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.

Monday, November 30th & The Token Male

Back from the long weekend, I typed up the two risk assessments from last week as well as completed the SEMI paperwork for my November counseling. That takes up the whole morning. I also take a look at my upcoming due dates for re-evals and the wheels start turning in my head about what I need to do soon.

I also write an email regarding the pricing information I dug up on neuropsychological assessments and think about how I go about becoming a neuropsychologist. Then I grumpily admit that I don't have the time, money, or energy at the moment to go into a doctoral program.

Toward the end of the day, I attend an initial referral conference for a 2 year old who will be turning three in the near future. The case manager attempts to get the parents on the phone after they are more than fashionably late but meets with no success. So ends the day.

On Being the Only Male
I'm a minority in my department. The department has a history of only having one male case manager. Before me there was one male CM and only one before him. In my previous district, I was the only male CST member in my school but not in the district but the men continued to be the minority in the Special Ed department.

Part of this is the fact that education is a heavily female oriented profession. In the past, the administrative positions may have had more males than females but I think even that is changing to some degree since it is hard to find principals and superintendents, at least in the state of New Jersey. In my district, all the principals with the exception of the high school principal, are female. The department heads are female. The superintendent is female. The head of special education is female.

But I digress. I'm used to being the only male. In my previous career, I was the only male on my treatment team. Even so, it does bring up some interesting issues. I do feel that I have to be a bit cautious regarding what I say even though everyone is pretty liberal with their speech. While all my coworkers are great, I do feel a bit separated from everyone because I am the token male. Although it is interesting to note that since I have a small child/toddler, I get to be a part of the "mommy club" and commiserate with the other parents that have similar age children.

Now I'm not complaining about being the token male. I'm just commenting on it because I had the feeling of separateness due to my gender today. I do relate to my coworkers in other ways because there is an even rarer brand of coworker present in my office: the geek.

Wednesday, November 25th

Well, Wednesday made up for a mundane Monday and Tuesday. So, I go into work and head over to the high school for counseling. I try to meet with two students. I get the first one and have the session and then try to call down the second one. Since it was a half day, all the periods were shortened. I called into the period that was just about to end and asked the teacher to send the student to guidance at the end of the period. Period ends and not student. 5 minutes later, still not student. Another couple of minutes and still a no show. I even seen the teacher from the class I called and she said that she told the student. Ah well, I'll catch the student next week.

Following this, its back to home base. I'm not there for more than 15 minutes when I get a call to see my boss about a risk assessment at the middle school. I see my both who tells me of the unusual circumstances. That the incident that is triggering the assessment happened a week ago. I know that unless that student expresses similar ideas from last week that the student isn't going to be sent out and sending someone to the psych screeners for something that happened a week ago will result in nothing.

I meet with the student and the interview goes just as I expect. I get nothing. The student has either been coached or it was just impulsivity that lead to his inflammatory statement. But my day isn't over yet.

As I'm leaving, I'm told about this other student who happens to be in one of my counseling groups. The student is upset about something and the mother had asked that we speak with her about it. This request from the mother brings up the idea in my head of "how come parents can't talk to their kids" and "where does a school's responsibilities end" but since I'm there and I know the student I talk with 'em. Coincidentally, the student's case manager shows up about this issue as well. So we both end up talking with 'em. The issues that come up have a lot to do with bullying and cyber-bullying but other things come up as well, such as how one of the student's parents has been calling them extremely harsh names. Names that parents really shouldn't call their children and while that may seem like a judgment, it is but I'm not putting the names here for others to decide.

As the student is telling me things and answering my questions I begin to get the feeling that I have to ask the question. So I ask 'em if they have ever thought of hurting or killing themselves. I get a yes. This changes it from a counseling session to a risk assessment. In the end, I decide that she needs to be evaluated. I talk with the case manager and the guidance counselor and they both agree. We speak with the student to ask them which parent they would like us to call after telling 'em about our decision. The student asks for the other (non-name calling) parent. So we get the ball rolling. A short while after speaking with the requested parent, the other parent makes an angry phone call to the case manager. We take the heat because it was more important that the student was comfortable and didn't face an accusing parent at that moment, especially since that parent seemed to be part of the problem. The desired parent arrives and we meet and provide the information needed for them to get the student evaluated. In the meantime, I've contacted the psychiatric screeners and tell them to expect the student.

My day ends with me trying to find a freakin' fax machine that works. The third one's the charm. With that I'm able to go home.

See you all next week. Happy Thanksgiving!

Monday, November 23rd and Tuesday, November 24th

Well, it is a short week and it begins with an initial eligibility conference. I did the psychological evaluation on the student who is in the 3rd grade. The meeting takes about twice as long as usual because we need to use a translator and the parents ask very good questions. By the time it is over it is almost time for the Thanksgiving Party at the alternative program that is housed in the same building as our offices.

By the time the party is over, it is a short time until the end of the day. I organize some observations about a set of projectives that I did on a student and call the father of the special referral that we had. And that brings the end of the day.

On Tuesday, I get in and finally finish the emotional/social section of the report that has been torturing me for the past two weeks. I'm proud of myself because I got the reading level and passive sentences down further than ever before. Why is this important? Well it goes back to my classes in grad school and some workshops I've attended on report writing. It boils down to this: You have to remember your audience. As a school psychologist, the audience is usually a parent who is unlikely to have any training in or familiarity with the jargon of the profession. You have to convey the information in the report to the parent in a way that they can understand. That may sound condescending but it isn't meant to be. Even well educated people are unlikely to be familiar with the terminology of psychological evaluation unless that is their background.

Following this I try to find information on the cost of a neuropsychological evaluation with very little success. I also talk to some coworkers about a date for an initial referral conference.

Well only one half-day left for the week then it is time for a nice long weekend.

Friday, November 20th

Not much to write about for Friday. I went to the middle school to meet with my other group of girls for counseling. This group was much different than the other one. Apparently they had not problem talking about their problems in from of me. I barely got a word in edge-wise.

Following counseling, the rest of the day was filled with meetings. First our weekly department meeting which did not contain much of interest for me to mention here and then my professional learning committee meeting (PLC).

In my PLC, we have decided to do something with risk assessments. I collected data on the risk assessments from last year and have been doing this same for this year. We went over the data collected so far and saw some interesting high spots. There were more risk assessments done in 5th and 6th grade than in any other grade. Both those grades are in one school so that one school had more risk assessments than any other school in our district. Finally, about 4/5ths oall the risk assessments were Hispanic and African American students.

We talked about gathering some more demographic information to see if those trends reveal anything and then broke down our tasks. That was it for the day. Have a good weekend. Next week is a short one.

