I walk into the office and find that the VOIP phone system and internet is down so that limits my options greatly. So I head to the beast that is the basement mess and finish going through old testing supplies. I make some judgment calls based on the fact that we have newer instruments that do the same thing as older instruments and choose the more recent norms. In some cases, it is easy to decide since some of the older instruments are also incomplete. I finally whip some of the shelving into shape and organize the various cognitive assessments into neat rows. Feeling somewhat satisfied but still in need of more space for protocols, I return to the surface world and find that the phone/internet access still hasn't returned.
Now this wouldn't be such an issue if it weren't for the fact that I need information from our SIS and IEP programs. This is definitely a downside of the computer age. Fortunately, I'm saved from feeling like a lazy dog by a meeting with several of my coworkers about a student that was on my case load last year. Despite attempts on my part to finalize an out of district placement by the end of last school year, we have to come up with a plan for the student by next week. After a review of the student's recent history and everything that has led to where we were at that moment, we come up with a plan that could have the student in the out of district placement that accepted the student by the end of next week.
During this meeting, the phones and computers return, which is really helpful for the meeting. After that, I return to my original plans for the morning: seeing who is due for IEP meetings and re-evaluations. As I'm doing this, I check my messages and receive a message from a parent saying that their student had transportation last year and now they don't have it and they are wondering why. I get a slight sinking feeling. There was a big push last year to end any unnecessary transportation. I didn't have to go through this purge because all the students in need of transportation that I had last year had extremely legitimate reasons to have transportation as a related service. My first thought is that this is a parent that has "forgotten" that they had a meeting about this last year. I know, I know, Cynical. I look up the student and see that their eligibility category would certainly make them eligible for transportation. I finally figure out that the student fell between the cracks when one case manager left the district and the new case manager didn't realize that the student had transportation since the IEP had already been done for the year. After that, it is a simple matter of writing up the transportation form and calling the district transportation supervisor.
This is where I'll start my public service announcement: Be kind to your district transportation supervisor. They have a truly thankless job. They get harassed by parents and case managers alike. Depending on the size of the district, they not only have to organize the routes of district owned vehicles but they have to coordinate and contract the services of multiple private bus companies. Being on good terms with the transportation supervisor means that they won't immediately be on the defensive when they see your phone number.
So when I call the transportation supervisor, who just got the job after the previous supervisor retired, I give her both my congratulations and condolences on getting the position which I think set her at ease. Fortunately, she knew about the student I was talking about because the mother had called her as well. She tells me what she needs and I tell her that I will get it to her which I do. I then contact the parent and tell her that things are all set for Monday.
Following lunch, I get handed a packet of information on a student that has just moved into the district. I check the SIS and find that the student still isn't active. I call the guidance counselor for the school the student will be attending and find out the procedure for new entrants. After that, I attempt to call the school secretary who is responsible for creating the student's schedule and leave a message. Later in the day, I hear my office mate call the same person and leave a message. This person either isn't in or is not available. It is looking like this will have to wait until Monday. As I'm looking over the IEP from the student's previous district, I see that not only is their IEP due at the beginning of October but so is their re-evaluation. Lovely. There is one time line already blown if the parent wants to test.
In between this and the next event below, I manage to look through all the dates for my students' IEPs and re-evaluations. I also take note of all the documents in the IEP software that need to be finalized. The two IEP programs that I have had experience with, Tracker by Contour Data and TIEnet by Maximus, require that once you have finished a document (be it IEP, letter, what have you) it has to be finalized or archived. When this is done, it turns the document into a read-only document and can no longer be modified. Then when you create a new version of the document, you can pull the information from the previous document into the new one. Well, Tracker has this idiosyncrasy that it will only pull the information from the most recently archived document. So as I'm looking at lists of documents that need to be archived, I see IEPs from 2009 that haven't been archived while the 2010 IEP for the same student has been. So that means, unless there is some intervention from Contour Data, when those documents are archived/finalized, the next time I open a new IEP the information from the 2009 IEP will be pulled instead of the much more useful, recent information from the 2010 IEP. Sigh. I'll deal with that another day.
I go to my mailbox and find several new initial referrals that I have been assigned. As I look at them, I see a familiar name that I evaluated last year and last thought had been expelled. I visit my supervisor to find out what is going on with this one. I'm told that the parent now wants their child to be in special education and that the expulsion had only been for a year. I'm also told to treat it like a new referral: separate initial planning and eligibility conference. Since the evaluations are less than a year old, we can accept them. In a Monty Python moment, I considering not accepting psychological evaluation that I did. I send out an email to the folks that were involved with the case last school year to try to get a handle on a date for the meeting.
By the time I hammer down a date and time with my coworkers, it is almost time to head home. I make some notes for things to do on Monday, acknowledging the fact that I'll be at my assigned school that day as well.
Have a good weekend!
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