Classroom Management

My needs in classroom management (Again) focuses on the staff side of things. Communication is part of the big picture with an emphasis on my staff. As I've noted, last year was a difficult one. A lack of communication on the part of my instructional assistants made it very difficult to work. For the purposes of this discussion, I want to look at a Communication Book and Staff Meetings.

I introduced a Communication Book into the classrooms last year. If you have information that you feel that everyone needs to know, you write in the book. There is a column for signatures (Signifying that you read that entry). This was a simple way of presenting information and holding everyone accountable for reading that information. Last year this met with some success. I'm hoping for more success here as well.

Another difficulty (That ties into the Communication Book) is the role of the instructional assistant. Right now (Or last year), this role was blurred too heavily. My classrooms were routinely hijacked away from me (It didn't help that my time at each school was limited by the obligations to my other schools). We're going to have an inservice on this issue (And I hope that helps).

Staff meetings were hit and miss last year. There were a variety of reasons for this, but the bottom line is that we need regular staff meetings where all of my staff attends. I think this is imperative for communication and team-building. I do have bus riders and their schedule will have to change to accomodate the meetings.

Using a Communication Book and Staff Meetings will not change things overnight, but I hope that change will be forthcoming. And I think it will.