Thursday, November 19th

Well, I've run out of even moderately inspired titles for my posts, so I'll stick with the day and date for the moment.

I got in this morning and started doing some paperwork and a little research on anxiety, depression, and visual hallucination because of what this kid said during an evaluation. I also typed up the risk assessment report from two days ago and gave to my coworker who participated in the evaluation as well. I then went to the high school to give a student some paperwork to take home and do some counseling.

I met with my boys group, not much of a group, just me and two boys and finally found some willing counseling participants. All in all, it went far better than expected. As I was pulling one of the kids from his class, one of the girls from my group earlier this week waved excitedly to me. This was one of the ones that said she didn't know if she would be comfortable meeting with a male counselor. So I guess she isn't driven off too much by having a male counselor. Then again, if said counselor is a chance to get out of doing something in class that you don't want to do then any port in a storm.

After this, I went to the high school and got a guidance counselor to assist me in calling down the sister of the student who was scheduled for the initial referral conference yesterday. The one where the parents didn't show up. I spoke with the sister and gave her my card, asking her to ask her parents to give me a call.

When I returned to the office and had lunch, I found a message from the father who was responding to my voicemail from yesterday. I knew that he was probably calling during his lunch and there was little chance of getting hold of him again, so I'll have to try tomorrow.

A short while later, I met with my director and got the okay to put in for a neuropsychological evaluation on a student. Then I was speaking with one of my fellow school psychologists who noted that her school psych program hadn't reviewed a lot of projective testing and she had never learned the house-tree-person. So we spent the last 30 minutes of the day going over that and a few other projective instruments. And then it was time to go home.

Counseling, Report Writing, and Initial Referral Conferences

Wednesday, November 18th
I start the day with a round of counseling. One kid absent, another on a class trip, but I manage to see four other students. Nothing spectacular but I do get to find out that one student is actually starting to do some homework. Not all of it but some of it. If you remember What About Bob? just think "baby steps."

Once I'm back at the office, I spend a good deal of time writing reports. I also record data on two risk assessments. This is part of my professional improvement plan. A pet project on looking to see if there are trends in the risk assessments, like more in one school or grade or time of year. Last year was the baseline so I'm interested in seeing what this year has in store.

Following lunch, I get ready for an initial referral conference. This is the one that if we do the eval will need the language line for the family because of the rarity of their language. We have everyone we need at the meeting with the exception of the student and the family. I attempt to call them without success. Tomorrow I'll have to try to contact them by relaying a message through the student's sister who also attends the high school.

Not much going on today but they can't all be jam packed with action.

Freakin' Kindergarten?!

Tuesday, November 17th
I get into work and immediately receive a call from the guidance counselor for one of my kids. She is making a change in his schedule and the mother wanted to speak with me. I make it over to the high school and meet with the student and the mother. After the official meeting, I speak with the mom about the difficulty that the student faces with finding a motivation to work to his potential (and he has a huge amount of potential) and that he may need to encounter something that he wants bad enough to summon that motivation or he may need a "rock bottom" event to wake him up.

Following that, I return to my office for a bit of putzing...er paperwork, and then go back to the middle school for some counseling. The group is made up of teenage girls and I encounter what I usually encounter with this type of group: the discomfort of having a male counselor. But what's a guy to do? I tell them to give it a try and if it doesn't get any better, I'll see what I can do.

I get back to the office, again, and learn that I am being sought out by the office manager. I start to head her way when my cell rings. I take it off my hip and see that it is the office manager and I stick my head into her office and say, "Are you calling me?" I'm informed that there is a kindergartener that needs a risk assessment. The kid has been threatening to cut off faces and kill people. The director also suggests that I bring one of my social worker co-workers along because she hasn't had a whole lot of formal experience with doing risk assessments. So we head on over and do our assessment. The kid isn't a danger to self or others but is definitely troubled and some other things come up during the assessment. With that completed, I head back to the office and my coworker goes to an IEP meeting.

Once back near my office, I meet with the transition coordinator/assistive technology person to discuss one of my students that she is involved with from an AT standpoint. We talk about a number of technical problems one of which is actually a territory issue that someone could fix in 5 minutes if people weren't so stringent.

After that, I go to a staffing for a student I tested. We review all the test results and come up with a possible plan and needed services. After that, I send several emails regarding my initial referral conference tomorrow. Then it is time to head for home.

Dear Anonymous Commenter

Anonymous Commenter left this comment in my first post:

I am reading your blog because I would like to be a school psychologist or a school social worker. I'm really not sure and I'm just researching. I am from NJ and currently work for DYFS and looking for a change.

First, thank you for reading my blog. Second, I do have a couple of pragmatic bits of information regarding the choice between becoming a school psychologist and becoming a school social worker. And I am speaking from a New Jersey point of view.

First is job availability: There are a lot of social workers out there and it is very hard to break into school social work. On the other hand, there has been a shortage of school psychologist. In either case, if you speak a second language, you increase your job options quite a bit. If your goal is to work in a school and you want to improve your chances of getting a school job, school psychology may be a better route.

If you want to work in a school but would also like to have a private practice, the social work is the way to go. With the educational specialist degree in school psychology, that will only allow you to work in a school setting or another clinical setting under someone else. Unless you go for the post-masters degree to become a licensed professional counselor (LPC), you can't have a private practice. And if you want to open a private practice and have a degree in psychology, you may as well go for a doctorate in psychology.

Another pragmatic thing to consider is payscale. If you aren't familiar with school payscales, they work on a step system, which you may be familiar with working for DYFS. Your pay is calculated based on your step and cross-referenced with a column indicating your level of education. In a school district, the usual breakdown for the columns are: bachelor, masters, masters +30 credits, and doctorate. Some districts have a few more categories, like bachelors +30 but that is rare.

So why does this matter? Because a social work program awards you with a masters degree after 60+ credits while someone in a school psych program usually gets awarded their masters after 36 credits or so and then goes on to get the educational specialist certificate after another 30 credits. So the school psychologist and the school social worker may have about the same number of credits to their name but because the school psych program awards a masters at 36ish and then another certificate 30+credits later, school psychologists end up one more column over on the payscale which may be the difference of a couple of thousands dollars more when negotiating salary.

Now you may think that if MA+30 is so much better than MA then a doctorate must be even better. Not really. At the most, maybe a thousand dollars difference between MA+30 and Ph. D. Being a school psychologist with a doctorate doesn't really pay off in a school district, except for the prestige of being Doctor.

