5 Tips for Teachers When Your Class Roster Is Scary

In today's episode we're going to be talking all things class lists and class rosters. Now here's an ugly truth nobody really wants to talk about, but we all know class lists are not created equal. Some teachers those who tend to typically have better classroom management skills and people skills tend to have an unfair distribution of students with different circumstances. Let's say so. We're going to dive into that and look at how can we set ourselves up for success and our students and avoid frustration and disappointment. What mindsets can we use and strategies to help us? Welcome to the Balance, your Teacher Life Podcast, where we talk all things avoiding educator burnout, setting healthy boundaries and achieving better work-life balance. If you're passionate about education but tired of it consuming your whole life, you have found your home in the podcast universe. I'm your host, grace Stevens, and let's get going with today's show. Alright. So let's say it's the beginning of the year and you know how anxious you are to get that class list, especially if you teach in elementary, lower grade school. You know we've got the things to make the labels, we've got to make the spreadsheets with all the names, and you know we're so excited to get that list. We get the list, we compare it with our teammates and all of a sudden, we're feeling deflated. Maybe it is absolutely clear to us right from the beginning that we have got an unfair distribution of, let's say, boys and girls. Maybe your class is real boy heavy. Maybe you have an unfair distribution of students who have special circumstances. Maybe you have all the students with IEPs, all the students with 504 plans Yep true story happened to me before I got every single one and there were a lot of them and maybe you already know that there is an unfair distribution of students whose reputation precedes them. So what are you going to do about it? The first thing is you're going to just brush yourself off. Okay, you've been through this before and you can get through this again Now. I guess we can spend a couple of minutes talking about why does this happen? Well, unfortunately, teaching seems to be one of those areas that the better you are at your job, the more work gets piled on you. You know, like in the real world, let's say, because I worked in the corporate world when you add additional responsibilities or more work given to you, you've got a bonus, you got a pay raise, you moved up. Well, that's not what we have going on in teaching and, basically, if you're seeing an unfair distribution of children, especially those with behaviour issues or special behavioural plans, it is probably because you have a reputation of being really good about dealing with them. It isn't by evil designed by admins. Honestly, they want to make their lives easier, right? If you have the reputation as being the teacher who rarely sends you students to the office to deal with behaviour issues, you take care of them yourselves. If they never hear from your parents because you run interference and you resolve the issues, whatever they may be, in an effective manner, then you know the feeling is, oh, we'll give it to this teacher, they can handle it right. Is it fair? No, it actually isn't fair. But in the past, what I've known is, especially when I worked in a small school, at the times that I've pushed back and said, look, I have these, you know, let's say, seven students and my partner has, you know, zero. We know what's coming up through the pipe. Again, very small school. We all knew who all the students were. And then, okay, I advocated for myself and got a couple of those students moved into the other class before school started. Guess what happened? That teacher didn't like to send students to the office, he would send them to my room. And so it got to the point where one of those students we just had his own desk in my room and at that point he might as well have been on my roster. And, sure enough, a few months into the school year the admin just came to me and said we're moving this child to your roster. So you know, number one is yes, it's annoying, it's disappointing, it shouldn't be that way, but in a lot of districts it is that way. If you're really honest, think about it. The last school I was at, I already knew who those teachers were. I know who the second grade teacher was, who got dumped on. I knew who the third grade teacher was, who got dumped on, and pretty soon it became obvious to me I was going to be the fourth grade teacher, that that was going to continue to happen too. So anyway. So the first thing is yes, in one way you got to understand it goes on everywhere. The other alternative is, which is really unfair and I have absolutely seen, is when the new teacher gets All of those students. Maybe the other teachers on campus already know about those students and they've maybe made it quite clear that their preference words To not have, to not have them in the room and they put them all with the new teacher I, my daughter, in when she was in school. This totally happened to her. That poor teacher was set up to fail. She had only ever been a resource teacher before, not to say that's anything less than a classroom teacher. But all that to say, she never really worked with more than three or four students at a time and all of a sudden she's in a class with 30 students in. At least five of them were really really challenging and it was just massively unfair to her and she was just overwhelmed and it was just a horrible Experience for all the students. That was the year that my, my own child, experience so much anxiety that poor teacher had no control of the class and she had no support and it wasn't fair. So anyway, first thing you should do if you really really have the facts that it's completely unfair. Like I said in one particular case I was in, I had every child on an IEP and 504 was in my room and the reason I was given was well, you know, I know in the admins mind