I am super excited to share my new job adventure. I was hired in December 2023 to become the Specialist for DHH (Deaf or Hard of Hearing) & VI (Visually Impaired) in the Exceptional Student Education department for our school district. I am so honored to dive into supporting and advocating for these communities. ​

I spent my winter break resting and relaxing but..... also learning, researching and finding resources that will benefit DHH and VI students & families. It is thrilling to expand my knowledge to serve all types of disabled communities. 

I am loving the opportunity to learn how these diverse communities learn academics, and how to make learning accessible. I am exploring how all my knowledge of working with neurodiverse learners can be merged while learning new concepts. I am hoping to start building bridges to connect all the worlds. It is very important to remember that as an educator it is our job to make an educational impact for our students regardless of their disability label. There are so many new concepts that I have never explored or dive deeper into. I am very fortunate to be surrounded by amazing expert professionals that are sharing their knowledge. ​

​How in the world did I teach about Winter in South Sunny Florida??
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Sometimes, you just have to use your imagination and think outside the box. For my students, the concept of winter/snow and wearing cold weather clothing is something they may never experience. But in my classroom, we were determined to help them learn about this real life concepts and experiences.

It is summer time!! Time to relax, refresh, and rebuild! Let me share how I used to spend my summer time (when I didn't work ESY or Extended School Year) to plan for a successful school year!

Let's start with the beginning of summer! I always took at least 2-4 weeks to work on myself! I always needed time to decompress from the rollercoaster ride of the school year. Some years were harder than others. Some events were more challenging than others. 

Start with doing things that relax and restore your energy:

• Binge on online streaming videos (Netflix, Hulu, Disney +... you name it!)
• Do self care activities (skin care, hair treatments, spa days, massages, or exercise!)
• Read books (fun books of all genres!)
• Go hiking, on walks, on vacation or to the beach. 

After I felt like my brain was ready and my mental health was restored or halfway there... THEN I began to slowly work on things to prepare for a successful upcoming school year. Sometimes you don't know what your job or grade level will be. If that's the case, I always started with classroom decor. I was a theme's gal! So I loved decorating based on a theme and motivational decor. 

If you are lucky to know what grade level, you can start at looking the grade level standards and possibly the grade level curriculum or expectations. However, in the special education world it is slightly different. The preparation needs will vary depending on your teacher role: maybe you are support facilitator or resource teacher, or maybe you are a self contained or special programs teacher. 

The common factor is that students with disabilities have IEPs. So start there! 

• Read the IEPs
• Learn about each student's strengths and weaknesses
• Identify student's instructional levels
• Do they have medical needs? Behavior Needs? or special equipment?
• Begin creating data sheets and work the matches the IEP goals so you can test and progress monitor IEP goals.

Once you have reviewed the IEPs, begin by making name tags, and work or activities based on the IEP goals. 

I highly recommend speaking to administration to get access to your caseload and possibly IEPs. This information will allow you to get an idea of your students, and save time! If all you have is a class list, then start by making name tags, and designing centers or activities for your classroom.

​​There are so many celebrations happening at the end of the year! One of the most common ones is the award ceremonies. I have created the perfect tool to help your students understand and learn about what is expected in award ceremonies.

In this resource, there are multiple levels of visual supports: 

• The social narrative provides the explanation of what occurs during the award ceremony, what's expected, what to do when their name is called, and what to do while waiting for others to receive awards. 
• There is a task analysis with big visuals icons providing step by step of the expectations. You can use this to guide students one at a time. 
• There are various formats of checklists differentiated to meet the varying levels of your students. Students can take this with them and go through each step in the ceremony.

Resource Link: Award Ceremony Visual Supports
 
Remember, preparing students prior to any event will be key for their success. This resource will help set up the tone and provide you the learning visual support to help your students in those ceremonies.