Beyond the practical concerns of choosing, there are definitely other things to look at as well. I like being a school psychologist because I get to play with a lot of fiddly bits. I have my cognitive assessments, projective assessments, behavioral rating surveys, visual motor integration tests. I get to play with a lot of toys. But if you read my blog, you will get to see just how often I get to play with my toys. The majority of my time is taken up with case management and being in DYFS, you are certainly familiar with that. I also get to do counseling.

School social workers are in the same boat with the case management and the counseling. They do their social assessments but don't get to play with the fiddly bits. And I'm not trying to say that's a bad thing, I just enjoy my toys.

As far as assessments are concerned, LDTC do the most assessments followed by school psychologists and then school social workers. The reasons being that a students academic progress is more likely to change than their cognitive ability (at least theoretically, from the trenches, I'm not so sure but that is a discussion for a later date) while unless a student's family life experiences a great deal of upheaval, very little is likely to change in their social history.

Its hard not to sound bias when I type this out because I enjoy being a school psychologist. If I didn't go into school psychology, I probably would have gone for a doctorate in clinical psychology. It is hard to explain my reasons for that without coming across as a jerk so I'll leave it be. I hope I have at least provide some information for you to consider.

Assistive Tech, Psych Reports, and Staffing

Monday, November 16th
Well, I got in this morning and contacted the school where the person that is going to translate for my Wednesday meeting works. Following that, I go over to the middle school with several of my coworkers to meet with the assistive technology specialist and teachers to oversee the creation of assignments for one of my students with the Classroom Suite software I've mentioned in previous posts. It was a fairly good meeting but we are still left with the overall issue of where is all this leading for this student and what is the ultimate goal for educating him.

After lunch, I start working on the psych report that has been plaguing me for the past week. I'm almost to my favorite part, the emotional/social functioning section. This is where the voodoo of psychology comes in (as my professor in projective testing referred to it) and it is also the one part of the psych reports where I really need to feel inspired before I'm able to write it. There is so much information at the moment that I don't have a clear picture so I can foresee that this part will take another few days.

I then meet with an LDTC to review the testing of one of my students. We compare our results and decide that SLD is no longer an appropriate category for her and that while student may still be multiply disabled, the parts that make up the multiple disability have changed. We also discuss modifications that may assist her further and really can't think of anything more that what is being done at the moment.

After this, it is back to wrestling with the report a bit more and finalizing some information for Wednesday's meeting, while dealing with the growing headache. It has been awhile since I've had so many headaches. It is probably the continually changing temperatures that are occurring both in and outside of our building. That or my blood pressure has shot up suddenly. Growing old is crap.

Friday = Department Meeting

Friday, November 13th
Well, not much new to report on the situations of the last few days. Our phones weren't working so I couldn't call out of the building and there is a chance that no one could call in to us.

We had some "trainings" about policy during our weekly department meeting where we were handed a power point in written form and reviewed it and then signed an attendance sheet as evidence of our presence for the training. At least in my old career, we would have had to take a post-test.

One training was on the 12 protected categories, meaning that you can't discriminate due to age, race, nationality, creed, religion, etc. All I could think of during this was a quote from an Austin Powers movie: "There's only two things I hate in this world. People who are intolerant of other people's cultures and the Dutch."

The rest of the meeting revolved around measurable goals and objectives and the need for teachers to be able to measure the progress of goals and objectives. This also sparked conversation about how teachers get so caught up in curriculum that they don't look at the data that they may get from standardized teaching programs. Our literacy specialist mentioned that one teacher had been telling her about how this student, who should have been kept back last year, wasn't progressing in the Project Read program that is being used in the district. So the reading specialist looked over the results of the testing and saw where the student was getting caught up. When she approached the teacher about the diagnostics of the testing and tips for remediation, the teacher just came back with the student should have been retained last year.

Another issue is that the educational programs that are instituted in the district aren't being followed as they should and are done piecemeal, so of course they aren't effective. I think that this is an issue with administrative support. When any new program or technology is instituted in any organization, it needs close oversight and support to ensure that it is being done properly and that the staff receives the support it needs to get past any roadblocks they encounter. If the line staff are just given something to do with only minimal training and no additional support then people shouldn't be surprised when it isn't followed.

Well, enough of being on a high horse. It is Friday night. Time to relax.

Well, I called it

Thursday, November 12th
Well, I get into work and head straight over to the high school for counseling. After several interesting sessions, I return to the office and get ready for my next bout of counseling at the middle school. I do a few things around the office, which include printing out the contract information for the Language Line Interpretation Services that I think our department, if not the whole district, is going to sign up for. This is something that we really need considering our district has a large latin population with a high prevalence on non-Spanish speaking staff, myself included.

I've used the Language Line in a previous job and it is quite good. They have immediate access to over 170 languages and they are just a phone call away. So, if a parent calls out of nowhere, you don't have to scramble to find an interpreter, you can put the parent on hold, call the Language Line, and then conference them in. They can also interpret while on speaker phone. And they do document translation.

So after my middle school counseling, I get back to the office, have lunch and receive the phone call. I called it. In reference to my thoughts on my parent phone call yesterday, mom called and said that she is bringing a lawyer to our next meeting. Again, it was all very polite and cordial, and there is no reason it can't be. But I called it. I said that I felt that the only way this was going to be resolved is if lawyers are involved. Well, they're involved.

The Unpredictable and The Predictable

Wednesday, November 11th
I get into work and within 5 minutes I get a call about a hysterical student at the high school and the need for a risk assessment. So much for the counseling schedule today. Off I go and do my psychologist shtick. I decide that the student doesn't need to be sent out for a screening but does need outside therapy. The student has started to engage in cutting behaviors and it appears to be escalating. The guidance counselor and I contact the parents who come in a short while later to see their child. When they arrive, with meet with the student and her parents. I go over everything and mom and student are tearful. Then out of nowhere, the father bursts out crying. Then the guidance counselor is crying. Now I'm not a cold person but I figured someone needed to hold it together. The end result is that both parents are obviously supportive and love their child very much and agree that counseling is needed. The student goes home for the day with her parents. That was the unpredictable.

The predictable was the follow up from my phone conversation with a parent yesterday. The one that I was elusive about in yesterday's post. So due to previous experience (and as someone once said, I think it was a talk radio shrink the only way to predict future behavior is by looking at past behavior), I knew what the parent's response was going to be to what had transpired. So, I prefaced my phone call to the parent by saying, "I think you'll be asking me for my supervisor's phone number by the end of this call." She said, "I think you're right about that." I delivered my message, she asked for the supervisor's number. Then I asked, as an aside, "Are we still on for our meeting next week?" She politely replied in the affirmative.

