Advice on Being a Rock Star

My own kids may not want to be seen with me in public but---like most of you, I bet---at school I'm a rock star.  I can't walk into a classroom or the cafeteria without being mobbed by kids yelling, "Take me, take ME!" 

When I began feeling overwhelmed and irritated instead of flattered by the number of kids asking to see me, I decided to set up a system.  I started requiring the upper grade students (4th and 5th) to fill out an appointment request form.  I printed them on purple paper, and gave a stack to each of the classroom teachers.  I went into the classes at snack time and explained what the problem was with the current (non)system, what I hoped to achieve with the purple forms, and how they would work.

This has helped on a number of levels:

• It allows me to prioritize my schedule instead of always taking the most persistent and demanding kids just so they'll be quiet  
  
• It lets me see what solutions kids have already tried and who they have already approached for help
  
• It discourages the kids who mostly just want to get out of class, since they're the least likely to make the effort to write anything down
  

One note if you've looked at the form: the question about using the "stop signal" refers to a PBIS strategy that our assistant principal taught the whole school to use if someone was bothering them.

So far, my favorite response to "What have you done to try and make things better?"---"I hit her."  And what happened? "Problem is ongoing."  Really? Shocking!  :-)

This little form has helped tremendously, because now when kids act like the paparazzi chasing a Kardashian, all I have to say is, "Did you fill out a purple form?"  

Now I just need to come up with something for the staff...