Ep. 48: How to Create Effective Classroom Schedules for Special Education and ABA Settings

Creating a classroom schedule for special education and ABA settings can feel like solving a puzzle! In this episode, Caitlin and Audra share their strategies, tips, and tricks to make scheduling manageable and effective for students and staff. From color-coding and post-it notes to balancing para rotations, this episode will help you build a flexible schedule that works for everyone.

✨ Key Takeaways
🕒 Start with the non-negotiables: Plot out staff lunch breaks, student lunch, therapy schedules, and specials first.
🎨 Color-code by staff: Use colors to keep track of assignments and spot errors easily.
🔄 Rotate paras regularly: Avoid over-familiarity or burnout by switching up para-student pairings.
📋 Be flexible: Expect schedules to change often, especially in the first few weeks.
✨ Communicate clearly: Share schedules with paras and provide opportunities for feedback.

📚 Resources and Ideas
🗂 Master Schedule Template: Use a weekly layout to plan periods and staff rotations.
🖍 Color-Coding Tools: Grab some highlighters, clipboards, post-its, or digital apps for visual organization.
📑 Para Schedules: Provide individual schedules for easy reference (bonus tip: shrink for lanyards!).
🧩 “Busy Bin” Ideas: Keep extra prep materials handy for unexpected downtime.

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Transcript

Ep. 48: How to Create Effective Classroom Schedules for Special Education and ABA Settings

Intro: [00:00:00] Welcome to the Misfit Behaviorist Podcast. Join your hosts, Audra Jensen and Caitlin Beltran, here to bring you evidence based strategies with a student centered focus. Let's get started. 

Caitlin: Hey everybody. Welcome back to the Misfit Behaviorists. I'm Caitlin and I'm here with Audra. Hey so this week we are talking about everyone's favorite, which is making your classroom schedule, which is hardly most people's favorite thing to do. And it can be really, really cumbersome because as we talked about last episode, you're oftentimes working with a lot of students, but also a lot of adults and managing their lunch and their break and their speech services and their integration time and things like that. Audra, what has been your experience with making schedules specifically for an ABA or self-contained kind of classroom setting? 

Audra: It's like the most challenging, but I kind of think it's the most fun, at least at the beginning of the year, other than cutting materials apart. But I think it's really fun. It's like a puzzle that you're [00:01:00] creating. So, I mean, I've done everything. Excel almost always is my go to. But when I have a whole bunch of students and all of those things, and you find out from the Gen Ed teachers that music classes are at this time, and the special ed classes are at this time. And you have all of the paras and certain paras need to be with certain students at certain times. I find that using those many post it notes and I use my kitchen table and I make a huge, you know, Monday through Friday and all of the hours on my kitchen table and I stick everything on these mini post it notes for like the hours of the half an hour blocks and I have pictures of just like tons of post it notes, figuring things out at the beginning. Of course, everything changes two minutes into the school year. 

Caitlin: Right, right. 

Audra: But yeah, it's kind of fun to do that and get it all at least, you know, figure out how the puzzle pieces are going to fit together, and then take a picture and go to admin and go, I need five more paras to make this work. 

Caitlin: I can picture your table full of post its, and it sounds like a nightmare. I am not a post it person. I like to go right to the source, so I go, [00:02:00] which just goes to show there are many different ways to solve this puzzle. But same idea. I think we're working in the large time frame of the school day and all of our staffing and students, and then just breaking it down chunk by chunk. I'm going to share my screen and kind of show you the process that I use. And if you're listening, I'm just going to walk us through it. First if I'm lucky enough to have the therapy schedule first, which is not always, I'm plotting out which students are going out for something like counseling or speech or O. T. I know oftentimes for us, this is the last piece of the puzzle, not the 1st, though. Other things you might be plotting in 1st is often staff lunch breaks and student lunch break. So, for example, I'll just pick the classroom right now. It's like K-1-2, like kindergarten through second grade. So the students are not eating lunch at the same time. Sometimes I have a classroom where we just happen to have four second graders and everybody has lunch at the same time. It's a little bit easier, but some years it's literally three or four different lunch periods.

