Three Tips to Prep Your Caseload

I am fortunate enough that I leave for the summer with a tentative caseload for the following year. Obviously, kids move in and out over the summer, or parents request specific teams, but I usually know what to expect. This gives me the ability to do some preparations over the summer to get ready.

The stipulation is, I only do as much work as I am in the mood for that day. Most days I do very little, but occasionally I will want to get a head start and I will invest a couple hours.

Many teachers don’t like to do work for school over the summer because that is OUR time. And I understand that feeling, but I also know myself as a person and walking in blind in September will cause me more stress than it’s worth.

Read and Save all IEPs

The first thing I do is go into our IEP database and pull up all of our students’ IEPs. I usually save them to my work Google Drive, because often our database has issues and I want to be able to access them.

I will save them all at once, but reading them I do not do all at once. I will read no more than 1-2 per day because I want to get to know the students a bit and know what to be prepared for. I want to know any classroom prep I may have to do to meet their accommodation needs.

Prep Data Collection

Although, I tend to lean on the side of technology, I like to keep my day to day data tracking with paper and pencil. I have a sheet for each student, with checkboxes for each day and I can just jot data down as I go. I keep it all on a clip board and and leave that clipboard on my desk so I can’t forget to do it.

Once I have reviewed each students’ IEP, I copy and paste their goals and benchmarks into my data templates. This way I can just print off a week’s worth and hit the ground running.

Prep Summaries for General Education Staff

My general education staff is allowed access to full IEPs. I know this differs from school to school. But they often find receiving 25+ IEPs cumbersome. And they don’t review them before the start of the school year. I like to make a summary page for them that allows them to see basic information as well as information they need upfront, like which students need preferential seating.

This helps them start the year successful, and helps build a relationship with new teachers to our team by setting the tone that we are a team and I am a resource for them.

What do you do during the summer to start your year on the right foot? Let me know if the comments!