The Madness Begins With ...

... Finding out the day before school starts that my assignment has been changed from Special Education "Resource" (I pull students out of class to work with them on specific skills and goals, have a few students at a time, with a really flexible, fairly non-intense day and very little lesson planning to do) to Special Education Self-Contained (I have the same group of students all day in one room, with a break for lunch and a break when they go to "expressive arts." This equals planning for 7 45-minute periods, teaching them everything, and managing them and their wildness non-stop from 8:30-3:20).