Those were the highlights of the day. The only other thing was a phone exchange with the psychiatrist of a student that I'm evaluating. Everything else was email exchanges and paperwork. Tomorrow I start catching up with my counseling from today.

Where did the day go?

Tuesday, November 10th
Well, today started off in a mundane fashion with the exception of knowing that I had a teacher meeting today involving one of my higher profile cases. I cleaned out some old testing materials from a cabinet. It is amazing what can accumulate when you have to make sure things need to be shredded or destroyed. It seems easier just to keep it.

Following that, I finished an IEP and put it in the mail. Then went back and forth between working on the psychological assessment and setting up a schedule for the 7th graders that I was assigned for counseling. Because of the frequency, I need to meet them in groups. In general, I really don't like group counseling. It is just something that I don't enjoy. But this isn't about my enjoyment, so I started trying to figure out what to do for an icebreaker. I decided to use a game that I had actually gotten for staff lunch time as a sort of team building activity (this idea is a hold over from my previous career). The game is called Rorschach. Its a fun little game and you can immediately see the psychological allure of the game. It requires you to be able to guess what over people will respond as well as trying to be unique.

Follow that it was lunch and then the day got interesting. This is where I'm going to speak in generalities because I don't feel comfortable and want to err on the side of caution. I had to contact a parent about their child attending an after school activity and the district's need to have staff present at the activity. The parent did not want staff present at the activity beyond who is supposed to be there/required to be there.

Without going into detail (again), I'll just say that there are a lot of factors that come into play when deciding services for a student. And those factors can be at odds with each other. When does the physical safety of the child and district liability outweigh the student's need for independence and to not feel stigmatized? I don't know the answer but I have a feeling I'm going to find out. I just wonder if I'll find out through normal methods or due process or mediation.

The day ended with my teacher meeting. The district has purchased a software program called Classroom Suite (sorry, no link, I'm not sure whether I personally endorse this product) to help modify assignment and present class material in different ways. The software had a much steeper learning curve than initially thought so we have bought the services of an AT special to make assignments for teachers using the software. But in order to do this, the teachers have to be able to tell the AT specialist what is coming up next in the curriculum to get the stuff ahead of time. So we had a meeting to try to figure out where we, as a team, are headed with educating this student. This encompasses more than just classwork because it is also about trying to figure out how to get the parents over a hump in preparing for their child's future. Again, this is not an easy task.

Well, tomorrow is another day. I have a feeling I may be using the phrase: "You'll need to speak with my supervisor."

Thank you for your comment, Sarah

I just read Sarah's post below and, while I think I've discovered the trick to commenting, I figure I'll post my answer here.

Thank you for your kind words and good luck with your application. I don't know what state you are in so your experience as a school psychologist may vary. I should probably put something in my tagline at the top to explain that I'm a school psychologist in New Jersey so your individual experience may vary.

In NJ, child study team members serve two functions. One is the our specialty (school psychologist, learning consultant, school social worker) and the other is case manager. In other states, it changes. In New York, school psychologists do all the testing, both educational and psychological, while LDs spend much more time in the classroom. In other states, a school psychologist will do the testing while the special education teacher holds the IEP meetings and does the paperwork.

In Jersey, we do both, which is why in one of my posts, I mentioned that I often do more case management stuff than actually being a psychologist.

This is my 5th year as a school psychologist. I've worked in two school districts (three if you count my intership). One for three years, which I was glad to leave, and this is my second year in my current district. Prior to this, I worked for 11 years in the adult behavioral healthcare. I started as a residence counselor in an adult psychiatric group home; then went on to work as a case manager with adults with severe and persistent mental illness (SPMI, as the acronym goes) in a psychiatric outreach program, which provided all the services of a psychiatric hosptial in an urban setting, and I eventually became the team leader for the treatment team I started on, which was the biggest mistake of my life. The only way out of that was to switch careers or to move into an even more administrative role which is not my strong suit.

Without trying to sound arrogant, I am much better with positions that provide me with "client" contact and make use of my clinical skills, and to stay in my previous field would have meant the only way to move up was to lose the one thing I was good at. And I don't like to be the boss.

The other problem was that the program I worked for had a saying, "PACT is for life." While I sometimes wondered whose life, it really was supposed to mean that our program was available for a person as long as they needed it. So when I left there after 7+ years, there were still some clients with us that were there when I started. Which can be very disheartening and leads to high burnout.

I started the school psych program because I needed a change. I had also gotten married and being on-call 24/7 is not something that I wanted to continue in my married life. I had noticed that a large number of our clients had been special education students when they had been in school. So I thought that maybe if I could get to them a little bit younger, it would help them avoid have multiple hospitalizations over the course of their adulthood. I had adult clients that had spent years in psychiatric facilities that were now trying to start their life over. It was pretty damn rough for them.

I still don't know how it has played out as far as helping some of the kids end up in psych hospitals. But as far as burnout is concerned, it is much better for me because I'm not the boss and eventually, the student will graduate or age out so my clientele will change on a fairly regular basis.

So that is the awfully long winded story of how I got into school psychology.

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.

Professional Development

Monday, November 2nd
Well, whether it was just the reality of the situation or a self-fulfilling prophecy, the workshop at PD Day was as much an exercise in frustration as I expected. We (meaning the CST member that were there) couldn't even do the exercises because it all had to do with being a classroom teacher.

My other complaint is: How come the people that talk about how to make a classroom dynamic and, for a lack of a better word, entertaining for students can't do the same thing for people that have to sit in a workshop for 4 hours. Just because we're adults doesn't mean that the same rules shouldn't apply.

For the second half of the day, we were allowed to do work. I finished a psych report. All I need to do is edit it tomorrow.

TGIF

Friday, October 30th
Well, its Friday and the monitors are gone until mid-November. It is also the last official day of work for the week since next week is three days of professional development and then two days off due to the teachers' convention.

It was also staff breakfast day, so the morning was filled with typing a report and eating. And scoring some protocols and eating. Not a whole lot happened today. Since it was also the day before Halloween, there were the usual elementary school costume parades. So a lot of the elementary case managers went over to their respective schools to watch.

It was also Violence Prevention week and the high and middle schools had a presentation put on by Rachel's Challenge. I wonder how much of an impact had on the students since it was being held at the end of the day before Halloween and before a week off. I wonder if such a program would have had more of an impact if it had been held earlier in the week with some sort of follow up in the classrooms. Although I think that there are probably few teachers that would feel comfortable talking to students about such a potentially emotionally charged event.

