Regained some energy

Well, Thursday and Friday were pretty exhausting. Winter break is so close yet so far. I finally feel rested enough to finish reporting the rest of last week.

Thursday, December 17th
This day was all about the special, lawyer attended meeting. I had every bit of information I thought I could possibly need. I had invited everyone that I thought needed inviting. And I had all the forms I thought would be needed.

Before I had my meeting, I met with my supervisor about my recent performance evaluation then it was off to the meeting. I thought that one or both of the supervisors of the supervisors would be attending the meeting but here I was going with a few coworkers. I get to the meeting and our lawyer arrives but we are still awaiting the parent's lawyer. We go into our little pre-meeting pow-wow with our attorney and when their lawyer arrives, they go into theirs. About 20 minutes later, the meeting is ready to begin. There is a lot of people in attendance. The teacher turn out is huge. At least one from each subject area which is great. Two related service providers; the transition coordinator; the LDTC; later, the supervisor for English and social studies. Really quite impressive.

I open with my considered agenda items: review of recent testing; deciding on a neuropsychologist; and discussion of personal aide duties. I ask the parent what items they sought to discuss and transition concerns are added. From there the meeting takes off. The teachers say their piece first since the teachers will have to leave in a little while. We review the testing then follow up with discussion of neuropsychologists. From there we hit the meat of the meeting: personal aides.

Three and a half hours later, the meeting ends with some additional modifications added and adjustments made to the duties of the personal aides. In addition, there is the certainty of another meeting in the future once the neuropsych is completed.

Overall, the meeting goes quite well and it definitely had the chance to go poorly. It is to the credit of all the people that attended the meeting that it didn't go south. In addition, the family's attorney was quite reasonable and did not act in an adversarial manner.

I get back to the office to try to decompress and looking forward to a little downtime since the meeting blew through what is generally considered lunch time. But rest is not my destiny. About 20 minutes after I get back to the office, I get sent to the middle school for another risk assessment. Following this, it is time to leave for the day. I decide to get out of there before anything else happens that needs my attention.

Thursday night was also a department holiday party at a restaurant. It is also the retirement party for someone that retired before the start of the school year. If I hadn't already paid, I would have gone home considering how exhausted I was. I go to the party and have a nice time. I didn't really know the retiree that well since she was only in school for half the year and went out on medical leave but it is nice to see her looking so well. I take my leave and head home for the night.

Friday, December 18th
There is not much to report for the Friday. I did some follow up stuff from Thursday's meeting. I contact the facility doing the neuropsych and get the information to make the referral. I send out a few emails and try to make a to-do list for next week.

I am blessed with the gift of 5 new initial referrals and I try to contact the other people that have been equally blessed to arrange a common meeting day for all 5. This is not going to happen before break but the winter break does slow the clock down a little.

There are a large number of people absent today. Either people that planned to be absent after the previous day's festivities or others that didn't feel like slogging it in afterward. The day goes slowly and quitting time takes forever to get here.

Three more days to go before break and there is so much to do.

Wednesday, December 16th

I get into work and immediately head over to the high school for my two re-evaluation planning meetings. Things start off so well. No teachers, no parents. I call my first parent and manage to pull teachers together for a phoner. The student is found to be eligible based on a functional assessment of his performance and no additional testing is required.

This trend of no parents appears to continue for my second meeting. I call the "home" number and a young male answers the phone. It turns out that the young man is my student. It turns out that the "home" phone number that I called is a cell phone in my student's possession. It turns out that my student is in school. Ergo, he is answering his cell phone in school while he is in class. Once I bring this up on the phone, we are suddenly disconnected. Good grief.

Just as I'm letting teachers go back to class, this student's mother shows up. I have a large number of Hispanic students and I have trouble keeping track of which student's parents speak Spanish and very little English. It turns out that this parent is one such mother. I make a hasty call to a coworker that speaks Spanish and manage to get her on the phone for interpretation. So we manage to get through this meeting as well.

I return to the office and prepare for my next meeting for a student that had been withdrawn from the district last year and is now re-registered in the district. The student has been out of school since last March. The student is also in need of an out-of-district placement. The meeting goes on for quite some time but I get what is needed to start looking for an out-of-district.

After lunch, I spend the rest of the day preparing paperwork for the super duper special meeting tomorrow.

Tuesday, December 15th

Well today involved some counseling for my 1st period group. It was funny because one member was absent and the group was much more manageable.

After this, I returned to the office and started doing some preparation for my re-evaluation planning meetings. I also turned in some stuff to one of the secretaries to have a whole bunch of documents archived in our computer system. This means that those documents will be read only.