Additional ideas for ceremonies:

• Magic Toolbox/Backpack: Make sure to bring a backpack or bin with fidgets and engaging tools. Sometimes those ceremonies can be lengthy. A great idea is to bring student's preferred items. 
• Noise Cancelling Headphones: For students with auditory sensory overload, bring noise cancelling headphones. Those headphones were lifesavers. 
• Class goes first: Ask administration or the grade level team if you can go first in the ceremony. Sometimes, this helps in case your class or individual students become to overwhelmed and they may need to step away or go back to the classroom. 
• Class goes last:  Another option is to ask admin or the team to go last, and someone texts/calls you as your class' turn is approaching.
• Seating arrangement: Meet in advance with your admin, support staff, and grade level team to discuss where you class is sitting. You can either sit in the first row or back areas near exits. I have learned to always have exits accessible. Sometimes no matter how much brought magic tools and prepared my students, award ceremonies can be very overwhelming.
• Staff Preparedness: Set up support plans for students with behaviors, or sensory irregulation. Ask for additional help during ceremonies, or come up with plans for possible situations. At this time of the year, you most likely know which students will struggle with the event. Be prepared!
• After the ceremony: When you return to class, give your students a break, whether is in the break area, sensory input, recess, or even a preferred educational movie. This will help them regroup and calm down from the overwhelming, crowded and chaos! 

I hope these ideas help you as you wrap up the school year! 

As the year begins to wrap up in May or early June (depending on when you school year ends), as teachers we often start the cleaning up process. We start by taking down bulletin boards, throwing out broken items, missing pieces, overly used materials…. You get the picture! This is a great way to start getting ready for our summer exit! However, as a self-contained special education teacher, I had other items on my to-do list to tackle as well. 

I would begin by taking a look at each student’s data binder. As we all know, each student has IEP that holds legal value. I wanted to make sure that nothing was left pending or out of place, so the next teacher could take over. Are the data tracking sheets up to date and with corresponding work samples?

In a self-contained classroom putting things away is a no-no. Students need their structure, schedules, and work. Otherwise, just a warning, you will have chaos in your classroom. And that is no way to wrap up the year. You can start incorporating more fun projects, sensory activities, and science experiments. Don’t forget to have fund with your students. Prepare for ceremonies, parent activities, and any end of year giveaway projects.

I would always do a breakfast with a music show along and a slideshow with my parents. It was always a hit! In most cases, parents would take their kids with them and that would give me some time and the opportunity to tackle my end of the year to-do list.
 
One of my favorite things to do as we reach May and June is that I would start preparing things for the following year! I know it seems a little crazy but hear me out!

Planning week never has enough days or time to set up for open house, meet and greet, and sometimes even first day of school. So as the years went on, I started working smarter not harder. If you are in self-contained classroom, creating a lot of the materials require a lot of time and dedication. But if I got a head start on these material creations, planning week and classroom set up was much easier!
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So here is my cheat sheet of things I would start creating:
-create 2 sets of student varying border colors visual icon schedules (print, laminate, cut, and velcro).
-create the visual icon schedules black strips backup... at least 10-12 just in case
-Create the check in boards to all the centers
-Written schedules
-Hands and feet pairs silhouettes like 20
-Any visual icons related to each center to help students become independent
-First/then boards
-Token Boards
-Rules

By the end of the year, everything looks beat up and over used (most of them!). I always like to start my year with fresh looking visuals. My paras were trained that I did this every year. Think about how much time you will save during planning week if all the visual supports are ready and ready to be posted in your classroom.

If you have volunteers or high school students who need hours this is a great task to give them.

Save time by starting this routine at this end of this school which will help you be ready for the beginning of next school year!

I hope this tip helps!!

Let's explore more of my favorite useful and time saving items for special education!!!

I hope these items are as useful to you as they were to me! If you haven't tried some of them, I highly recommend them!

Save time, and make your life easier as you multitask in the world of special education!

I used a slot mailbox organizer on my arrival table. Each student was assigned a mailbox. During arrival students would place their School/Home Folder and their agenda inside their assigned mailbox. I also would place home notes, homework, any type of communication, and any paperwork related to the student in their assigned mailbox. When it was close to dismissal everything each student needs was in their assigned mailbox.

I also had some of these in my centers to organize student's work, paperwork or copies for the center activities. It is a great organizational tool. 

