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!
Friday, October 30, 2009
Thursday, October 29, 2009
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.
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.
Wednesday, October 28, 2009
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...
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...
Tuesday, October 27, 2009
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.
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.
Monday, October 26, 2009
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.
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.
Saturday, October 24, 2009
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.
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.
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.
Wednesday, October 21, 2009
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.
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.
Friday, October 16, 2009
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.
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 14, 2009
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.
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.
Tuesday, October 13, 2009
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:
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.
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.First of all, thanks for reading this thing.
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?
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.
Thursday, October 8, 2009
Thursday, October 8th
Well, I finally remember to make a daily post. Whooo Hoo, I'm on a streak.
Anyway, today was all about paperwork and monitoring. I completed a good bit of paperwork and then got together with my high school cohorts and went through charts to make sure they were up to snuff. Not much more to say about it than that. We just made sure all the paperwork was present and in the proper place. Fun was had by all. We concluded that it was much more fun to do this together than for each of us to look through individual charts alone.
I started another psychological report and got assigned another psychological. I also picked up some paperwork that a student had left for me with a guidance counselor.
Anyway, today was all about paperwork and monitoring. I completed a good bit of paperwork and then got together with my high school cohorts and went through charts to make sure they were up to snuff. Not much more to say about it than that. We just made sure all the paperwork was present and in the proper place. Fun was had by all. We concluded that it was much more fun to do this together than for each of us to look through individual charts alone.
I started another psychological report and got assigned another psychological. I also picked up some paperwork that a student had left for me with a guidance counselor.
Wednesday, October 7, 2009
Well, at least I remembered by Wednesday this time.
Monday, October 5th
The week starts off with a bang: an initial referral conference at 8am. Even when a family is doing everything right for their child, the child can still have problems in school. In this case, it is a kid that tries really hard and gets stressed out. It was decided that testing was in order, so that is another psychological evaluation coming my way which is fine. I still like to test. After that, my day is a blur. I really have a hard time remembering it. Oh, wait, I remember going to the high school and getting the last schedule changed for a student impacted by the whole scheduling debacle. After getting that changed, I called the student's parent to let her know of the change. I scored a WISC, Bender, and Conners CBRS. I attempted to complete some other paperwork with little to no success.
Tuesday, October 6th
Well, no good deed goes unpunished. I got into the office and the first email I see is from the mother of the student whose schedule I changed to bring into line with his IEP yesterday. The mother had spoken with the student and felt that the change should be undone for several reasons. I called the mother and spoke with her on the phone. Then I went to the high school to see about getting the change done. His guidance counselor was busy with Fall HSPAs so I went back to my office and sent an email since I was going to be in a training from 9:30am to 2pm.
Now it may seem like I do a lot of traveling back and forth between my office and the high school but it isn't so bad. The high school is a block away so it is a nice walk.
I then went to the training. It was an assistive technology training for a suite of software to create and modify assignments. It was one of the smoother running trainings. The computers ran smoothly and the program worked well. My thoughts were that the software had a greater learning curve than expected so the teachers were going to play with it and we would get back together in two weeks to see what questions they had.
After that, I went back to the office and generated some paperwork that needed to get done. I started the reports for the risk assessments that I did the previous week and also tried to review some charts for monitoring. And then it was time to go home.
Wednesday, October 7th
I did some more counseling today and delivered some paperwork for a student to bring home to her parents. I then returned to the office and really got down to paperwork. I completed the two risk assessments and a psychological evaluation. I mailed out the psych report and sent the risk assessments through interoffice. I then did some of my unofficial duties, I got the cards for Boss's Day and had lunch. Then I started some more chart reviews. After that, there was a staffing of a student that was recently evaluated. By the time that was done, the day was almost through. I checked in with one of the new co-workers who had her first real day of work and headed for home.
The week starts off with a bang: an initial referral conference at 8am. Even when a family is doing everything right for their child, the child can still have problems in school. In this case, it is a kid that tries really hard and gets stressed out. It was decided that testing was in order, so that is another psychological evaluation coming my way which is fine. I still like to test. After that, my day is a blur. I really have a hard time remembering it. Oh, wait, I remember going to the high school and getting the last schedule changed for a student impacted by the whole scheduling debacle. After getting that changed, I called the student's parent to let her know of the change. I scored a WISC, Bender, and Conners CBRS. I attempted to complete some other paperwork with little to no success.
Tuesday, October 6th
Well, no good deed goes unpunished. I got into the office and the first email I see is from the mother of the student whose schedule I changed to bring into line with his IEP yesterday. The mother had spoken with the student and felt that the change should be undone for several reasons. I called the mother and spoke with her on the phone. Then I went to the high school to see about getting the change done. His guidance counselor was busy with Fall HSPAs so I went back to my office and sent an email since I was going to be in a training from 9:30am to 2pm.
