Let me ask you a question, oh TFA blog peeps; what do you do about students who sleep in your class?

I don’t mean the occasional nap/ head down period for a sick or unusually tired student, I’m talking about full on, will not be woken up from the land of the dead slumber – snoring and all. I have a girl in my first period who goes to sleep so quickly that I can’t catch it happening (seriously, she’ll be alert and doing the buzzer and then, about thirty seconds later I’ll turn around and she’ll practically be snoring). I have tried the following:

* Sleep box (sleepers have to stand in the back of the room in a “box” on the floor for a proscribed amount of time) – Didn’t work for this particular student. It simply led to spectacular outbursts that completely disrupted class and several detrimental suspensions.

* A no head down rule – This proved almost impossible to enforce with this student, short of sending her out of class. That really defeats the purpose of waking her up to begin with.

* One on one student conferences – This works somewhat, for a day or two. I truly believe that this student does want to pass, but she always falls back into the old pattern.

* Conference with parent (such as they are) – Completely ineffective. This student basically is the parent in her household, which I suspect is where the sleep in class problem comes from.

So here’s my dilemma; I want this student in class (not suspended or in another teachers room) but awake.

The administration has offered various suggestions ranging from, “Just keep waking her up” (yeah, tried that, not working) to “Just let her sleep. Maybe failing a six weeks will wake her up.” (!!!) and nothing really seems to be effective. I’m very concerned about this student, but lately my default has indeed become to either let her sleep or send her out, because dealing with it in class takes up so much time (so! much! time!). I really don’t want to let this happen.

Help! Suggestions?