So after I kind of plot out the non negotiables [00:03:00] including specials or related arts, whatever you call them, we have adaptive specials, so, for example, our self contained students all get an adaptive music class where it's just them and the music teacher, but then most of them also push out to a mainstream music class with their grade level peers, and those things, I can't pick and choose when they are, so those are my non negotiables.

After that, I also have the staff members lunch breaks. Again, we get a little bit of wiggle room. I mean, my admin are great, so they'll listen to any suggestions we have, but just based on our contract, they'll have picked those over the summer. Like, okay, you get lunch period five, you get lunch period four, so I'm plotting around those two.

Then I go to like a blank shell and I do Monday through Friday and then all the periods of the day. So for example, my school I'm in right now has nine periods. And originally I would sometimes try to do just like a daily whether it's Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, or Friday, but I found that that hardly ever works because of the services and sometimes extra specials or things like that. So that can be [00:04:00] it's confusing to view the whole week at once. And then throw in trimesters and then gym changes and that just makes me want to lose sleep. So then I'll have already plotted out Audra has lunch here because she needs to eat or something like that. But then I'll put like, you know, Bryce goes to kindergarten lunch here. 

Audra: What are the different colors you have in the rows? 

Caitlin: Okay, so since I'm crazy, I color code by staff member. Because we kind of have each student mainstreaming with different grade levels, so that might be your situation or it might not be, but I would put, let's say my classroom was Caitlin, you know, I have paras, Audra, Omar, and Bryce, and Jessica and then each day, the 1st thing I do is just copy and paste so that if I want to, I can look at the whole thing at a glance.

But if I'm just maybe saying, Oh, Audra, like you're in green, so I can find you easily. That helps me for a couple reasons, because one just like [00:05:00] visually who doesn't love color coding, but two, if I'm looking for things like, okay, has Audra been working with the student all morning and I need to switch it up, or is Audra supposed to be on lunch when the student's in gym or something like that? It helps me spot errors at a glance. 

So then I just really start sort of like plug and play. So I plotted out already my thing. So again, just for example, if I had, like, Caitlin's eating lunch here, Audra's eating lunch here, then I'm just plugging in, let's say I have seven students and there are 5 or 6 staff members. I'm really just assigning each staff member a student or 2, depending on how big your groups are. I mean, a lot of the times, if we're in the classroom, we're working 1 to 1 or with a small group of 2 to 3, unless it's a designated group period. I like to personally, even if say, period 4, we're doing group or period 1 is morning meeting. I do like to assign each person a student each period or at the very least by morning and afternoon. So that [00:06:00] just for logistics, like bathrooming, someone's out. I'm making sure I'm getting in that rotation because I don't like to ever keep the staff members in my classroom with the same student for too long, and so even if they have a 1 to 1 in their IEP, if I have more than 1 staff member, I'm trying to switch that up as much as I can to the point where if you walk in, you don't know who's his actual 1 to 1 because that's been your experience. 

Audra: Oh, yeah. 100%. 

Yeah. I've seen mistakes happen when they have a 1 to 1 or para just that works really well with the student and they keep that para with that student all the time. And then they can't generalize the skills, they only work for that person, or they have more behaviors with that person because it becomes too familiar. So yeah, I always have a rotating schedule going. 

Caitlin: I love that. I've heard of some public schools where, you're their para for the whole year and you're just always with them and it would be different if it was in more of an integrated setting where you're fading out a lot. But, I mean, that's just a recipe for burnout, I feel like, if you're with anyone all the [00:07:00] time. 

Audra: It gives the paras new skill sets too if you only have been working with 1 student and 1 or 2 students that are learning the skills for those students, there's so much more that they could be learning from working with a whole bunch of other students too.

