Para zoning: who is where, and when

In a zone-based plan, an adult stays with a place and the students move through it. The place can be a station, an area of the room, the cafeteria serving line, or a section of the yard. In the classroom team example below, three stations run from 8:45 to 10:20. The adult labeled Me runs Station A, Colleague 1 runs Station B, and Colleague 2 supervises Station C. At 9:30 the groups rotate clockwise and the adults stay where they are, so each adult's place and role are the same all morning while the group label changes.

In a group-following plan, an adult travels with a group and is responsible for it wherever it goes: to a specials class, to lunch, to the bus loop. The same example has one of these at 11:25, when the adult labeled Me walks the class to the cafeteria doors and Colleague 2 receives it there. Responsibility changes hands at a named place, and both adults can see it.

Most days mix the two, and many teams call the result a para rotation schedule because the stations or groups change on a timetable. Whatever you call it, each entry needs:

• The exact start and end time, to the minute, including short transitions.
• The place, and a group label such as Group B rather than a student's name.
• The adult's role in words: “Run the math game” says more than “Station B”.
• A handoff whenever responsibility passes from one adult to another.

A zoning plan is easiest to check when every adult has a lane and every block sits at its real time. Below is the classroom team rotations starter for a Monday, drawn by the same board the app uses. Intervals are deliberately unequal: the rotation at 9:30 takes five minutes, the station blocks take forty-five, and snack supervision is split into ten-minute pieces around two breaks.

Each block has a colored edge for its type of duty, and the same block also names its type with an icon and words, so the plan still reads when it is printed in gray or read by someone who cannot tell the colors apart. On a phone the board reads by activity instead: each shared block once, with every adult's role under it.

The board is for planning and for whoever keeps the schedule. During the day, an adult mostly needs their own line: what is happening now, where, what their role is, and who hands off to them next. Here is Colleague 2's Monday from the same plan. It lists only that adult's assignments, their own break, and the handoff they receive, with the shared note of each activity they are part of. Nothing is copied by hand, so the personal day cannot drift out of step with the board.

When Colleague 2 needs the day on paper, the same copy prints as a personal day or as pocket cards; see how to print a pocket schedule that stays readable.

Breaks are where zoning plans most often have a hole: an adult leaves, and nothing says who took over or when they return. The fix is to write the break and the relief as separate entries with exact times, so the handoff is visible on everyone's copy.

In the starter, snack supervision runs from 10:20 to 10:40 and the duty says it needs two adults. The adult labeled Me stays with the snack tables the whole time. The other two adults take their breaks one after the other:

• The recorded break. Colleague 1's adult break is entered from 10:20 to 10:30. An adult break marks time when that adult is not available for classroom assignments.
• The relief interval. Colleague 2 covers snack from 10:20 to 10:30, entered as a separate assignment with the role “Supervise snack until relief.”
• The receiving responsibility. At 10:30 Colleague 1 comes back from break and takes over snack supervision, and Colleague 2 goes on break until 10:40.

When the relief is not decided yet

Suppose the team has not settled who takes over at 10:30. Leave the takeover blank rather than guessing. The duty still says it needs two adults, so the unfilled ten minutes are listed where the whole team can see them, with the exact times:

The same kind of check appears when an adult is entered for a duty during their own break, or when a handoff names a receiving adult who has no assignment on that duty. Para Schedule does not choose the relief adult, swap partners, or move a break when someone comes back late. It shows what was entered and keeps a gap visible; who covers is the team's decision.

There is no single right lunch order. Some teams stagger breaks in a fixed sequence, others pair adults so partners cover for each other, and many change the order on assembly or early-release days. Any of these can be written this way. The break times in the starters are placeholders; use the times your school sets. When one day is different, you can record a change for one date without touching the rest of the week; the absence and coverage guide walks through a whole afternoon.

A zoning plan records decisions; it does not make them. Checks in Para Schedule describe the times and assignments you entered. They never say a day is safe, approved, or correctly staffed, and they do not know your school's ratios, an adult's qualifications, or what a particular student needs. Those remain with the teacher, the team, and the school. See how to understand schedule checks.

Keep the plan about adults: rooms, stations, and group labels are usually enough, and your school's rules decide what, if anything, about a student may be written down.