If you haven't heard it by now, you will find out very soon!

Let me help...If you don't have strong classroom management skills, you'll never be able to teach them anything. 

1. Procedures, procedures, procedures! Some fantastic, easy-to-understand resources for this include "First Days of School" by Harry and Rosemary Wong (this was my Teacher-Bible the first three years), "Teach-Tos" and "Time to Teach"! Check out my Amazon link below...

2. Be prepared for everything and anything. No, seriously. Plan every detail. Over plan. Have a few extras of everything in case of new students, extra students that get shoved to your room, or misplaced assignments. Better yet, if you are lucky as I have been to be 1-on-1  student to devices, post the assignments to Google Classroom, Canva, See Saw, or another virtual-ready resource.

3. Be consistent! That goes for discipline and consequences, data tracking, and your grading policy. If you have a school-wide or district-required policy for any of the above, then by all means, follow it to a tee! Always make the parents and students aware of all the policies outlined in the handbooks and your syllabi/classroom expectations. Never stray from the agreed upon (or your set) discipline policy. They WILL take advantage of you as soon as they see you fail to execute a needed consequence with someone else, and they WILL call you out on it later, as they need it in their bag of "tricks" to call you out! Heck, even their parents will find out and call your bluff. Document everything. Misbehaviors, The action you took. The 5 Ws. Form of parent contact and when...Keep it all together in a spiral bound notebook, a Composition book, a binder, or preferably, a digital behavior and parent contact log. **Below you'll find links to some of my fave resources for already prepared logs! 

4. Avoid "rules", and build room expectations instead. Build your "rules" together by coming up with a Social Contract with each other, agreeing on the consequences to be received if the expectations are broken, and  how the BIG problems should be solved (too big to be little and too small for the principal). 

~ Stephanie Hernandez

  Moderate Behavior Special Ed Teacher