I watched the presentation at the middle school and then returned to the office. With the exception of a few of my coworkers, everyone seemed to have cleared out early. I spent the last half hour speaking my coworkers about the initial outcome of the monitoring. Then it was time for home.

I don't know how much I'll post next week considering it is three days of professional development. I could really only bemoan the fact that CST members always get sent to workshops that don't apply to them for one day.

Have a good weekend and Happy Halloween!

Testing and Monitoring: Day 3

Thursday, October 29th
I went into work, grabbed my test kit, and headed to the middle school. I then spent the next 3 hours teaching one of the most hyperactive middle schoolers I have ever met. Wow, that was exhausting. And I still have to go back to finish up one more part. Toward the middle end of the my time with the student, I started getting calls from my office. The monitors wanted to see more charts and did I know of any other re-evals or initials from the middle school. I wracked my brain and gave some names.

When I got back to the office, I checked in with the secretaries and they were still looking for charts. I thought of some more and got them together. Later, I learned that one of the issues was that we were using the wrong documents. But we were using the documents that were in the program purchased from a state vendor. I don't know how it is in other states but from what I know, a state vendor is required to update documents within 14 days of a new state form. Well, not only wasn't our state vendor reliably updating the documents but when they did, they didn't remove the old documents. And we also learned that other districts had been getting in trouble with state monitors because of the same vendor. This just continued to increase my dislike for this special education software even more.

A short while later, the monitors were gone for the day after also questioning the pre-school and elementary CST staff. They will be returning in November to speak with the high school CST and look around at the schools. Overall, the monitors were pleasant and helpful.

Following lunch, I started working on the psych report from yesterdays testing. I also got into a discussion with my office mate about organizational systems. She has been going to elaborate lengths to develop spreadsheets and other electronic formats to organize herself. Her abilities are to be praised and she is certainly disciplined. I am not that disciplined and some of the things would be more work than reward for me. In the end, the conversation boils down to different strokes for different folks.

After some more work on the report I started, it is time to go home. Friday is almost here.

Monitoring: Day Two

Honestly, I didn't see much of the monitors today. I got in and did a little paperwork prep for a parent meeting at 10am then I went to the high school for some counseling before my meeting. The meeting went alright. The mother of the student is in a difficult position because the culture she is from makes it hard for mothers to impose rules and structure on their male children. Unfortunately, rules and structure are what the student needs.

Just as I return to the office and sit at my desk, my phone rings. It is the district counselor calling to confer with me about a student possibly needing a risk assessment. The problem is that the incident that is potentially a trigger for the risk assessment not only happened two weeks ago but it didn't even happen on school grounds. The director of guidance, who is the district counselors supervisor, told her to get a risk assessment. My opinion in the situation is that the only way a risk assessment would be fruitful is if the student not only admits to doing what was said (which he isn't) but if he still wants to do it. Otherwise psychiatric screeners would laugh in our face for sending someone for additional screening. I know that the director's position is a CYA and this brings up an interesting thing to note. Or at least interesting to me.

The difference between the clinical standpoint and the school district point of view. Definitely not a revelation but something that might be a cautionary lesson for anyone not in school psychology but is thinking of going into the fielf. I'm going to digress for a minute and get into my personal background because I think it is pertinent to my point of view.

My entire career has been in the field of mental health and psychology. I was an undergrad psych major. My early career was working with psychiatrically disabled adults. My masters in in psychology. It wasn't until I was in my 30s that I went back for school psychology and entered education. I don't have the education background that a number of my fellow school psychologist co-workers have. At least 3 of them have their undergrad degrees in education. My strength is my clinical skill. My weakness is my understanding of curriculum and pedagogy. So my being in the educational system still feels a bit like an outsider looking in.

So my viewpoint colored my perception of this situation: clinically, I know that a risk assessment at this time was fairly pointless. The district counselor had already advised the mother of her options in this situation. But the clinical viewpoint doesn't mean much when someone further up the chain of command wants it another way. So I went over to speak with the kid.

After about 45 minutes of the kid not changing his story but doing a very poor job of convincing me that the incident didn't happen, I let him go. Nothing short of waterboarding was going to get him to admit it.

So, I return to the office none the worse for wear. I have lunch with my coworkers where we discuss children's television. I share my cynical viewpoint of Franny's Feet which is received with much laughter. We discuss Yo Gabba Gabba, which another coworker can't believe such a show exists.

After that, I head over to finish the testing I started on Monday. The additional subtests from the WISC-IV Integrated pretty much bear out my hypothesis on the student's abilities. I go back to the office once again and let my boss know about the "risk assessment" and also see if I can find out about the monitoring status. I learn that there are some of the issues that the monitors have noted and that they don't seem to be seeking to play a game of "Gotchya."

With that, another day comes to a close.

Looking back at what I have just written about the risk assessment, I feel like there wasn't too much of a point in what I wrote. I may have to look at it again and edit or expand on it. Ah well, it is the best I could do at the moment...

Monitoring: Day One

Tuesday, October 27th
The day starts off innocuously enough and pretty much stays that way. So much so that I really can't remember much of it. The monitors weren't scheduled to arrive until late morning. I began my day with an email check and then I started organizing things for my new counseling caseload. I began by filling out the NJ Special Education Medicaid Initiative Related Services Tracking Form for the month of October. Wow, now that is a title for a form.

Halfway to writer's cramp in my hand, I decide to look online for an electronic version of the form. I find it and then spend 45 minutes setting things up for my caseload for the coming months. Now I am ready. A lot of the time I feel like an acoustic guitarist: I spend half my time tuning up and the other half of the time playing out of tune. A message to any acoustic guitarist: no insult is intended. This was a joke that my very musically inclined cousin told me.

I finish about half of the October forms by lunch time. Around 11am, the monitor arrived. One of my coworkers joked that it was a rain delay. I asked if a bunch of guys came out and dragged a blue tarp over the files.

After lunch, I busy myself with other paperwork and also talk with one of the supervisors about a particularly sticky case and a series of emails that have been traded between the parent and one of the teachers. I really need to start having regular weekly or biweekly meetings with the teachers.

The monitors leave by 3pm. I go into the director's office to hear how things were going. The monitors asked to see a few more charts in a particular category that they are looking at. We discuss what sort of things the monitors are looking for without much outcome. We also learn that the monitors are going to interview case managers on Thursday. This brings things to a close for the day.

