KINDERGARTEN TRANSITIONS

When I hear those words at our bi-monthly team meeting early in December I cringe. About 10 seconds later I decide I must get to work and be the first one scheduled and done. There are four other teachers in my same boat. I believe my job can be well compared to the sport of golf. In both you play with others, however it is really a game based on how well you execute known skills. In my position it is based on how organized, efficient and effective I can be at getting things completed and done (i.e. meeting schedules, assessing my students, an average of 5 hours of paperwork per student and chasing others around to get theirs done so we are in compliance with FEDERAL LAW). In terms of Kinder transitions I am running a race against accommodating to everyone's calendars and loss of energy/moral. I always attempt to get my meetings completed before personnel are burnt out for the year. We are short staffed at every public school in our nation and I can assure you the last thing on the list of importance is to ensure there is an adequate amount of certified staff to complete preschool transitions. Everyone gets to do it on top of their regular duties and thus most of the ugly work gets placed on me. Oh joy.

I say a different version of this prayer about once a day 3rd quarter:

Dear Lord,

Please grant me patience and grace while dealing with this person. He has not scheduled this meeting, I have. He does not have the right to make me reschedule it and mess up the five other meetings when he was not invited to attend in the first place. I am sorry he let his therapists take a professional leave day, but maybe the kids should come first. Back off bucko and quit bullying me through your relentless e-mails. Again, dear Jesus, let me cool off and not respond in a rude manner.


Yes.. transitions are tricky and sticky. Let me tell you who all could be at one of these meetings and how many schedules we need to accommodate. Getting them to do their portion of the work that goes into these transitions is an entire other issue. The following acronyms can be defined for those whose vernacular does not encompass Special Education vocabulary on a daily basis (which might be .001 of the population):

PS SPED Teacher- Preschool Special Education Teacher (yes- you need a degree and multiple endorsements for this position)

VE Teacher- Various Exceptionalities Special Education Teacher (self-contained primary teacher)

SLP- Speech Therapist (3 of them for different reasons- a whole other bag of worms)

Transitioning Psychologist- (Psychologist assigned to re-evaluate and oversee all of my kiddos transitions, 1/7 chances she is their home psychologist too)

Home School Psychologist-(where the child will be attending for Kindergarten)

CC Teacher- Special Education Resource Teacher

Kindergarten Teacher- The General Education Teacher (been there, done that-MISS IT DEARLY)

OT- Occupational Therapist

PT- Physical Therapist

VI- Vision Specialist

HI- Hearing Impaired Specialist

Nurse- School Nurse



*If you skipped to the bottom of this you get the idea.... there is too many people, wearing too many hats, who need to attend too many meetings.

On a good note. I still love my job :)