NOTE: If you have more than 10 students, you can stack 2 together (make sure to tape the connection, you can also glue paint stirring sticks to stabilize together)

Affiliate Link: ​https://amzn.to/3ZGB9U6

This is a great way to provide a visual for families to know what needs to be returned to school and what stays home. It's easier to create a communication routine with families and caregivers.  

​​Affiliated Link: ​https://amzn.to/3ncJyRg

Timers are a great way to keep yourself and the students on track. This is really useful if you have various centers and want to maintain time management. You can also use smaller timers for behavior management and student expectations. This can also help your students learn time management which essentially is a life skill.

​Big Timer  Affiliated Link: https://amzn.to/40cipMY​
Small Timers Affiliated Link: https://amzn.to/3ngn2XA​

Today I was listening to a podcast by Mel Robbins and it reminded me of how I applied the same concept in my classroom. As a self-contained classroom teacher, I know that it can be overwhelming and time consuming the endless tasks required to set up the classroom. Self-contained classrooms often have many small centers, a lot of differentiated tasks, and hands-on work tasks. At the end of the day there is so much to reset and re-set up for the next day that you feel like there is never enough time.

You have to ask yourself… What type of day do you want to have? Do you want to be able to come into work, calmly and ready to go? Maybe just a few things to complete or tackle first thing in the morning? Or do you want to have to rush in and try to get everything ready in a chaotic manner?

.Unless you make it to work early, let’s be real…there may not be enough time to get everything needed ready for your students. So often, you will find that students will transition in the morning and have to wait until you are preparing centers, grabbing materials and setting up your technology, whole group, instruction with the teacher, or you name it! I have learned that idle time equals behavior! So the less idle time, the less behaviors might occur and the more we can maximize learning and engagement for students. 

But how do you tackle such an overwhelming to-do list, after a long day??? You may be ready to rush out of the classroom and head home. No matter how long your day is, the key is to leave things ready and prepared for the next school day. I promise you these hacks will be life-changing!! It may take a bit to establish these routines, but once you do, you will thank me or remember me.

Hack # 2
We have to keep in mind that there is no “I” in teamwork. As classroom teachers, we often want to micromanage everything or just take on everything ourselves. But this can be so overwhelming, taxing, and it can be very difficult to accomplish everything that needs to get done by yourself. So… this is when it is very important to establish relationships with your classroom assistant(s). When you build relationships, develop respect for one another, they will become your right and left hand! Learn about their strengths and weaknesses.  For example, in my classroom, I had an assistant who was phenomenal at setting my student’s schedules at the end of the day. Meanwhile, I had another assistant who used to be a secretary, therefore her filing skills and organization of skills were on point so she would help me in those areas. As the teacher, you will need to delegate and share tasks and responsibilities. You cannot take on everything on your own if you want to accomplish everything that needs to be done. We can achieve more as a team rather than an island. 

• Review the checklist with your assistants.
• Be clear on the expectations and model if necessary.
• You can assign task based on strengths.

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It is great to delegate, but I learned that it is helpful that EVERYONE (teacher included) knows how to execute all the tasks that need to be completed to effectively run centers, help with arrival and dismissal, and be prepared. Why? In case someone is absent or leaves, then anyone in the classroom can step in or guide others. Remember, the goal is to ensure that everything that is needed gets done. I always worked closely with my assistants by communicating and collaborating this way they could take over even when I was absent!

Hack # 3
The last hack and most important to establish a successful day is that you always prepare EVERYTHING the day before. If you leave everything ready, things will go a lot smoother in the morning. No matter how tired or what a long day it was, you will want to do it. Some days I wouldn't delegate or assign tasks, instead I would ask my assistant(s) to help me address the crucial items on the checklist, if it had been a rough day. The point is no matter what type of day we had, we always made sure that this was completed before we walked out of the classroom. If everyone chips in to complete the needed task, no one will come in stressed the next day. As my mentor always says… “Remember the 5 Ps- Prior Planning Prevents Poor Performance!”
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​Every month, I would review the monthly events or holidays. I always loved helping my students learn about what goes on around us. This helped my students gather background knowledge and learn about what happens in these events.