A New Week

Monday, October 26th
One day until the monitors but not much to be done about that at the moment. I took a walk over to the high school as soon as I got in so I could reserve the guidance conference room for an 11am meeting. After that, our special ed paperwork program is down...again. I call the tech support line and leave a message. I also tell the office manager about it and she was already sending an email about it. But that puts a damper on things since I'm supposed to attend an eligibility meeting at 9am and I had to get my evaluation summary in the eligibility report. Shortly before 9am, I try it again and find I am able to get in. This coincides with a phone call from the tech support to inform me that their internet service provider had gone down over the weekend and they had just reset everything. So all the paperwork is ready just in time for the meeting. Not really my meeting because I'm not the case manager. I just did the psych.

9am comes and we are all present, including a representative from an outside agency who report that the student was arrested last week for simple assault and robbery and won't be attending because they are in jail. The mom doesn't show up either. We talk for a bit about possible outcomes from this even. The case manager goes to call the mother.

We have our final pre-monitoring meeting at 9:30, which I wasn't expecting to attend since I thought I would be in the eligibility conference until 10am. Not much left to say. The high school gets to have their charts reviewed first. Yay. If there isn't a post tomorrow, it is because I'm recovering.

I get out of the meeting and walk into my office just in time to answer my phone. It is my 11am meeting canceling on me. Even though she is canceling, she agrees to the needed changes to her child's program so I can go ahead with the plan for today without the meeting. She agrees to come in on Wednesday so that she can take care of the paperwork.

I go to the high school to meet with the student in question and get the schedule changed. While I'm there, I also schedule the conference room for Wednesday. The change in schedule is actually easier than expected and the student takes it well. The student is a bit surprised to find out they are failing so many things so soon. As was I when I first saw it. He gets the standard high school talk about how this is for real now and the impact of not passing and credits and such.

After that, it is lunch. Following lunch, I go to the elementary school to start testing the student I observed last week. I get pretty far. I finish the WISC-IV although from my observations during the test, I know that I want to do some of the Integrated optional subtests. I have a suspicion that the results of the verbal comp subtests aren't an accurate representation of his ability. When I get back to the office, I score the WISC and decide that I should really do a whole slew of addition subtests.

With that, it is time to end my day. I'm supposed to be on hand tomorrow to answer any questions about my charts that the monitors have so I don't know how much time I'll have to do other things tomorrow. Ah well.

Commenting on Comments
I've tried several times to post my own comments in reply to the comments that have been left on my page. For some reason, I'm not allowed to do so. Please don't think I'm ignoring them.

As for loving extra long meeting...yes, they are fabulous and do wonders for headaches.

Friday, October 23rd

No headache, yay.

First order of business on Friday is a meeting with the high school principal to brief him on the monitoring occurring next week. The meeting goes well. After that, I go back to my office and work on an IEP. Then I go over to examine a few more charts with the high school crew which takes us up to lunch time.

After lunch, I do a little more paperwork preparing for a meeting on Monday and then it is showtime for the IEP meeting for the student I mentioned in Thursday's post. My coworker translates for the mother and we address the truancy and legal proceedings. We're surprised that the mother doesn't get up and storm out when she hears this. The student is involved with some program related with the juvenile courts and the case manager from that program is at the meeting is there. From everything we had heard about this person, I fully expected her to be a pain in the butt during the meeting but she pretty much just provides information about her part in all this and asks some questions and doesn't seem so bad. It is decided that the student will be on home instruction while an out of district placement is located. We do all the related paperwork. The meeting goes better than expected and lasts more than an hour and half. And that is how the week ends.

End of the Week, Almost

Thursday, October 22nd
I get in and start the day by trying to do a classroom observation on a 3rd grader. At least in my district, elementary school seems much less organized and less formal the middle and high school. The elementary schools don't put student schedules on the district's student information system. I have to wait until almost 9 o'clock to find out if the student is even in. Then when I go to the school, I find out the student just went into gym class. Why I couldn't be told this while I was still at the office and said, "I'm coming over shortly to do a classroom observation", I don't know. So, I leave and go to the middle school to reserve the conference room for another evaluation. After that, I go back to the elementary school and go up to the student's classroom to wait for the students to return from gym. When the students and the teacher return, I learn that the teacher is a substitute today. I still do the observation and feel old as I try to remember if I acted like these kids when I was their age.

After the observation, I leave a Conners CBRS form in the real teacher's mailbox and, while I had planned to test the student, it is just 11 and the class will be going to lunch from 11:30 to 12:20. I would only have an hour with him before I have to attend a meeting, so it will have to wait until next week.

I return to the office and begin to feel a headache come on. Little do I know that this headache will grow and haunt me for the rest of the day, until I take two Advil PM and drift off into sleep.

But that's beside the point. I type up my observation and the observation that I did last week on another student. That, combined with lunch, takes me to the time of my meeting. The meeting is a pre-planning meeting regarding a student at our alternative program. The student was on my caseload last year but I'm still involved because I know the case quite well. The student has already lost credit for the year due to absences. We discuss options for what to do with the student. We also learn the district is pursuing legal action against the parents due to truancy. This meeting takes us up to the end of the day.

I limp home, hoping that my head will explode and put me out of my misery.

Shortened Week Due to Sick Day

Well I was out on Monday because I was under the weather. If I'd had any appointments I would have sucked it up and gone into work but my schedule was clear.

Tuesday, October 20th
I get into work to find out that not only are the phones, which haven't been working since last Friday, still aren't working but some sort of update to our IEP program has had people twiddling their thumbs since yesterday and still has us down today. Its a good thing I was out on Monday. I went through emails and voice mails. I learned that I had to examine some new charts that the monitors will be looking at before turning them in to my boss.

Since the phones weren't working, I went over to the high school to make some phone calls. All three phone calls ended up going to voice mail. Sigh. I then went back to the office and wrote up a letter to send to one of the targets of my phone calls. I'm trying to arrange a meeting with the parents of a new classified student because he is drowning in his current academic placement and something needs to be done. So I finish that letter and drop it in the outgoing mail.

Then I begin spending some quality time with those charts and meet with the transition coordinator about our having a pre-monitor pow-wow with the high school principal. Since the high school principal was absent today we have to find another day to meet with him. Then its lunch and more paperwork and chart review.

Then it was time for a middle school/high school teacher meeting. Of course the major topic of discussion was monitoring. We also discussed progress reports and a number of issues with our IEP software, and that ended the day.

Wednesday, October 21st
Counseling Day! I met with a number of students today. There have been a number of female students that don't feel comfortable meeting with a male counselor. Often this is because they don't feel comfortable talking about boy troubles or other personal issues with a male. If this were private counseling, they would be able to choose the gender of their counselor. I try to be sensitive to this with any female students on my caseload and if it is too much of a barrier to counseling, I try to make arrangements. Today, I meet with two female students on my counseling caseload that I didn't have last year. They were both fine with meeting with me. I met with one male student who pretty much ran out of the room we were in, he was so eager to get out of counseling...well, you can't win them all.

