All Things CLASS

Hello!

During an annual CLASS observation, is there specific guidance available on restroom breaks that occur outside the classroom? Asking as an Instructional Coach in Florida and focusing on the preK tool if that makes a difference.

For example, during VPK instructional hours, if a facility does not have toilets in their VPK classroom, they leave as a group to complete restroom breaks (i.e. many churches, school portables, community buildings, home daycares, etc). These breaks are included in the daily schedule. For children who need to use the restroom outside of these breaks, admin/TA's are called via walkie-talkie or the teacher simply popping their head out the door and calling down the hallway for a child potty break. 
At some facilities, it takes a minute to walk to the restrooms while at other facilities the walk to the restroom might take three or more minutes. At some facilities, the restrooms are open, Jack-and-Jill style and the teacher does not require an assistant as they simply stand where the water fountain is while the boys go to their side and the girls go into theirs. Other centers require an additional teacher because the bathrooms are community bathrooms on separate sides of the building, so the girls and boys split up, complete their business with the teacher or TA in the restroom, then rejoin the boys and girls again and return to class.

I am curious if there is any specific guidance on assessing during these types of breaks: do we pause the assessment until the break is completed and then continue once they begin the transition walk back to class, join a teacher in the restroom and continue to assess their interactions, or leave it to the provider to decide before beginning the assessment? In my experience, it seems best to leave it up to the provider, as this can definitely be a great opportunity for learning depending on the facility's setup.

I have also worked at sites where even though the restroom is a close one-minute walk, the class size is a large group of 22 so the process takes at least 10 minutes. Unfortunately, that 10 minutes is half of a cycle and can greatly impact cycle scores. I have heard providers voice their concern that restroom breaks are breaks, not instructional, so it is really more a 'rote' experience as the process is focused on completing a task (using the restroom) which under typical situations may not lend itself to being a time of day for "highly effective teacher-child interactions" in the context of the Instructional Support domain. I can see their concern from a safety perspective when it comes to "digging deeper" during restroom breaks, and it does not seem like an appropriate time to invite children to explore what happens when we rinse the soap bubbles off our hands, again because safety is the priority. I have discussed with providers how this is a great opportunity to support highly effective interactions in ES/CO domains, but the downside is that only accounts for interactions to be captured in ~70% of the tool for more than 50% of a cycles time. This can negatively impact that cycle's scores, especially if there are multiple potty breaks scheduled throughout the morning. There are some centers perfectly comfortable with an assessment continuing through a potty break as they have 2 teachers available, one in the restroom providing supervision and the other waiting outside keeping students engaged - 2 teachers per classroom is not something every center is capable of.

Since there doesn't seem to be a universal method that fits every center's needs, I would love to hear others experience and guidance on this topic. If anyone can provide specific wording from the manual on whether this time should be assessed, or even DEL or state clarification, that would also be appreciated. Thank you, CLASS community and fellow educators!