OMG!
You know those logic puzzles? Where you are given a seemingly random set of facts and are instructed to figure out WHO OWNS THE ZEBRA?
This is what scheduling a caseload of middle school speech kids is like. The principal specifically instructs you not to pull the kids from core academic classes. The kid's IEP tells you how long and how often you see them. There are 6 periods. There are A schedules and B schedules that alternate. Wednesdays have 7 periods. There are 3 lunches. There is lunch duty and bus duty. Don't forget about the speech meetings, IEP meetings, RTI meetings, faculty meetings, team meetings, department meetings. It's also nice to group your kids by what they are working on: pragmatics, fluency, articulation, etc. Oh and you also have to find room for the 3 kids you have at the school across the street. And last but not least, we are expected to see as many of the kids as possible inside their classroom, or what they call "push in" services. Now do you understand why I cannot figure out WHO OWNS THE @$#@&* ZEBRA????
This is how I started:
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| Pictures have been blurred to protect the innocent. |
So I moved to a bigger table:
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| The addition of post it notes enhances any logic puzzle. |
And decided to make a giant schedule
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| I'd been wondering what to do with that single piece of giant paper that was left in my office. |
And put all my kids on sticky notes and VOILA:
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| None of those sticky notes better fall off over the weekend! |
Five hours of work and a perfect schedule that was already rendered obsolete by the time the final bell rung because I had at least 2 kids added to my caseload and the VP is planning on completely rearranging the lunch schedules.
I probably should have listened to my supervisor when she told me to wait until the dust settles to work on my schedule in earnest. What can I say? I'm an excited and enthusiastic new SLP. I want my kids....NOW!
No zebras were harmed in the writing of this blog.
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| "Don't ask me, all I know is that the Spaniard owns a dog." |
