The interesting thing about today is that I actually made several notes to myself to talk about things.
I'm back from my day off and 17 emails greet me as I log into our email server. Sheesh! I don't that many emails during the work day. They must save them up. I slog through them and respond to the ones that I need responses. I get my two voice mail messages, pack up my stuff, and head over to the school.
Once in the school, I settle down to organize some things. I check the schedules of the kid that was supposed to start yesterday and meet with parent of the kid that started today. The student that started today had been in the district last year but had been in the process of moving out of town so they withdrew at the end of the school year. But the move didn't go through and they had to prove residency again. So the student started late. The parent was wondering if her child was still in special education or whether they would have to go through the whole process again. I explained that the student was still in special education and even if they had moved, their child still would have been in special education. Remember: if special education law is confusing and uncertain to people that have had to take classes in it, it is twice as confusing and uncertain to people that haven't. Much of your job may involve educating the parents.
A short while later, a teacher for the above student comes in to the office and says something to the effect of, "You know this student is in my class which isn't a special education class?" I say, "Yes." "So you know the student isn't in a special education class?" "Yes, that's okay. The student stills get the modifications in their IEP, like extended time, preferential seating," I say as I refer to the IEP. In a leery tone, "Ookay, I just wanted to let you know." "Thank you, have a good day, " in my best, chipper tone. I love messing with the normals, especially when they think that this revelation was an accident and believe that my response should be, "My lord, how did this happen! I'll rectify this situation right away."
I respond to a voice mail from a teacher asking for the IEPs of two students she didn't have on her roster. I meet with the teacher and get the names. I also check on the kid with the FM system. One of the emails that I had gotten was from a teacher of the deaf that has been assigned to work with the student from an outside contractor. I return the email, asking if it would be in her purview to provide some training to the teachers on how to use the FM system, since I don't think that it is the student's responsibility to teach the teachers. She says that it is and I send an email to the student's teachers to see who needs/ wants it. Several teachers had the student last year and are familiar in its use and I'm pleasantly surprised by the number of teachers that are eager to learn how to use it and learn more about it.
Fire Drill. A few minutes of fresh air and then back inside. After that, I speak to the principal about the process of making sure there is coverage for teachers when I have IEP meetings. Once I get that information, I write up the invitations for several IEP meetings. I attempt to look up information on the 'net about timelines and accidentally stumble across this gem of a website. It is a central resource for a number of pieces of information that is scattered across several websites, as well as the Rutgers Law Library with the information on how to look up court cases that has to do with special education law.
I put some paperwork in the right place and type up some more paperwork. One of the teachers that gets a stipend for doing technology stuff in the district comes by to see about a problem that my coworker had trying to log into her remote desktop yesterday. My coworker had given me the heads up that someone was coming by. As soon as I see him, I know that the problem won't be resolved because we talked about it last week and I know he doesn't have the level of access to do this work. We talk about what our (my coworker and I) next step should be and he goes on his merry way. I finish up an IEP. Respond to some more emails that have popped up while I was typing. Then I head back to home base to eat lunch and talk with my coworker, as well as meet with my boss.
After lunch, I do some more paperwork. Then I have a discussion/debriefing with two of my coworkers about a risk assessment that they did at one of the elementary schools. It was a messy one and that is the problem. It wasn't messy in the sense that it was terribly tragic or that anything happened. It was messy in the sense that it wasn't clear what the administration was asking for because there wasn't any apparent threat of harm to self or others. The student that was assessed had stated that another student had had a weapon, yet from the circumstances of the situation, there was no way that either student was able to encounter each other during the day. Backpacks were checked and nothing was found.
From my coworkers' perspective, they were asked to do a risk assessment because the kid was acting weird and has a habit of engaging attention seeking behavior, and the administration didn't communicate what it wanted very clearly.
From my clinical perspective, any sort of assessment that we engage in should involve a mental status examination and along with that comes an assessment for danger to self, others, and property. If a student is acting "weird", then as we assess for hallucinations, delusions, etc, we should also assess for danger. If a student is presenting with an issue that brings into question whether they are a danger, then we should also assess for hallucinations, delusions, etc.
As for the clarity of the request that comes from administration, it is a matter of understanding that administration may not understand what they want either. Their response may be motivated by a number of things such as the desire to protect the district from liability or the discomfort of dealing with a situation that is not normal, which can be particularly disturbing when seen in very young children. In addition, the information that we get when the referral comes in to use has usually passed through three or four people. Remember the game, telephone? That is what happens.
After this and some additional paperwork, my boss is back and I go to see her about an IEP that I had written. She finds that it is missing several things. When we look in our IEP software, we find that the things that are missing are stored somewhere but failed to download into the document. I attempt to download it several times but the program refuses. It goes through the motions but the information won't budge. Sometimes I think that it would be easier to write an IEP with Pong. At least I would know the end result instead of this haphazard crap. I call it a day and make a note to contact the tech support people about it tomorrow.
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