End of the Week

Thursday, October 15th
I came in and tried to do some paperwork. I decided I needed to get some testing protocols for two psychological evaluations that were coming up but when I went downstairs, I got sidetracked with organizing the psychological testing supplies. The need for organization occurred from our department having to abandon our building for the summer while new heating and ventilation was installed in our building. Also a former school psychologist kindly "loaned" us some shelving since he is in the process of moving. So I was working on organizing the stuff when I overheard the newly arrived, contracted speech therapist take a phone call. The poor person just started two days ago and I can immediately tell the phone call isn't going well. I step into the speech office and try to coach her through the call but it doesn't seem to be going anywhere and it sounds like whoever is on the phone is irate. So I take over the call. It turns out it is a mother of a student who has just moved into our district and she is upset because no one has called her regarding her student. She is upset and is talking about calling the state office of education. I begin to try to get some information from her and she says that she has already gone through this routine. I tell her that she and I have never spoken and she should give me a shot. So I get the info and tell her I will call her back. I do a little investigating and find out that a case manager will be assigned and will call her today. I call the mom back and pass along this information. To make a long story longer, I later find out that one of my coworkers was assigned the case and had called the mom to arrange the meeting. The mother told my coworker that the only person that was nice to her was me for having called her back.

Why did I go through this whole story? Well, it actually related to one of the things that from the special education law conference. The number one reason parents go to court with a district is that the level of trust has been eroded. By calling the mother back, I may have helped build trust with the mother.

After that, more high school scheduling problems. I won't go into further details.

Then I went to the middle school to do a classroom observation on a student that I will be testing soon. Before I got there, I spoke with a teacher of one of my students. He expressed his concerns that the software that we were trying to implement for this student is too time consuming to use. The teacher said that he wants to do right by the student and it isn't that he doesn't want to do it but he just doesn't have enough hours in the day.

I then went to the classroom observation. The student I observed certainly provided enough observational data. In addition to this, there was another student that caused me to think to myself, "If that one hasn't been referred, he's gonna be." At the end of the observation, this latter student asked me if I was mute. I just shook my head "no" and left. I have to have some fun.

Then I managed to obtain a 12A HP toner cartridge for my printer. I felt like the manly hunter returning with a kill. My office mate and I can print once again.

So ended Thursday.

Friday, October 16th
Bosses' Day. Somehow I ended up in charge of the Sunshine Fund. I stopped off to get flowers and paper goods for the big breakfast. Once at work and after everything was set up and the festivities started, it was time for the Friday meeting.

I got out of the meeting early because I had to accompany the case manager for the student whose mother called yesterday. After that meeting, the staff meeting finished a short time later and it was lunch time. Before lunch, I finalized an eligibility conference for one of my students and called the mother...on my cellphone...because our office phones weren't allowing us to make outside phone calls...I only did so because I really needed to get this done and I asked the mother to please disregard my cellphone number.

Not being able to make phone calls put a damper on work so I finished the day preparing paperwork for my meeting next week and putting an order together for the ABAS-II since we really need an adaptive skills assessment that comes in Spanish and the Vineland-II does not have it. And then came the weekend.