I also reschedule the mistaken appointment I mentioned yesterday.

Lunch rolls around and a risk assessment rolls around with it. I get to bring along one of my new coworkers to break her in for risk assessments in the district. But more importantly, she speaks Spanish and the student was an ESL student. Obviously, she did most of the talking. Following this, I get another surprise. The guidance counselor for the ESL student asks me to speak to another student that had made an unfortunate comment. In both cases, the students aren't sent out for an evaluation. After this, I stop at the middle school to try to see another student for counseling.

I call up to the classroom and the teacher makes a stink because they are starting a new lesson. She asks if she can send the student down at the end of the period. I tell her "never mind" because I know the student needs the lesson and I don't plan on waiting 30 minutes for the end of the period.

Once I'm back at the office, I finish up the paperwork for tomorrows meetings and look over paperwork for Thursday's extra special meeting. I also find my first of three performance evaluations for the year on my desk with a note to set up an appointment to review it Thursday at 9am (1 hour before this meeting). The evaluation is very complimentary and I later joke to a coworker that its a good thing that I meet with my boss about it before the lawyer meeting because if it was after she might think of changing the evaluation.

While I going over paperwork, I start looking over a form called "Waiver of Triennial Re-evaluation." I've never really used this form before because I haven't really understood how it is used. I look up the statute that it references and read it over. I then talk to a few of my coworkers about it. The only conclusion we come to is that it would be used in the case of a disabling condition that isn't going to change over time, such as cognitive impairment or deafness, or blindness. Even so, I'm not sure. This feels like something to get more clarification on from the county office. Since our monitoring visit, there are a few things, form-wise, that need clarification.

Following this, I look over the information on my new student and discover a number of discrepancies in the paperwork which is aggravating. After this discovery, I go home to prepare for another day.

A Little Delayed

I got a little behind on posting.

Friday, December 11th
Oddly enough, I can't remember much from Friday except to say that it went really slowly. The most entertaining thing was counseling my early morning girls group. Very little talking on my part was needed. I don't know how teenage girls have that much energy for drama.

I then spent the day tied up with trying to locate home instructors for my suspended student. I was also given a new student that had just re-registered with the district. It is the sibling of another student of mine. I attempted to contact the mother several times without success.

I make a futile attempt to do some paperwork, such as a risk assessment from earlier in the week and a psychological report. But as I said, it was a futile attempt.

Monday, December 14th
Back to work. I try to get in touch with out district lawyer regarding the tentative plans for a meeting later this week. The lawyer says that yes, it will occur on Wednesday. This sets off a flurry of emails to make final arrangements. All this will come back to bite me in the butt later in the day.

I go over to the high school to meet with a couple of student and then I get out of there before I'm trapped in the lockdown drill.

Once back at the office I get an email that tells me that one of the home instructors that I thought I had arranged is not arranged. Back to the drawing board. Science and math are the hardest to find for home instruction. I speak to one of my superiors and follow up on a suggestion from them. I contact the director of guidance who is the contact person for the web-based home instruction company that we use. I give her the information on the student and also send an email to the mother.

Following this, I call the parent of my new student and arrange a meeting. Another thing that will bite me in the butt.

I wait around for the state monitors but I'm never contacted which is fine. I hear of their comings and goings and continue about my day.

In the afternoon, I go over to the high school to follow the schedule of one of my students to see just how many stairs they have to take during the day. Don't ask.

Then in the afternoon I get a call from one of my coworkers who is involved with the student that has the lawyer meeting coming up. She reports that she has just gotten off the phone with the mother of said student and reports that the mother is under the impression that our meeting is Thursday and not Wednesday. I return to my office and print out the several emails that capture the exchange between me and our lawyer about the date of the meeting, culminating in this morning's email that confirms that the meeting is on Wednesday. I go to my coworker and show her the emails just because I want someone else to see the stupidity of the situation. After several other phone calls, our lawyer (who says that they aren't sure who screwed up) confirms for the 17th.

Now I got back and resend emails regarding the meeting. I have to call the high school person that organizes substitutes to reschedule the substitute and find another place to hold the meeting. I also have to reschedule the meeting with the other parent that I called today.

Well, that should make up for a slow Friday.

Thursday, December 10th

A lot of the time, it isn't worth taking a day off as the 18 emails and 3 voice mails sometime prove. The voice mails were actually much lower than I expected. I caught up on those and photocopied some stuff that need to go through a fax machine and then headed over to the middle school to do some testing.

