Keeping on schedule....  what a concept.  I am a fly by the seat of your pants, that sounds like fun woman.  This works well a lot of time with a well developed lesson plan/schedule.  However it all falls apart when I have fewer children to teach.  It feels then like I have unlimited time to work with, which we don't.  Things fall apart, things (sometimes important things) get forgotten.

Therefore:  it is my opinion and my experience that it is vital that we follow our class schedule/lesson time even if we only have one child.  Then that particular child gets the best day ever with total individualized attention and nothing he/she needs gets missed.  When we throw out the schedule because of fewer children it is that much more difficult to get back on task when all children attend.

On keeping communications open with your a paraprofessionals:
It is vital that you keep everything clear and professional.  It is very easy to let feelings get into the mix.  Begin with the premises that 1.  Everything is for the good of the children.  2.  Health and safety of parapros and all staff are important.

One of my paraprofessionals and I had a disagreement that was starting to get heated at the end of the school day.  I told her we needed to put it on hold and discuss the problem in a meeting on Tues. p.m.   Do not put a meeting off, but allow time to let tempers settle as well as set a definite time to meet.

 I had difficulty not  confiding in my other parapro, but I told her to remind me that we will be having this as a group discussion,  if I start to discuss the topic before the meeting.  This parapro also came up with the idea  that we should all write down our thoughts about the issue before our meeting.  In addition, notes for our meetings are always written on our whiteboard.  Each person is  welcome to write anything we want to discuss during a class meeting.

At the time of the meeting we had the agenda we hadwritten on the blackboard.  I brought up each point, some of which needed little discussion .  The major point was our class schedule and how much time it takes to finish up one activity, set up the next one and fit in changing, lifting and feeding on time.  It's difficult not to plan more activities than are feasible during a 6 1/2 hour day when you have all of these vital activities to complete during  school hours.  Working up a better schedule resolved our argument.   We also agreed that at times , I can amend the schedule during the day if I feel that this is the correct thing to do.

At the end of the meeting we agreed that it is best that we make sure that we check the schedule for feeding, diapering, therapy, stander and gait trainer times before getting overly spontaneous and adding to what has been planned.  We also decided that we need a minimum of a 30 minute time period if we are to put the children on the floor in order to allow time for transfers.  We also  placed transfers (physical lifting of the children) into the time frame of diaper changes in order to lessen the physical stress on the staff.

Before this meeting we had been discussing issues at least one time per month in a sit down meeting.  The rest of the month we had been discussing problems during the school day when we encountered them.  We have decided to have a weekly meeting instead of discussing issues on the "fly".  This way we have an agenda and enough time to discuss anything that needs a more serious discussion.