It is the last week of summer vacation. Next week, many teachers and other school staff (myself included) will re-enter schools and prepare for the onslaught. I've been trying to think of a few more posts to make in the interim but I've got nothing.
I'm torn because I am looking forward to seeing my coworkers again but the situation that led to my silence is ongoing. I am glad I took the summer off.
So unless I come up with something between now and next week, I'll have my first post of the new school year on the 7th of September.
Monday, August 30, 2010
Wednesday, August 25, 2010
Games with Kids
I wanted to plug a couple of interesting games that might be useful to use with kids in both the classroom and the counseling room.
The first one is Happy Birthday, Robot! This labor of love by graphic designer and game designer, Daniel Solis, is touted as "a storytelling game for families and classrooms." I'd explain it further but I think the video tells it best.
I bought the game when it was being funded through Kickstarter. It is a really great game and one that I am looking forward to playing with my son when he gets older. I also think that it would be great for special education students that have trouble with the process of writing. If you're looking for a game to help teach collaborative storytelling, this is a great game.
The only thing extra that a teacher would need are about 10 to 15 six-sided dice. Blank dice that are modified for the game can be purchased at most educational supply stores or regular six-sided dice may be used.
Happy Birthday, Robot! can be purchased directly from Evil Hat Productions (don't be scared off by the name).
The next game is one that I like to use as an icebreaker for group counseling with kids. It is called Rorschach: The Inkblot Party Game by Bucephalus Games. From their website:
That's all for now.
Remember, I plan on being back to regular posts starting after Labor Day.
The first one is Happy Birthday, Robot! This labor of love by graphic designer and game designer, Daniel Solis, is touted as "a storytelling game for families and classrooms." I'd explain it further but I think the video tells it best.
I bought the game when it was being funded through Kickstarter. It is a really great game and one that I am looking forward to playing with my son when he gets older. I also think that it would be great for special education students that have trouble with the process of writing. If you're looking for a game to help teach collaborative storytelling, this is a great game.
The only thing extra that a teacher would need are about 10 to 15 six-sided dice. Blank dice that are modified for the game can be purchased at most educational supply stores or regular six-sided dice may be used.
Happy Birthday, Robot! can be purchased directly from Evil Hat Productions (don't be scared off by the name).
The next game is one that I like to use as an icebreaker for group counseling with kids. It is called Rorschach: The Inkblot Party Game by Bucephalus Games. From their website:
This uproarious party game brings players together to look through Rorschach tests-inkblots, trying to match answers with the other players to score points. Try to match your crazy interpretations with as many of the other players as you can!The object is to not only match your answer with each other player but to also have a unique answer. I do think it is a great icebreaker game. It can be obtained through pretty regular channels, such as here at Amazon.com.
That's all for now.
Remember, I plan on being back to regular posts starting after Labor Day.
Saturday, August 21, 2010
The Highest Compliment (An Aside)
I guess with two posts in one day I'm just making up for lost time. If I count all the days that I missed since February, it looks like I owe about 70 to 80 posts. But I know that isn't going to happen.
So this is just a random thing. Two short stories from the lost time.
While others in my profession may think differently, I don't think that what we do as far as creating a psychological picture of a person is particularly amazing or surprising. While we may spit out numbers from cognitive assessments that mostly don't mean much to the parents or students, what we tell them about how their child functions really isn't something that surprises most parents. If you live with a person their entire life, you get a pretty good idea of how they function.
I think the amazing part comes from being able to generate that picture from only seeing the student for two or two and a half hours.
The highest compliment that I have received from a parent after they have received my report or had me go over it with them has been "that sounds exactly like my child."
Now another story. I had a particularly difficult and delicate case for the past year and a half. It was the end of the school year and I had a second IEP meeting with the parents to hammer down the student's schedule for the next school year. During the meeting, one parent begins to talk about one subject area where they felt the services that were provided were subpar and a disappointment. The parent went on for a few minutes and then stopped and looked expectantly at me, awaiting my response.