Now it may seem like I do a lot of traveling back and forth between my office and the high school but it isn't so bad. The high school is a block away so it is a nice walk.
I then went to the training. It was an assistive technology training for a suite of software to create and modify assignments. It was one of the smoother running trainings. The computers ran smoothly and the program worked well. My thoughts were that the software had a greater learning curve than expected so the teachers were going to play with it and we would get back together in two weeks to see what questions they had.
After that, I went back to the office and generated some paperwork that needed to get done. I started the reports for the risk assessments that I did the previous week and also tried to review some charts for monitoring. And then it was time to go home.
Wednesday, October 7th
I did some more counseling today and delivered some paperwork for a student to bring home to her parents. I then returned to the office and really got down to paperwork. I completed the two risk assessments and a psychological evaluation. I mailed out the psych report and sent the risk assessments through interoffice. I then did some of my unofficial duties, I got the cards for Boss's Day and had lunch. Then I started some more chart reviews. After that, there was a staffing of a student that was recently evaluated. By the time that was done, the day was almost through. I checked in with one of the new co-workers who had her first real day of work and headed for home.
Friday, October 2, 2009
The Road to Hell...
As I stated in my first post, it was my intention to do a post a day...well so much for that this week. Ah well. Here is the week in a nutshell.
Tuesday
After a three day weekend, it was like I never left. There were a number of paperwork and organizational issues to take care of which is nothing unusual. Then the big one came: a risk assessment. A student had spoken about killing herself. I went over and met with the student, guidance counselor, the district counselor, and the guidance counselor's intern. It was very crowded in the very small office. In the end, it was determined that the student needed to be screened at a local psychiatric screening center for a number of reasons that are too confidential to place on a blog. The whole situation was made more murky due to a question of guardianship.
Wednesday
I got a chance to meet with students that have counseling in their IEP. Some were the same students that I had seen last year. Some were new. Counseling in a school is not psychotherapy, although many teachers and other school staff think that it is or should be.
Following this, I had to make final arrangements for a meeting with some teachers on Thursday. Arrangements included making sure one of the teachers, who had a class scheduled the period of the meeting, was able to send her students to another class. After that it was back to my office for a quick lunch before a student showed up for testing.
Testing: I completed the psychological evaluation. It was composed of a cognitive assessment, some projective drawings, a behavior rating scale, visual motor coordination test, and an interview.
This was the one day of the week that the majority of the work was actually related to being a school psychologist and not a case manager.
Thursday
I got into work and had a voice mail message from a guidance counselor that a student had seen her during back to school night and had asked her to change a class to another period because the atmosphere in the class was too distracting. The guidance counselor was going to change the class from period 4 to period 1. I checked the high school master schedule to make sure that the class was an in-class support teacher and discovered that not only wasn't the period 1 class supported but neither was the class that he was currently assigned. Crap.
I took a closer look because a similar issue had occurred with another class about two weeks before. And I found that not only was this student in an unsupported class but so was another student. Then I got a sinking feeling. I called one of my co-workers who is deeply involved in scheduling the special education high school students. She stated looking at the various sections of this subject (physical science; I don't know why I'm being so mysterious about it) and discovered that 5 other students were impacted in the same way. Double crap.
We then started looking other courses and student schedules. One of my students who was supposed to have all in-class support classes wasn't in any in-class support classes. Then we discovered that it wasn't just freshmen (my caseload). This impacted students across the grades, mostly in the sciences. So the high school case managers had to check each students schedules against the services in the IEPs. This took a fair amount of time and raised the blood pressure of everyone involved because, thanks to computers, we were able to look at when the classes were changed from in-class support classes to unsupported classes. Without casting blame, the only explanation that we were able to come up with was that more sections of certain subjects were created and the scheduling program was allowed to balance the class numbers but no one ever looked to see if special education students were where they should be when it was over. And since it was guidance that created the new sections and did the redistribution of students...And that is one of those situations that leads to the Us vs. Them feelings.
In the midst of this, one of us gets a call that there is a student in crisis over at the high school and since I'm the school psychologist, off I go. It didn't end in a referral to the psych screener but it did involved about an hour and a half of counseling and working on coping skills. It was a textbook case of someone in the process of developing a generalized anxiety disorder. Fortunately the student was about to enter outside treatment and, in the end, the student was able to return to class for the rest of the day, which was good because I was concerned that this might lead to school avoidance.
I made it back in time to be a part of the second half of a conference call with the company that provides us with the special education information system. The district had just purchased the services of this company toward the end of the '07-'08 school year and there are still kinks in the system, particularly in having this system communicate with the school information system. It was a good meeting because we learned about some capabilities of the program that we didn't know about.
Then it was off to the meeting I mention under Wednesday. It involved the teachers of a particular student and to answer any concerns regarding that student. It is an involved case and a number of the teachers were passionate in their positions, which is a good thing. Especially since none of them seemed passionate for selfish reasons. I did spend about 40 minutes after the meeting debriefing one teacher who had been particularly heated.
