PD Wrap-up & Back to Work

November 4th & 5th
Not much to add from the three days of professional development. The explanation why we were sent to things that involved classroom instruction was so we were aware of it even if we didn't practice it.

During those three days, I got assigned a priority evaluation which was referred by the superintendent due to disciplinary issues. I heard I was chosen specifically for this one. It's great to be popular but I guess it means I'll still have a job. The one interesting thing in this was the rarity of the language for the family. At least it is a rarity in our district. Enough of a rarity that it is going to be difficulty having the initial referral conference and the social assessment is going to require an official interpreter.

Beyond that, there wasn't much to talk about for professional development.

Monday, November 9th
Back from the long weekend. I didn't attend the teachers' convention because I'm not one for large gatherings and I don't have the drive to drive to Atlantic City for a day. Work started by trying to organize some stuff for the coming week and doing some clean-up of outstanding issues. I arranged the initial planning conference for the priority referral; completed an IEP, mostly; finished the psych eval that I started just before Halloween; and spoke to the paraprofessional in the district that had translated for the priority referral family.

In regard to the latter, I learned that the para really didn't speak the family's language but a very distant relations of the family's language. This made me question using her for translation even more. I emailed my supervisor regarding this and also found out that we had used an outside agency at one point to translate for another rare language.

Last year I had brought up the idea of the district contracting with AT&T's Language Line. I had worked at a psychiatric emergency screening center that used them and it was extremely handy. It provided the ability for us to have an interpreter just a phone call away whenever needed. Considering the high Hispanic population in my district and the low number of Spanish speaking staff in the district, I think it would be perfect. I wouldn't have to hunt down a Spanish speaking staff member to translate for the 40 percent of my caseload with Spanish speaking only parents. It would allow the teachers to actually call home and speak with parents. And we would have access to professionals for the rare languages.

Well, that's all for today.