Counseling on Wednesday is pretty good because I get to use one of the guidance secretary's computers because she is out on Wednesday. Today, both guidance secretaries were out. So while I was looking up student schedules on the computer, I also played secretary. I took several messages for one of the guidance counselors as several students came down trying to see her when she wasn't available. Ahhh, the glamorous life of a school psychologist.

So after several hours of counseling, it was back to the office. I stopped off to help one of my coworkers go through their monitoring charts and then it was lunch. After lunch, I played a few more rounds of phone tag with parent and ended up getting two of the parents. I finished reviewing charts...at least until I'm given more names to review. I met with another case manager and the staff from the alternative school that shares our offices about one of the students that we have a meeting with on Friday. This student has already lost credit for the school year due to poor of attendance. This is a student that I strongly advocated retaining last year but I didn't get to make the final decision. Perhaps if this lesson had been taught last year we wouldn't be going through this now. But who knows...we'd probably be in the same boat now. And that was that.

End of the Week

Thursday, October 15th
I came in and tried to do some paperwork. I decided I needed to get some testing protocols for two psychological evaluations that were coming up but when I went downstairs, I got sidetracked with organizing the psychological testing supplies. The need for organization occurred from our department having to abandon our building for the summer while new heating and ventilation was installed in our building. Also a former school psychologist kindly "loaned" us some shelving since he is in the process of moving. So I was working on organizing the stuff when I overheard the newly arrived, contracted speech therapist take a phone call. The poor person just started two days ago and I can immediately tell the phone call isn't going well. I step into the speech office and try to coach her through the call but it doesn't seem to be going anywhere and it sounds like whoever is on the phone is irate. So I take over the call. It turns out it is a mother of a student who has just moved into our district and she is upset because no one has called her regarding her student. She is upset and is talking about calling the state office of education. I begin to try to get some information from her and she says that she has already gone through this routine. I tell her that she and I have never spoken and she should give me a shot. So I get the info and tell her I will call her back. I do a little investigating and find out that a case manager will be assigned and will call her today. I call the mom back and pass along this information. To make a long story longer, I later find out that one of my coworkers was assigned the case and had called the mom to arrange the meeting. The mother told my coworker that the only person that was nice to her was me for having called her back.

Why did I go through this whole story? Well, it actually related to one of the things that from the special education law conference. The number one reason parents go to court with a district is that the level of trust has been eroded. By calling the mother back, I may have helped build trust with the mother.

After that, more high school scheduling problems. I won't go into further details.

Then I went to the middle school to do a classroom observation on a student that I will be testing soon. Before I got there, I spoke with a teacher of one of my students. He expressed his concerns that the software that we were trying to implement for this student is too time consuming to use. The teacher said that he wants to do right by the student and it isn't that he doesn't want to do it but he just doesn't have enough hours in the day.

I then went to the classroom observation. The student I observed certainly provided enough observational data. In addition to this, there was another student that caused me to think to myself, "If that one hasn't been referred, he's gonna be." At the end of the observation, this latter student asked me if I was mute. I just shook my head "no" and left. I have to have some fun.

Then I managed to obtain a 12A HP toner cartridge for my printer. I felt like the manly hunter returning with a kill. My office mate and I can print once again.

So ended Thursday.

Friday, October 16th
Bosses' Day. Somehow I ended up in charge of the Sunshine Fund. I stopped off to get flowers and paper goods for the big breakfast. Once at work and after everything was set up and the festivities started, it was time for the Friday meeting.

I got out of the meeting early because I had to accompany the case manager for the student whose mother called yesterday. After that meeting, the staff meeting finished a short time later and it was lunch time. Before lunch, I finalized an eligibility conference for one of my students and called the mother...on my cellphone...because our office phones weren't allowing us to make outside phone calls...I only did so because I really needed to get this done and I asked the mother to please disregard my cellphone number.

Not being able to make phone calls put a damper on work so I finished the day preparing paperwork for my meeting next week and putting an order together for the ABAS-II since we really need an adaptive skills assessment that comes in Spanish and the Vineland-II does not have it. And then came the weekend.

Wednesday, October 14th

I started my day by going over to the high school for counseling. As space is an issue in any school, I had signed up to use the conference room at the beginning of October to reserve the room on Wednesdays. Well, I was in between sessions, looking up another students schedule to call them down, when a guidance counselor came in and put her stuff in the conference room. The guidance secretary said to her that I was scheduled to use the room and that the guidance counselors would likely be meeting in the common area. The guidance counselor made some joking comment about my being an inconvenience to which I, jokingly, replied, "I followed the rules and signed up for the room. So if I get kicked out of the room, what's the point in following the rules." While I was joking, I think I said it loud enough for the head of guidance to hear. Which was fine by me because she is the one that instituted the rule to begin with.

So, after I finished my counseling jag, I went around to find two students to get some info and to see a Spanish teacher about a student in her class that told me he was having trouble with the reading and writing assignments. And this is a student who has trouble reading English to begin with. After speaking with the teacher about how he is doing in her class, I then returned to home base.

Back at the ranch, I prepared some paperwork for an IEP meeting I had at 1pm. But it wasn't like I could do it on my computer because I don't have ink in my printer to print any of it out. So I used the computer of an absent coworker. I also tried to make some arrangements for a second IEP meeting I have on Thursday. After that, I had time for a quick lunch and then it was off to the IEP meeting.

The meeting went well, although the student wasn't too happy to hear that she wasn't going to be transferring out of her resource math class. One thing came up that I have had come up before. The first time it occurred, it was the interpretation of the parent. In this case, it was the student. The term "slow." We were talking about how she works more slowly than some other students. She interpreted slow to mean "stupid." As I said, I've encountered this before and I think it is a holdover from an earlier time when slow had that connotation. Beyond that, the meeting went well.

Friday, October 9th to Tuesday, October 13th, & Holy Crap, Someone Has Read My Blog

Friday, October 9th
Well, it was time for our weekly department meeting. Since our start time is 8am and the meeting begins at 9:30, it doesn't leave a whole lot of time to do anything outside of the office. As I may have said before, the special needs department has their offices in a separate building and case managers usually visit their assigned schools but do most of the paperwork in the office. While the high school is only a block away, an hour and a half doesn't leave you much time. So I busied myself with paperwork. I finished up few things and started a psych report.