Friday
The day started with the aftermath of the scheduling debacle from Thursday. All the schedules were corrected and we had to call the students down and give them their new schedules and explain the change. Some students were cool about, some didn't necessarily want the change. In the case of the latter, I told the students to speak with their parents and if they felt the same, the parents should give me a call. By the time this was done, it was time for the Friday staff meeting.
The theme of the meeting: monitoring of course. Following a brief discussion, we were broken down by school and told to review charts for monitoring. My group put together a list of names and then we split up to go through charts. And that is how the day ended.
See you next week.
Tuesday
After a three day weekend, it was like I never left. There were a number of paperwork and organizational issues to take care of which is nothing unusual. Then the big one came: a risk assessment. A student had spoken about killing herself. I went over and met with the student, guidance counselor, the district counselor, and the guidance counselor's intern. It was very crowded in the very small office. In the end, it was determined that the student needed to be screened at a local psychiatric screening center for a number of reasons that are too confidential to place on a blog. The whole situation was made more murky due to a question of guardianship.
Wednesday
I got a chance to meet with students that have counseling in their IEP. Some were the same students that I had seen last year. Some were new. Counseling in a school is not psychotherapy, although many teachers and other school staff think that it is or should be.
Following this, I had to make final arrangements for a meeting with some teachers on Thursday. Arrangements included making sure one of the teachers, who had a class scheduled the period of the meeting, was able to send her students to another class. After that it was back to my office for a quick lunch before a student showed up for testing.
Testing: I completed the psychological evaluation. It was composed of a cognitive assessment, some projective drawings, a behavior rating scale, visual motor coordination test, and an interview.
This was the one day of the week that the majority of the work was actually related to being a school psychologist and not a case manager.
Thursday
I got into work and had a voice mail message from a guidance counselor that a student had seen her during back to school night and had asked her to change a class to another period because the atmosphere in the class was too distracting. The guidance counselor was going to change the class from period 4 to period 1. I checked the high school master schedule to make sure that the class was an in-class support teacher and discovered that not only wasn't the period 1 class supported but neither was the class that he was currently assigned. Crap.
I took a closer look because a similar issue had occurred with another class about two weeks before. And I found that not only was this student in an unsupported class but so was another student. Then I got a sinking feeling. I called one of my co-workers who is deeply involved in scheduling the special education high school students. She stated looking at the various sections of this subject (physical science; I don't know why I'm being so mysterious about it) and discovered that 5 other students were impacted in the same way. Double crap.
We then started looking other courses and student schedules. One of my students who was supposed to have all in-class support classes wasn't in any in-class support classes. Then we discovered that it wasn't just freshmen (my caseload). This impacted students across the grades, mostly in the sciences. So the high school case managers had to check each students schedules against the services in the IEPs. This took a fair amount of time and raised the blood pressure of everyone involved because, thanks to computers, we were able to look at when the classes were changed from in-class support classes to unsupported classes. Without casting blame, the only explanation that we were able to come up with was that more sections of certain subjects were created and the scheduling program was allowed to balance the class numbers but no one ever looked to see if special education students were where they should be when it was over. And since it was guidance that created the new sections and did the redistribution of students...And that is one of those situations that leads to the Us vs. Them feelings.
In the midst of this, one of us gets a call that there is a student in crisis over at the high school and since I'm the school psychologist, off I go. It didn't end in a referral to the psych screener but it did involved about an hour and a half of counseling and working on coping skills. It was a textbook case of someone in the process of developing a generalized anxiety disorder. Fortunately the student was about to enter outside treatment and, in the end, the student was able to return to class for the rest of the day, which was good because I was concerned that this might lead to school avoidance.
I made it back in time to be a part of the second half of a conference call with the company that provides us with the special education information system. The district had just purchased the services of this company toward the end of the '07-'08 school year and there are still kinks in the system, particularly in having this system communicate with the school information system. It was a good meeting because we learned about some capabilities of the program that we didn't know about.
Then it was off to the meeting I mention under Wednesday. It involved the teachers of a particular student and to answer any concerns regarding that student. It is an involved case and a number of the teachers were passionate in their positions, which is a good thing. Especially since none of them seemed passionate for selfish reasons. I did spend about 40 minutes after the meeting debriefing one teacher who had been particularly heated.
Friday
The day started with the aftermath of the scheduling debacle from Thursday. All the schedules were corrected and we had to call the students down and give them their new schedules and explain the change. Some students were cool about, some didn't necessarily want the change. In the case of the latter, I told the students to speak with their parents and if they felt the same, the parents should give me a call. By the time this was done, it was time for the Friday staff meeting.
The theme of the meeting: monitoring of course. Following a brief discussion, we were broken down by school and told to review charts for monitoring. My group put together a list of names and then we split up to go through charts. And that is how the day ended.
See you next week.
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