The day we all waited for arrived in Week 3, we would set up our classroom for our feast! I would rearrange my whole group area to create a long rectangle table or sitting area. We would decorate the classroom in Thanksgiving decorations. Students would come in and find the classroom flipped! They would each sit in their assigned spot, and I would pick students to be my assistants in setting up and serving (with gloves). We would serve the food on special plates. ​Then, we would have to wait our turn to eat. We would go around the table to say something we were grateful for (Some students would use their communication devices or communication boards). Then we ate!!! Afterwards we would watch a movie or show related to Thanksgiving... while the staff cleaned up! This activity helped students learn the process of a gathering and having a meal with a group of individuals, and cope with a change in their routine.​

It was a beautiful learning experience for my students. The more I did this every year with co-workers, the more students learned and grew! ​​I hope I have inspired you to have your own Thanksgiving Feast in the classroom. Although it took some work through visual supports, social stories and modeling (plus academic learning) it was an amazing final product! 
I would love to hear your feedback or see your classroom feast! Don’t forget to share some pictures via e-mail (autismelements@gmail.com), via private messages, or tag us! 

​Today is not an ordinary day. Today I hug and kiss my children grateful to have them, while my heart breaks for the families that could no longer do this. Today, I drive to schools thinking about how children arrive at their schools like any other day, while Texas children cannot feel the same way. Today, I am heartbroken, scared, and angry.

sIn 2012, I wrote for those who experienced Sandy Hook hoping to never feel that way again. In 2018, I had to witness how my county was affected directly by another similar event only 30 minutes from my house and closer to home than anyone could wish. Today, I relive the emotions all over again after what just happened in Texas. How many more incidents have to occur? How many more innocent lives have to be lost before anyone reacts? Enough is enough! No child should ever have to live through this. No child should have to attend school and be taught procedures for an active shooting. I will not address my views on gun control, but I will voice my passion about education. It is time to make education a priority in this country. It is time to invest in education and provide the tools and resources needed for these children who grow up and go out into society with decisions that could change many lives.

When will education become a priority? Despite many beliefs, teachers and schools have the power to impact futures. But education has become impossible for many factors to be best we could be. I speak to you as a special education teacher and as a district staff who oversees various schools. We need to make education a priority.

It is impossible for special education teachers to address and implement strategies with fidelity when classroom ratios are high, when administration is not educated or trained to understand the Special Education world, when budgets are restricted to purchase what is needed, when teachers are not trained to learn how to address these students, when support is not followed by accountability, when we lose teachers because they do not get paid enough.

It is impossible for teachers to address all the social emotional needs in big ratio classes, to provide interventions when you have not been trained, to identify when help is needs or to want to come work when they are exhausted, overworked, and underpaid.

It is impossible to identify disabilities if we do not have enough psychologist to evaluate or to meet social emotional needs if we do not have enough counselors. It is impossible to run systematic RTI processes and provide interventions while understaffed. How can we help children be successful and make a true impact?

It is difficult to work in education when everyone has become mad hatters and must complete up to 10 jobs. It impossible to have so many responsibilities while being paid for only one and be expected to be a master of each task. Who wants to work in a job that you have work after work? Work never ends after hours for educators.

Let’s talk about training. Teachers are being asked to attend trainings after hours and without pay or cannot attend training for lack of substitutes. Who wants to do that? Not many people. Without training, we cannot learn the needed information to be successful and experts in our fields. You cannot become a doctor without the medical knowledge. You can not be an electrician and fix wires without learning about it. You cannot be a mechanic without learning about motors. But we expect teachers to have all the answers, know how implement strategies/curriculums, and run classrooms without proper training. You truly do not get this information through college.
 
Our education system is falling apart. You CANNOT be anyone in the world or in any job without ever going through school or learning from a TEACHER. When will we make education a priority to help all the students in need and give them the right interventions?

We need to start making changes to prevent what happened to repeat. Enough is enough.