Workshop & small groups

I am not really a media assistant. When my position was eliminated 18 months ago, my principal gave up a K-2 TA position to keep me in the media center. Until this year we were able to have open check-out throughout the school day except during EOG testing. We have so many different groups now that even the media center is used.

Last week we got a new schedule. I will be assisting in 4 classrooms for 45 minutes a day. During "workshop" students work on reading and writing. The work itself is interesting but I feel bad about restricting access to the media center. Checkout hours are now 8:45 - 9:05, 10:45-11:30, and 1:45 - 3:15. Until this week they were 8:45 - 9:05 and then 9:20 - 3:15. Students are expected to be in their classrooms during morning announcements, which begin at 9:05

We have so few assistants now. There really isn't anybody else who can work with these small groups. Two of the other TA's are doing literacy groups full-time. That leaves 5 of us to cover the remaining 28 classes. There is one more TA in the school but she is a 1:1 for a kindergartner so she can't be part of the rotation. I could show my principal the research that supports open access to the media center but I don't think that would change things.