Feeling Sickly

I haven't been feeling up to snuff these passed few days so I've gotten behind once again. So here is my catch-up post.

Tuesday, January 5th
We are back in the building. Theoretically speaking, the heat was back on but I still had my jacket on for most of the day. I decided to actually do some psychology related work and went to the high school to test a student. I manage to get him tested in one sitting (I love the WAIS-IV, it really flies by and gets rid of that stupid Matrix Reasoning discontinue rule). Following this, I return to the office to prepare paperwork for my Thursday, Friday, and Monday meetings. Before doing that, I stop at the nurse's office to get the health information on the 5 initial referrals scheduled for Monday.

Once I'm back at the office and have lunch with my coworkers, I start printing a whole load of forms which I put in the appropriate student folders for the meetings. I run into a few areas where I'm not sure what forms I'll need so I try to print them all. Oh the waste.

I also get a message that the parents of a student that has just moved back into district have been calling to arrange a meeting for registration and IEP stuff. I call the number and speak with the mother and schedule a meeting for the next day after my counseling. I know this parent from last year and there was a residency issue at the time but, apparently, this has been settled and the student may now return to our school.

I finish the day feeling fairly satisfied that I'm at least moderately prepared for my meetings. Now if some teachers would just give me the PLEPs (Present Levels of Educational Performance or PLAAFs - Present Levels of Academic Ability and Functioning - if you have grown up in the age of PLAAFs) I need.

Wednesday, January 6th
Ahh, counseling. After three students, its time for my meeting with the parents from the previous day. I wait and wait and the appointment time comes and goes without them. I let the teachers that I had gotten for the meeting go after calling the home number and leaving a voice mail. I return to my office and ten minutes later I get the call that the parent have arrived at the high school. It must have been the other 10:15am. I return to the high school and have a semi-tense meeting. The mother wants her student out of special education, the father is not so certain. I go over the students history in special education as well as the pros and cons of revoking consent for special education services and what the process would be if they changed their mind after the 15 day grace period, which is basically the student would need to be referred to the child study team again and it would be treated as an initial referral. In the end, there is a change in his academic program but the student is still in special education. Although I predict the parents will change their mind before the school year is out.

After this, I return to the office and print out a bunch of PLAAFs (or PLEPs is you are old school) for my meetings on the morrow and organize them. I also wrestle with a psychological evaluation. This leads me to the end of the day. I know there is more but nothing of consequence that I can remember.

Thursday, January 7th
I get into work and grab my stuff and head immediately over to the high school. I stop off in the main office and guidance office to let them know that parents will be coming in for me and I will be in the high school library conference room, so please direct them there, thank you very much.

I have four re-evaluation planning meetings in the morning and one "I don't know what to call it" meeting scheduled in the afternoon. So out of five meetings, I end up with 60% turnout rate. My first meeting is a no show and I can't get the mother on the phone which wouldn't matter anyway since I don't speak Spanish. I'll have to follow up with the mother by phone with an interpreter (boy, I wish we had that language line).

The mother for my second meeting is prompt and it is a very friendly and cordial meeting. We decide that a functional assessment of the student is most appropriate and we review the student's current performance and previous CST evaluations. It is determined that the student is still eligible for services and then it rolls into an IEP meeting. While the IEP goes into effect it is recognized that there may need to be some adjustments toward the end of the school year because it is too early for teacher recommendations and determining 10th grade classes now.

The parent for the third meeting arrives on time and we do the same thing: a functional assessment and IEP meeting. This student is struggling a bit more than the previous student but is managing. With this parent, I don't know how to read 'em. I think that she may be worried that she is being flim-flammed in some way but I try to make sure that I explain things as much as possible.

The fourth meeting is another no show. I can't even get the student out of class because they are involved in a group presentation in math. In math! I never heard of such a thing. It must be that new math.

Then it is time for lunch. After an uneventful lunch, I make several aborted attempts to walk back to the high school as I keep forgetting things and have to go back to my office. I still manage to arrive for my own meeting before the parent arrives.

This "I don't know what to call it" meeting turns out to be a status check type meeting. The mother seems very involved and cares a great deal for her child and wanted to get feedback from the teachers on the student's performance and to see if there is anything in addition that could/should be done. It also has some overtones of wanting her student out of special education but nothing very strong. Overall, the meeting goes well.

The teacher turnout for all the meetings was spectacular. If you aren't a school psychologist yet and are reading this, some teachers can be passive aggressive when it comes to attending these meetings. If you are a teacher and you are reading this then you may know some of your colleagues that are like this. If you are one of those teachers and your reading this, then you may think I'm the devil :)

Following this meeting, I return to my office and work haphazardly on a number of things and have some testing and counseling related conversations with my office mate. I also field a phone call from one of the principal's in the district whose niece has been thinking of going into school psychology. My office mate and I give her some information and for the first time, I bashfully plug my blog as a way for her niece to see if this is the sort of thing she might want to do.

If the niece in question is reading this, hello. And that brings me to the end of my day. Only one more day and one more meeting for the week. All I need to do is survive until 9:30am and I should be good.