By the 3rd subtest I decide that if the student isn't communication impaired then they should be. Later, after I return to the office, I learn that he is already classified communication impaired. Yay for my my diagnostic abilities. I usually don't like to read up on the previous testing of students because I want to go in fresh. That and the fact that I often don't have time to look up the previous information until report time.

Following the testing, I had a period before some counseling. I spend that period gathering information and speaking with people regarding a few other students. After this, counseling. I meet with two of my boys and we discuss interacting with students and teachers. Fairly benign stuff.

I get back to the office for a leisurely 5 minute lunch before getting reading for my 1:00 initial referral conference. The parent doesn't show up until 1:40 after I call the home. The case is the unusual one that I have mentioned before. The one that needed an interpreter for a fairly rare language in my neck of the woods. The parent gives consent to test so the clock is not ticking: 90 days.

I go back to my office after speaking with my supervisor regarding the initial and another case. I use the rest of my time to score the test from the morning and send a few more emails. Thus the day is at the end.

Tuesday, December 8th

The day started off with the manifestation determination meeting for the incident from last Friday. It was determined that the incident that resulted in a 10 day suspension was not a manifestation of the student's disability and a functional behavior assessment and a review of his placement is not in order. The end result is that the student will face the 10 day suspension unless the school administration decides to change their decision and reduce it. If they don't reduce it, I have to arrange for home instruction to begin on the 5th day of the suspension.

About 10 minutes into the meeting, it is interrupted and I'm informed that there is another risk assessment over at the high school and there is no one else around, so after my meeting I have to head on over to do the risk assessment. The meeting didn't actually take very long and within 45 minutes I find myself meeting with a student in their guidance counselor's office. The outcome of the assessment is that the student did not present as a danger to themselves but seems to be in need of counseling. I wait for the student's mother with the student and counselor and we all meet to discuss what has happened and provide them with a list of resources. From the meeting it seems that the mother could also use the resources herself.

Following this, I return to my office and play phone tag with a number of people and respond to some emails about my lawyer-involved case. I speak to a department head about one of my students who is being a bit obstinate. I also talk to another guidance counselor about a student of mine who is having difficulty in their math class. The guidance counselor brings up the idea that the student might need some counseling for stuff that is going on at home. I tell her that may be the case but it would be better to refer the family to outside counseling resources.

Now it isn't a matter of my not wanting to counsel the student. It is a matter of what in-school counseling is about and it is easier to define what it isn't than what it is. It isn't psychotherapy. IEP related counseling is to address issues that impact school performance. There are so many students in schools that could benefit from counseling, both regular and special education, that you would need to employ a fleet of counselors but it is over-prescribed for what it is in school. There are some schools that have instituted school-based counseling clinics as part of district services but they are few and far between and take place after school day hours. My heart goes out to the student but he would be better served by obtaining services from within the community since it is a family situation. In fact, the whole family would benefit.

After this and a lunch, I start typing yesterday's risk assessment. I'm only partly finished when it is time to staff a student that I tested. The student is clearly eligible but the issue remains what to do for the student. This is again one of those situations where the student needs more treatment outside the school setting than within because that is where the resources lie. The student doesn't need an out of district placement; the student needs appropriate treatment for their condition.

Following this I talk with a few of my coworkers about some of the crazier situations that are coming up and how it seems to be tied partly to this time of year. After this it is time to race home. I have a personal day on Wednesday but I'll pay for it on Thursday.

Monday, December 7th

I start the day with two classroom observations. In one classroom, the student did nothing but draw something completely unrelated to class for 20 minutes. After that, I put my name on the conference room schedule for counseling and testing in the middle school. After I get back to the office, I print out some paperwork and send some emails regarding the manifestation determination I have tomorrow. Then the internet goes out. But that is okay because 10 minutes later I get sent for a risk assessment on a kindergartener. The kid doesn't even know what death is but he definitely has something going on with him but not enough to consider a danger. While I'm at the school, I confirm the presence of the paraprofessional that speaks a certain language for another meeting on Thursday. I sure hope the district gets the language line approved soon.

After the assessment, I return and call the mother of the student to fill her in on my interaction with the child. Following that I have lunch and sit down to type up my classroom observations. Just as I'm getting ready to type up the risk assessment, another situation comes up involving a student from last week. The case manager and I go over to the school and my co-worker suggests that I handle the logistics while she handles the contact with the student. So I speak with the principal and the guidance counselor to get information and she meets with the student. The situation is resolved and doesn't require a risk assessment or crisis screening. After an extended meeting with the principal and classroom teacher, we return to the office.

