing staff shortages in special education programs or high staff turn over this year.