Balance? What Balance? Part II

There has been, yet again, some shifting of positions at The School.  A newer sixth grade math teacher wasn't cutting it, so they moved her to P.E. and moved The Coach from PE, into 6th grade math which is not making him happy.  He was the math teacher on my team when he first moved here and he's fantastic, but he's one of those guys who really got into teaching so he can coach.  (And he coaches two high school sports, plus one middle school sport, so he's busy).

What this meant is that the one math class he did have before this move, an inclusion math class, no longer exists, and they gave most of those kids to Mr. Math on my team.

Which meant he had an inclusion class, with no aide or other teacher, with 33 kids in it.

Yeah, like THAT's going to work.

Especially when his fifth period had a total of 14 kids in it.  Really.

So, guidance decided to flip four kids that had me for fifth period, into my sixth period, and then they went from math sixth period to fifth.

Which meant that now my fifth period is down to 22 kids and sixth is up to 30.  With six special ed students (who have resource math) in it.  I only have ten special ed kids over all, so most of them are bunched into what is now my biggest class.

Which also has 28 seats.

So, I've got more kids sitting out in the isolation seats than usual, and when we do labs, these "spare" kids, have to find a chair (I'm still hunting an extra one down) so they can sit at the tables (which are made for four kids) and work with a group of five.

Not ideal.  I actually wouldn't mind if I had more square footage in my room because it's more a matter of too many kids in too small of a space.  If I could punch the walls out and spread them out a bit, it would be a lot easier.  As it is, they're nearly on top of each other and fussing and whining and TALKING CONSTANTLY, so it's hard to get anything done.

So, after a week of this, after explaining that they are now the largest class, that we have a lot of kids who need to focus more, and how they can be good for 45 minutes out of the entire day, the gloves come off.  Half the class is telling the other half to shut up.  Tomorrow, I'll just start writing the talkers up as They Have Been Warned.  Maybe that will get the message across.