Your center and classroom are faced with many different workplace issues. While your director is working as quickly as she can, she can’t handle all of her responsibilities without your lead teacher. To demonstrate that you can handle helping, your director has asked you to take on some of the common workplace issues and create plans to resolve them. Your solutions will help her determine whether or not you are ready to solve problems within your own facility. Choose three of the four following issues and create proposals to resolve the issue. Be sure to utilize your textbook and answer all of the questions within the scenarios.

Scenario #1: Funding

Although you work in a private facility and your parents pay for their child’s care and learning, there are never enough funds to purchase materials you need to complete special projects. You have been supplementing your classroom by purchasing these items yourself because you want your students to have these special experiences, however, this is beginning to be a financial drain. This year, you still have five more special experiences that you were planning, but sadly, you can no longer afford to pay for these purchases. What do you do going forward?

Scenario #2: Safety
You work for a Head Start facility and therefore you receive government funds to assist with the upkeep of your facility. However, you notice that the side door is not shutting and locking correctly. The only way this door can be shut is with someone on each side of the door with a key. The front is always monitored by your director or a part-time receptionist and the back door leads to the secure playground. In light of the recent school tragedies, you are nervous about the door not locking and believe this is a safety issue. You ask your director if this can be fixed and she tells you that the facility does not have the money right now to do this. How can you problem solve this situation?

Scenario #3: New Community Center

There is a new community center down the street and they are very interested in working with your facility. They have a fabulous idea of creating a partnership with the seniors that utilize their center, however, they are not sure the best way to integrate these volunteers. In efforts to collaborate, they have asked you to create a class that will meet once a week. You are thrilled that you have volunteers that want to work with your little ones, however there is a lot that needs to be done before the class can begin.

• Choose the age-level classroom that is ideal for you:
• Infancy: Birth – 12 months
• Toddlers: 1-3 years
• Early Learning: 4 – 5 years
• Design a concept that can be done on a weekly basis with your children and the seniors from the community center. Explain all that needs to be done before the interaction begins.

Scenario #4: Children with special needs
You have a new student in your facility who is on the autism spectrum. You have never worked with a child with this disorder and you are not sure how to handle this behavior as compared to the other children in your classroom. Explain how you should go about determining the best way to deal with this child in your classroom. Explain all possible options and resources so that this child and the rest of your class has the best possible educational experience.

In your paper,

• Include an introduction and a conclusion.
• Choose three scenarios to write about.
• Explain, in detail, why the scenarios you have chosen are problematic.
• Prepare three plans that you believe would solve the three issues you have chosen.
• Complete the unique, individual questions related to each scenario.

The Workplace Issues Paper

• Must be five to seven double-spaced pages in length (not including title and references page) and formatted according to APA style as outlined in the Ashford Writing Center (Links to an external site.)’s APA Style (Links to an external site.)
• Must include a separate title page with the following:
  • Title of paper
  • Student’s name
  • Course name and number
  • Instructor’s name
  • Date submitted
• For further assistance with the formatting and the title page, refer to APA Formatting for Word 2013 (Links to an external site.).
• Must utilize academic voice. See the Academic Voice (Links to an external site.) resource for additional guidance.
• Must include an introduction and conclusion paragraph. Your introduction paragraph needs to end with a clear thesis statement that indicates the purpose of your paper.
  • For assistance on writing Introductions & Conclusions (Links to an external site.) as well as Writing a Thesis Statement (Links to an external site.), refer to the Ashford Writing Center resources.
• Must use at least 3 credible sources in addition to the course text.
  • The Scholarly, Peer Reviewed, and Other Credible Sources (Links to an external site.) table offers additional guidance on appropriate source types. If you have questions about whether a specific source is appropriate for this assignment, please contact your instructor. Your instructor has the final say about the appropriateness of a specific source for a particular assignment.
• Must document any information used from sources in APA style as outlined in the Ashford Writing Center’s Citing Within Your Paper (Links to an external site.)
• Must include a separate references page that is formatted according to APA style as outlined in the Ashford Writing Center. See the Formatting Your References List (Links to an external site.) resource in the Ashford Writing Center for specifications.

Carefully review the Grading Rubric (Links to an external site.) for the criteria that will be used to evaluate your assignment.