it was easier because I was actually very close in the building To where they needed to go to resource and the other classrooms were further away. So in their mind they were making their life easier. But it wasn't particularly fair to anybody in my class that my class was like a revolving door people coming in, people coming out, it was just grand central station. And then a lot of other challenging things happened during that year with students and it was just. It was not okay. So first thing I did was put it in writing. I did make admin aware of the situation. I just always assume the best intentions. You may not be aware, but it appears X, y and Z right and I am making a formal request that if a new student comes who is on an IEP, they be given to another teacher in my grade and that request was not Adhere to. Let's put it that way. When I had done the student, lo and behold, here we were again with another set of schedules that it took a mathematician to figure out who was going where, when, how and in. So my next step should have been really to have taken it to the union rep. I do believe it was just a mistake like oh, we didn't notice. You know, you Whatever, you know how people always give you a reason. And what's equally more frustrating is if you have a system in your school where you have to sit down and you need to fill out these little cards we call them pink, some blues, right? I mean, we need to move past that, I guess, and that's a discussion for another day. But the cards where you write down at a glance and the different students and any special circumstances they have and where they fall on the behavior spectrum and all those things right, and so it's easy to sort those cards into equitable piles and you meet with you, your team and you. The idea is you separate students that you know should not be together in a classroom and make a fair distribution of students with language learning needs, on IEP's, with behavior programs, all those things right, so that it's kind of a little bit of an equal distribution. You separate kids again who I said need to be separated. So let's say, you and your teammates sat together, you filled out all those cards takes a really long time and then you sorted all those cards Also takes a really long time. You give them to admin and lo and behold, when the class list come out. You look at them there, the kids going into the next grade, right, and you're like what the heck? Nobody paid any attention to anything we did. So that's Kind of frustrating, right, you went through that whole process for no reason, it would appear, but anyway. So what do you do? Say it is what it is. You've got your list. Either way, you're going to have to have a positive mindset about how am I going to set myself up for success and how am I going to set these students up for success. So here are some tangible steps. You ready. I got five things right. First thing I do want to say Is if you have more students than you, one of your teaching partners, I actually prefer that scenario at the beginning of the year. Let's say, our class sizes are supposed to, you know, max out at thirty two In the middle grades or in the lower grades, at twenty five, I believe it is. Let's say that you have Twenty four and your other teaching partners only got twenty. Yeah, I actually prefer that for all the years. You know why, cause that means when the new students come, they go to the other class. I prefer to start the year with a full roster. I find it much easier to get everybody on the same page. I would rather have four or five extra students and have everybody start together Than have students drip in during the year, right? So if you already feel like I have way more students than Then my other teammates, that's a positive. So let's just put that out front there, all right. But here's the five steps. So number one Consider the source. When you get those notes, or maybe just somebody puts them inside the student fire or whatever consider the source. When I have had, goodness me, I have seen comments that are super diplomatic that you would like you would put on a report card that would say you know, johnny does best when Focus is best when sitting by himself. Okay, that's really diplomatic, right? So it could say that I sit. Oh my gosh. I saw one one time that somebody said this student lies and steals all my gosh. Who's putting that in writing? Wow, find a nicer way to say it. But in either way, consider the source. I mean some facts on there are pure facts, those are gonna be there. Scores, you know, whether a standardized testing or map testing or whatever. You know we need to try and have a, you know, fair distribution of students who need differentiated instructions, all those things. So those test scores are facts. Now there's a whole discussion whether that's, you know, a snapshot in time. Is that a true fact? Well, but it's what we're dealing with. But understand that the rest is an opinion, a complete opinion, right? So you know that some Teachers possibly are more I don't know what to say that they're more overwhelmed by student behavior than others. And so consider the source that's number one. If you know it's a teacher who constantly complains about students, then you might not want to take that With too much gravity. I always make a point when I get those cards or when I have to get a new student and I have to look at their whole student file. You know what I only look at Information I need. Do they have special resources? Do they are being a student? All those things, the stuff that I need to know the opinion about the behavior and everything else. I just don't even read, I just Just put it aside. And that brings me to Tip number two. Recognize that every child deserves a fresh start. Every child deserves a fresh start. First off, they might have totally matured over summer. Right, there's that possibility. They might react to you completely differently than they reacted to the other teacher. They might if the admin and the previous grade teachers