Then the meeting started. We had two guest speakers today. The English and social studies supervisor and the math and science supervisor. Each of them discussed the district curriculum for those subject areas. While the discussing the lower grades, the conversation was much more focused but when it came to middle school on up, the conversation turned murky. It is funny (not ha ha funny, quirky funny) that while high school requirements are much more regulated, things become much more uncertain in the area of curriculum.

This may be a personal gripe but I know that some of my coworkers share similar feelings: the pool of goals and objectives that we pull from are often just to core curriculum content standards (CCCS) for that subject area and to read them, they make no sense as goals. While the CCCSs outline what a student is supposed to be taught, it doesn't focus on how they are supposed to be taught or what skills are needed to learn it, particularly at the high school level. The high school goals and objectives for, say, social studies, read something like this: student will be exposed to multiple forms of government.

With stuff like that, it makes no sense to use that as a goal/objective. I know it isn't just me, hell, there is a whole book about aligning goals and objectives with curriculum standards.

Follow our presenters and a break for lunch, we had met briefly to discuss any case management issues. My only issue was a stationary issue: week 4 of not having a new ink cartridge for my printer. And me and my office mate have shaken that cartridge to death to get every last ounce of toner out of it.

Then we broke up into our groups to continue with chart reviews for monitoring.

Monday, October 12th
I attended a workshop called Special Education Court. As I was waiting for some of my coworkers who were also sent to the workshop, I played my usual game of people watching with the purpose of seeing if I knew anyone from NJASP conferences or from my school psych program. I also played "guess whose the school psychologist." I had no way to confirm who was or wasn't a school psychologist but it passed the time.

The workshop was good but definitely not inspirational and not necessarily a way to get you motivated or inspired for the week. I made me feel more like climbing back into bed and going under the covers. The scariest thing that I came away from it was that because most administrative law judges may not have much familiarity with special education procedures, a district could do everything correctly and the judge could still find the district at fault because they base their judgment on something that they have no qualification to assess. One of the presenters discussed a case where the judgment wrote in their summary 10 pages of praise for the district, 5 pages of reasons why the petitioners case was incorrect but in the end still wrote that they didn't think that the student made as much progress as they could have so the decision went for the petitioner.

Aside from that scare, the presenters, all lawyers, did provide good advice on how to avoid court and some of the common mistakes districts make. Perhaps in my next post, I'll put a few of those up, if I remember to bring the handouts home.

The day ended with an interesting (and funny) mock mediation where the presenters played the part of the lawyers for the parents and the district and the mediator, and volunteers from the audience played the part of the parents and the district representatives.

Tuesday, October 13th
I love coming in after being out for a day and not seeing my voice mail message light blinking...but 21 new emails. Krikey. Fortunately, most of it was fluff. I worked on the psych report I started on Friday; tried to do some organizing for an IEP meeting I have on Thursday (is this considered foreshadowing...); dealt with a call regarding one of my students that is in a world language class and feels they can't handle the reading and writing; and mailed some paperwork out.

I spilled a little hot chocolate on the front of my pants just before having to go to the high school to see some teachers, so I walked around the high school holding my paperwork in front of me like a schoolboy trying to hide an embarrassing moment (so help me, I'm in my late 30s). I also met with my monitoring group again and we finalized several charts and were feeling pretty good about that.

Then I attended a meeting for a student and his guardian to go over the results of the testing we did over the summer on the student. We had already had the eligibility during the summer but the student was away visiting family at the time and it was felt important that he hear the results. His guardian asked some very good questions about whether or not the student is in the right program. It is a hard answer because the student has behavioral problems and is in an out of district placement. My response was that he is but he also has to recognize that he has a problem and feel the need to work the program.

Wow, someone actually read this...
Lynn Marentette wrote:

I'm a school psychologist, too, and I find it interesting that you are working full-time at a high school. I'd like to reach out to other school psychologists who are working at the secondary level, because it seems that the bulk of the research in our field has been focused at the elementary level, and most of the NASP conference topics don't address much that relates to the high school level, either.

At any rate, I had a few questions to ask you. 1. How many students are enrolled at the high school where you work? 2. Do you have any other schools? 3. How many special education students do you have in your school? 4. How many of your special education students are in more "self-contained" classrooms for part of the day due to lower cognitive abilities, serious emotional disorders, autism, etc.? 4. Does your school have a social worker? If so, what is the social worker's role in supporting the students who eligible for special education?

First of all, thanks for reading this thing.

As to your first comment, I think that the focus shifts at the secondary level and behavior and psychiatric issues become more of a concern. I don't know if the folks in the field just think that an SLD student who is 9 years old is the same as an SLD student that is 16 years old. I'm sure that isn't the case across the board.

As to your questions, I work in a smaller (compared to some in our state), but diverse district. Among grades 7 to 12 (our high school and middle school are connected) we have about 1400 students. 14% of those students are classified. I don't have numbers handy for student in out of district placements but they are included in the 14%. Our district does have an alternative program for special education students which would be considered self-contained and I think we have about 10 to 15 students in that program.

If by any other schools, you mean district, yes, we do. We are a pre-k to 12 district. If you mean my personal assignment, technically no. I am the 9th grade case manager. But my more psychology related duties spreads me out. If I'm the one that is around when a risk assessment needs to be done on a 5th grader, then I'm off to the upper elementary school. The same goes for the other school psychologists and social workers, if they are around when a high schooler needs to be assessed, off they go. The same goes for psychological evaluations: its a round robin sort of deal.

In regard to school social workers, our special needs department is composed of 5 learning disabilities consultant-teachers, 5 school psychologists, 4 school social workers, and 3 speech-language therapists (it should be 4 but we have had a hard time filling one position). Lynn, I don't know if you are in New Jersey, but I'm guessing from this question that you may be from out of state, and I know things are done differently in other states, but each of us are assigned as individual case managers above and beyond what our duties are based on our specialties.

One of my new coworkers was a school psychologist in Seattle before moving to New Jersey. In Seattle, she was a school psychologist and she didn't do nearly a quarter of the paperwork that we do in Jersey. She said that the special education teacher was responsible for making the IEP.

That doesn't happen here. So yes, we do have social workers in the district but they are currently assigned as case managers to the lower grades. Their duties as a social worker include completing social history assessments for evaluations, counseling, and risk assessments.

At the moment, I'm the only person in the high school that does counseling for the special needs students that have it as part of their IEP. My high school cohorts (the 10th and 11/12th grade case managers) are both learning consultants. But that is the nature of the beast and may change from year to year.

I hope this has answered your questions. If you have any more please ask them. And once again, thanks for reading.