The one thing that concerns me is the way the principal kept looking to me for answers. When we were all together (my co-worker/student case manager), the principal kept looking to me. I feel that it was a bit disempowering to my co-worker. I don't know if this is a product of being the older staff member or the male staff member or if I'm just imagining it. In the first two cases, I don't necessarily feel that it is a correct reaction to have. In the case of the latter, it is just my hubris. I'll have to talk about it with my co-worker.

Friday, December 4th

The morning begins with our weekly department meeting. Some of the issued that are covered include parents that don't come to meetings or respond to phone calls, bullying, and lack of space for testing/meetings/counseling.

Following the meeting, I was supposed to go to a meeting for my professional learning community but I got sidetracked. I had to go to the high school because one of my students got into big trouble. Now there will be a manifestation determination on Tuesday. And that led to the weekend.

Thursday, December 3rd

Today began with a trip to the middle school to meet with an assistive technology specialist that has been creating assignments for a student of mine on a specific classroom software program. I was there while the student's teachers came in to look at the assignments since the stuff was created from the material that the teachers gave the specialist. Overall it went well. It was interesting to see just what the finished products looked like but it still seems like it is a lot of work. My biggest contribution was running to find one of the tech people in the building to found out the address and port for the proxy server so that we could download something.

Following this, I met with two middle schoolers for counseling. It was not the most exciting or interested of my groups. One of the participants kept asking to go back to class.

I returned to the office to find a phone message from a parent that I had finally settled all the meeting arrangements for next Tuesday. The parent, after telling me that any day would be fine, informs me that the day that I chose is not fine...of course. So after much juggling, I finally arrange it for next Thursday. I spend a good portion of the rest of the day contacting all the parties involved and getting things changed around.

I also call two cognitive rehabilitation departments to gather some more information on neuropsychological evaluations. Amazingly, the doctors that I left messages for both call me back before I leave for work...within an hour of leaving my messages. I chalk this up to their being Ph. D. doctors and not M.D. doctors. I end the day by updating my boss about the information I've gathered.

Wednesday, December 2nd

It all begins with some counseling in the high school. My first student of the day asks me to teach him how to tie a Windsor knot for his ROTC uniform. Probably one of the more unusual requests that I have received. Looking back on it, it is a little sad that he asked me to do something that you usually learn from your father. Even more sad since I know that his father is still in his home. Follow that session and several failed attempts to find other students, it is back to base.

Once I'm back at the office, I type up my counseling notes and logs for the past two days. Then I type up the nothing risk assessment from the day before. Once all of that is done, I have lunch and then head over to the local court house to pay for the parking ticket I got when I went to one of our schools with notoriously poor parking. It was a real BS ticket considering I wasn't obstructing a crosswalk and there were not signs saying that I couldn't park beyond such and such point.

Once I'm back at the office, I put my risk assessment report in interoffice envelopes and send them to the proper people. As I'm finishing that, my boss asks me to contact one of the other school psychologists that had been sent to one of the elementary schools to see about a student that was saying they wanted to kill themselves and tearing up the classroom. I was supposed to give my coworker information regarding the area psychiatric screeners. As I'm in the process of calling and leaving a message for my coworker, my boss comes in again and asks me to go over there as back up for my coworker. I put on my traveling shoes (figuratively speaking...I don't go around barefoot in my office) and head on over.

Upon arriving there, I find one of the more unique risk assessments that I have done while I've been in school districts. I'm loathe to describe the scene because it really marks out the situation and I'm concerned regarding confidentiality. It was one of the more chaotic situations I've seen though. After some time, the student calms down enough that the peak of the crisis is past but there are still concerns regarding the student's safety and the safety of other students so the students family told that the student must be screened and cleared before returning to school. The details are given to the family and the parent leaves with the student.

My feelings on the situation are along the lines of "too many cooks spoiling the pot." The situation was disorganized because of all the staff that got involved, myself included. I really didn't do much once I got there because I was coming into the situation after everything so I pretty much acted as the person who was most familiar with procedure.

Tomorrow, I'll probably talk about the situation with my co-worker.

Tuesday, December 1st

Well, not a whole lot to talk about today. I went over with to the middle school and did some counseling. The theme for today appeared to be broken homes and divorced parents, even though I met with students individually.

I wrestled with trying to create a schedule for some upcoming meetings. The hardest thing to do is to find a place to have the meetings. It is ridiculous. No matter what district I've been in, meeting/counseling/testing space has been at a premium. Now that I share an office, I can't even have meetings or test or do counseling in my office. In the end, I manage to schedule the two meetings and get the letters out for them just in time for another risk assessment.

It turns out to be nothing. It is one of those referrals that you walk in and know right away that it was just something a kid said and didn't mean. Not even a chance of a risk. And so the day ends.