had, you know, worked well together to separate students who did not mesh well together With a different group of students, a different cohort. That student again may also behave completely differently. Their academics could be different, their attitude could be different. Like every kid deserves a fresh start, okay, so just clean slate from day one. And you know, there are those teachers who tell all the students, all you on my gifted class, you all a students right now. You don't need to do anything to earn that right now, you just need to work hard to maintain it right. They're putting positive expectations out there for everyone now, academically, that we know. That isn't true. Not every child is an A student. However, behavior wise, you could certainly let students know you should be excited to receive your new cohort of students. One of my foundational principles is your energy teaches more than your lesson plans and I'm even gonna say your energy teaches more than you behavior management plan. Like your rules that you have on the wall, all your classroom standards that you have on the wall, it is the energy that you give off and if you are welcoming and positive and upbeat and you expect Everybody to behave just great in the day, to go smoothly, and you're excited about greeting those students and let them know. Hey, I've heard great things about you all. I think we're gonna have a great year. That is gonna set everybody off on a better town than if you already seem in like kind of grumpy and like already Laying kids. You know, I already know I need to separate you to. I already know you need to sit by yourself. I mean, that's terrible. What, why you do that to a kid? You're gonna have one kid show up and they're sitting on solo island on a desk by themselves while everybody else is in groups. And I know you might say, oh, there's no student teacher would do that, not true? Seen it more than once with my own eyes. So give everybody a fresh start, right? So tip one consider the source if you're hearing less than stellar things about student. Tip to remember every child deserves a fresh start. Tip three Recognize your potential for professional and personal growth. Now, I know you're gonna say all I am that sounds toxic, positive like just stick a happy sticker on it, like think how much I'll grow right, not how much I'm gonna be overwhelmed in, you know, going home and drinking at night, but Really, truly, when you think About the students that you have had that have caused you to learn the most, I'm Typically they were the ones who are a little bit more challenging. Okay, there are some kids who I call my spiritual practice right Every day. My spiritual practice is to take a breath and say I, this child will receive the best of me today. That's it, this child will receive the best of me today. And, honestly, when I look at the list of kids whose lives I know I had a huge impact on over the last 20 years, the kids I've impacted the most honestly with the kids who, when I first saw them on my roster, I maybe did a little gasp, right, and that is the truth. If you're really honest with yourself, you're gonna know that to be true. It is challenging students who cause us to grow the most and whom we can impact the most. Alright, so that leads me to point number four, and that is having a paradigm shift, really believing that this kid is gonna end up with me because they need me the most. Think about my previous story where I might have wanted that kid in another classroom because I felt it was unfair, but at the end of the day I knew that students experience was not positive, and with me it was, for whatever reason. I mean, it wasn't all rainbows and sunshine. Certainly there were challenging days, but as a general rule, that student was more than happy to have a fresh start and really rose to the occasion in my room and became a treasured part of our classroom community and ended up growing a lot. And you know, like I said, part of me knew they were gonna end up with me anyways. So it is the child who needs you the most that ends up with you. Okay, alright. The next point is with your paradigm and perspective. It's 180 days. It is not the rest of your life. Now, don't get yourself caught up in that storytelling of like, oh my gosh, but it's always me, and next year it'll be the same and whatever. Listen, it's 108 days. You can do anything for 180 days. It is finite. It is finite, right? I think that helps with all things in education when you're having a particularly challenging year, like that's one of the things I love about teaching Clean slate, clean slate next year, new kids, new parents, new teammates, new everything sometimes, but at least if it is a student who has really pushed your buttons. It's finite, okay. So here's the last point to helping yourself with this, and that is mind the story that you tell, right. Mind the story that you tell yourself, right. Oh, this always happens to me. You know what. Probably maybe the other teachers in your grade think it always happens to them. You might not be aware of some of the students they have in their room and what their potential issues, challenges, whatever may be. Okay, so mind the stories you tell yourself and then mind the stories you tell other people. Okay, but the whole, you know, deep dive into my work, if you ever choose to go there with me is really we focus on how what we put our intention to impacts our perception, our attitude and, ultimately, our results. Okay, so that's a big conversation. That is not. It's touched on in a lot of this episodes, but it's not for this particular episode. But just honestly, believe me, your perception creates your reality. That is a fact. You might remember that from Psychology 101. Lots of research to back that up. So mind the story that you're repeating. Don't be the teacher who goes in the staff room and really just is always complaining about that student. You know, I remember a particular co-worker I had for many years who every day at lunch was just going on and on