Caitlin: So just to jump to kind of a completed example, and again, if you're listening, I'll walk through, but I would have it color coded for each day for each period. I had plugged in their lunch, the student's lunch, whatever it might be. So then, regardless of whether we're in the classroom or we're in the lunchroom or in music or whichever, I have each student is assigned to a staff member for each period across the whole week.

And again, I've seen it like in my old school. It just made more sense. Our sessions were longer. We didn't go by period. So I would assign them with a student for the morning and then we'd switch in the afternoon. But I find in public school, if you are pushing in and pushing out a lot, by period just makes sense because that's how the whole school's operating.

Audra: I love this. I've never worked in a school other than middle school and higher that's had periods like this. It's always been just [00:08:00] times and trying to navigate the different times for the different grade levels and the different specials at different times. It's so challenging. I wish every school would do it like this. It is so much cleaner to do it like this. That's why I use the post its. There's just no way. It's so nice and clean. I wish everybody did it this way. 

Caitlin: Yeah, our whole school runs, period 1 through 9. And so even in the self contained world, we're kind of aligning to that for our specials and our lunches and things like that. Sometimes with the services, it gets tricky because they're typically working in like say half hour blocks or 20 minutes at a time and so we work with what we can. And then sometimes you get into a wrench where if the students go into speech, sometimes they want the para to go with them, sometimes they don't. And of course, you can make a case for each, depending on what they're working on. But so we just try to be flexible. And so if we do have working 1 to 1 or with a para, sometimes a group of 3 or 4 [00:09:00] students. But again, if we're doing any kind of group, I do like to assign each staff member a student because I find that if you don't, sometimes you get that dynamic where the 1 para ends up prompting all the students and the other paras are like checking their phones and sitting back. So it just keeps everybody accountable. 

Okay, so some of the things I like to look for, once I have it all plugged in, are things like one, just logistics, is everything correct. Like, I have somebody else look at it, or I have somebody cross check with me my special lunch schedule with our new classroom schedule. Then I do try to print out 1, like, a condensed version for each para so that they can cross check with each other and be like, wait, you have me on lunch twice, or I'm going to music, but you also have me in library or something like that. And then I also look for, after everything's logistically workable, do I have the same para with the same student too many periods throughout the day or week? Sometimes, if we're all in the classroom, say, periods two, three, and four, I'll just say classroom or something like [00:10:00] that, and we just naturally rotate and switch. But I just try to be sensitive with, as we mentioned in our last episode, your strength might not always be your preference. You might be great working with this student who's really challenging and physical, but I also don't want to burn you out by putting you with that student 4 mornings a week when we have 6 staff members in the room.

I also just try to make sure if you're working with as many students as possible as you can throughout the week. So separate from saying, okay, I don't want to always put you with student A 9 out of 10 times. I also want to make sure you're not never with student B, because that leads to a recipe for disaster and I've had paras get really comfortable working with a couple students and say, oh, I'm not so comfortable working with this student. My 1st thought is always like then I want you with that student as much as possible, to break that shyness or uncomfortability with that student, because the worst thing to happen is like being super comfortable with some students and not the others. And then, your [00:11:00] 3rd para in the wind gets sick for 2 weeks or goes on vacation and now we're forced to rotate all the time and it's not working because we never had the time to learn each other properly.

Have you had any instances in a classroom like this where you've had staff say, I just I'm really not comfortable working with this student. 

Audra: Yeah. And we've always had those discussions from the beginning. Like, we talked about last week. It's setting those boundaries, like, "in this classroom, just so, you know, everybody's going to rotate with all the students. So that it's good for the students and it's good for you." And I just always make sure that it's clear from the up front. And then that they have that open communication and you can say, even in those early meetings too, "always feel if you're concerned about something, please come and talk to me privately and we will brainstorm and problem solve from the get go" and so that by the end of the year, mid year, everybody's comfortable with everybody. And if somebody goes out for 2 weeks, and that happens, you know, somebody has a baby all the well, they don't have a baby all of a sudden, but [00:12:00] everybody's prepared and can slip in in a moment's notice anywhere that's needed. I find it's more challenging when you're working with Gen Ed teachers and the runnings of the classroom and having Gen Ed teachers comfortable with the paras in their classrooms, and for them to understand they don't always get their favorite para in their classroom. And so I think having a conversation with your paras, as well as all the teachers from the beginning of the year, "look, you'll get to know all of the paras because we rotate" and explain why we do that. That it's not because we're trying to torment everybody. It's really for the benefit of the students, and it's good for the classrooms as well.