and it was always every year. It seemed like it was one particular student and every lunch we'd have to hear about their student and it just it made my stomach ache. I was just thinking about this awful experience that was happening, that this student obviously was not performing well and was not feeling well and was not doing well with this particular teacher, because it was obvious to everybody that the teacher didn't care for this child and almost seemed to be like, you know, picking on them a little bit, and so that was miserable for the student, it was miserable for the teacher and, honestly, it was miserable for us. All needed to hear about it. And one day I do remember saying, gosh, you know that student who sounds like you need a break from them, and she said oh, yeah. And then I said, then why did you invite them to lunch, like if you need, you know? And she, I'm sure she was inviting them to dinner too. I'm sure when she went home that was the first thing her family heard about, right, it was just that horrible cycle that you get into and I'm sure you've observed that somewhere in your teaching career, that you have seen this just a horrible cycle, that a teacher has got in with a student and it's just, it's just so unhealthy. So just mind the stories you tell yourself and you tell others, because when you're constantly thinking about that one student, you are just repeating it. You're creating that reality again and again, and again. Your expectation is they're gonna, you know, mess up and you're like, oh, there they go again. You know, and you are hyper fixating on the one student or two or, in the last few years, five or seven or eight who are not doing what they're supposed to do. And if you were to focus on the other 20, who would maybe do one a fantastic job on working hard and collaborating and helping each other and being helpful and creative and cooperative and all those things, if you were to focus some of your energy there, your mental energy, that would change your energy and that would change everything about the classroom. Right, the vibe, the whole vibe. The vibe in the classroom is really, really important. Again, your energy teaches more than your lesson plans. And if you think that when you have a private battle with a student, who's gonna win today? Who's gonna win today. It's a battle of wills and it's a battle of control and, honestly, I'm gonna tell you something Everybody's losing. You're losing, the student is losing, the whole class is losing. So if you really find yourself in a situation where you feel that your class list is not okay, that you cannot handle it, then you need to be proactive. Okay, don't just sit there and complain about it at lunch. Go do something about it. Go talk to admin. Are there extra skills that you personally need that they can help you? Do you really warrant you having support Now? The last year that I was in the classroom, I'm telling you I really needed support in that room. There was a time where I needed to do a room clear because of a kid and there wasn't even anyone to call to help me. Not only didn't I have anyone in the room, like the office was overwhelmed, it was just craziness. There is a lack of support. There's a lack of people to help. So again, recognize nobody's being evil when having it out for you and giving you a disproportionate number of behavior problems. The problem is right now that there are so many kids who are dysregulated. We know this. So people are trying to do the best they can, do the best you can and try and assume sometimes that kids are doing the best they can. Okay, so I don't have a magic answer, I don't have a magic wand, but certainly those mindsets will help. So let me recap some of them for you. First off, if it's really an unfair distribution and you feel that you need some support and you have a union rep you can go to, or go to your admin, then consider the source. If you're going off the information that you're hearing from another teacher, consider the source. Then recognize every child needs a new start and this is finite. It's not going to be forever. Recognize the potential for professional and personal growth. It's the students who challenge you the most, that cause you to grow the most and, at the end of the day, they are the students who make teaching the most rewarding. Right, I know that's not popular opinion. You want to think that you have a classroom full of a student super compliant and you know, have you really impacted their lives? If they were an A plus student and super compliant before you got there, you know, did you really impact them? It's the students who really needed help, who needed growth, who needed support and who needed somebody to believe in them, right, and that, at the end of the day, is going to have to be you. So recognize that the more challenging the student, the bigger impact you can have. Okay, so that's it. That's what I have to say for you this week. I hope that you embrace your class list. I know that in the past I have felt very deflated and I've had to give myself like a five minute pity party, like, okay, deal with this for five minutes, feel sad, and then I'm going to get into action mode and I'm going to be committed to giving these students the best experience they've ever had. And it's been fine. We figured it out again. Is everyday roses and rainbows? Absolutely not. Teaching has brought me to my these many times I have. Yet there have been quite a few lunch hours where you would have found me hiding under my desk because I didn't want kids to be able to see me looking in through the window and I just needed a moment to myself, right? Not what we planned for ourselves when we thought when we graduated. You know teacher school that that's what we would be doing, but it is what it is. So I believe in you. I think that every student deserves a chance, and your energy, your energy, your energy, the vibe in the room teaches more than you lesson plans. I will say that to the cows come home. Alright, that's it for this week.