Caitlin: That's a great point. And I guess, just to clarify, sometimes if I have the classroom going out to gym all together, I want them rotating as much as possible. But if, say, 1 student is going to 1st grade morning meeting, and then coming right back. I might pick the same para to take them every day or every Monday or something, because I find there's certain routines that that gen ed classroom has that just logistically doesn't [00:13:00] make sense for a new para to learn each week, or they happen to then learn, you know, their target students peers by name. And that's like a nice connection where they can foster that friendship between them and a target student or something like that. But if you do have that time, the luxury of where, you know, you have a student out or something, and you can tack on instead of "saying, Hey, take a lap, make some copies", saying, "Hey, go to morning meeting with so and so and their students so that you can try this next week" because that's just the best way for them to learn is seeing it already in place and the student already succeeding with that staff member. 

Audra: And then how do you give your schedules to your parents to reference? What is the format that you use for them knowing their schedule?

Caitlin: I print that out and then I print a version that has just their schedule. So we have the master schedule in the classroom and then, you know, the 9000 X's and cross out marks on top of it. And then I have to be printed about 37 times. We have it by like October 1st. And then I also print 1 just for them. A couple of them really like to shrink it [00:14:00] down on the copier and put it, like, on their lanyard, which I love. And then I keep one right in my desk for when someone's out and I can pull it out. 

Audra: Everybody had a clipboard, either the small or the big ones. I had that and all the data and all the kids and stuff. Now you said you have that by October 1st, so by October 5th you redo it, right? 

Caitlin: Oh yeah, 42 times. The first couple weeks, like, we just laugh about it, because if you don't laugh, you'll cry, because that, it's, half of it, you can't even predict, like, gym was wrong, like, they scheduled the gym teacher when they're not even here, or, you know, so and so left over the summer, so and so got a new para, this para didn't work out. There's so many things, and we're just constantly changing it, and then we'll write final copy for the third time, or something like that. 

Audra: Final times three, well, I guess that's something to talk about at the beginning of the year, again, setting those boundaries, but also being clear with the paras. Like, "I'm giving you a schedule, but it will change". It's not, it might change. It will change. So be prepared for that. You may love what it looks [00:15:00] like now. You may hate the next one, but then it'll flip around. You'll like it again. So just be, just go with the flow. It's all okay. 

Caitlin: Totally. And I've been so lucky. The teachers and the paras I work with are just amazing. And like I said, we just all end up laughing about it eventually. But I do tell them, it will change. For sure, it will change. But also, if it's not changing and it's sticking and you find something that's not working, let's talk about it. Like, there's times where we don't need to go to admin. If you love eating early and you love eating late and you just want to flip flop your lunches, but run it by us so that the teacher and I can understand, okay, you're not just trying to do something to get out of working with a student. There's a lot of things we can change too. 

And then I guess my final thought was just, I know it seems like it's never going to happen because we always need more hands, but once in a while you get those lulls where you have a student on vacation for two weeks or, you know, everyone's sick at once and you have too many adults. I find just having a bin of these are things that could always be re laminated. These are things that could always be printed and Velcroed. We could always use [00:16:00] extra visual cues by some point in the year. So just having a busy bin for staff, almost. 

Audra: So thanks for listening. Again, go to the Facebook group, the Misfit Behaviorists, or find us on YouTube. Make sure you subscribe, share, let us know in the group if you want to be heard. And we will talk about it. 

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