Now I'll skip to the next day in order to get to the punchline. I'm in my office and one of my coworkers who was also at that meeting comes in to talk to me about a different subject. Before my coworker leaves, she says that she just had to tell me about the stroke of genius that I had during the meeting. That when I said the thing that I did, she had wanted to hug me right there in the meeting because it had just completely shut the parent down and ended the argument that the parent was looking for.
So what did I say? I said, to the parent, "I don't have a response for that." This wasn't a stroke of genius. I really didn't have a response. From my point of view, I remember a long pause and my thoughts were along the lines of "what am I going to say, what am I going to say, oh crap, everyone here is going to think I'm a complete loser and incompetent. This is where they found out how incompetent I am..."
So it was not a stroke of genius. I just couldn't think of anything to say.
So this is just a random thing. Two short stories from the lost time.
While others in my profession may think differently, I don't think that what we do as far as creating a psychological picture of a person is particularly amazing or surprising. While we may spit out numbers from cognitive assessments that mostly don't mean much to the parents or students, what we tell them about how their child functions really isn't something that surprises most parents. If you live with a person their entire life, you get a pretty good idea of how they function.
I think the amazing part comes from being able to generate that picture from only seeing the student for two or two and a half hours.
The highest compliment that I have received from a parent after they have received my report or had me go over it with them has been "that sounds exactly like my child."
Now another story. I had a particularly difficult and delicate case for the past year and a half. It was the end of the school year and I had a second IEP meeting with the parents to hammer down the student's schedule for the next school year. During the meeting, one parent begins to talk about one subject area where they felt the services that were provided were subpar and a disappointment. The parent went on for a few minutes and then stopped and looked expectantly at me, awaiting my response.
Now I'll skip to the next day in order to get to the punchline. I'm in my office and one of my coworkers who was also at that meeting comes in to talk to me about a different subject. Before my coworker leaves, she says that she just had to tell me about the stroke of genius that I had during the meeting. That when I said the thing that I did, she had wanted to hug me right there in the meeting because it had just completely shut the parent down and ended the argument that the parent was looking for.
So what did I say? I said, to the parent, "I don't have a response for that." This wasn't a stroke of genius. I really didn't have a response. From my point of view, I remember a long pause and my thoughts were along the lines of "what am I going to say, what am I going to say, oh crap, everyone here is going to think I'm a complete loser and incompetent. This is where they found out how incompetent I am..."
So it was not a stroke of genius. I just couldn't think of anything to say.
Blog-Fading & A School Psychologist's Summer Vacation
Blog-Fading...
Well, like Marty McFly, I've turned translucent as I faded from sight and the few people who read this thing have probably gone away. Although, I'm amazed that I actually picked up one new follower in the past week. While it may look like two new followers, one of them is actually me. I accidently ended up following my own blog in an attempt to do something else. Now I have to figure out how to un-follow myself.
Anyway, thanks to a friend that I haven't seen or heard from in ages and who has been reading my blog without my knowledge, I've decided to get back into this. As I noted below, I stopped writing my blog due to some personal issues that have been putting me through a wringer. Those issues are still ongoing so there will likely be periods of time that I skip. I'm going to try to use this as a hobby.
So what I'm trying to say is I'm back for as long as I can be. So what can you expect? Well, I'm going to do this post now which will include a bit of "diary" stuff. Then I will probably disappeared for another week or two. Then come September, when schools all over New Jersey start up and the faculty and staff have their first day, all bright eyed,bushy tailed, and eager to start the school year, I'll start with regular posts.
So without further adieu...
The End of the 2009-10 School Year & What I Did on My Summer Vacation (Work Wise)
When I last left off, I was in the middle of IEP season. Depending on the sort of district you work in, you may have IEPs scattered throughout the school year but the two districts that I have worked in have had the trend of once January passes, IEPs begin in earnest. Things were going along well enough. I had IEPs scheduled for March and then I got sick. This had the impact of causing me to be out of work for several day and causing me to have to cancel two days of meetings. Now that was bad because that meant I would have to reschedule about 10 or 11 meetings. Spring break also got in the way. So more lost days that I couldn't do anything. Just before spring break, I got some very bad news.
This bad new impacted the rest of the school year. I had to schedule IEPs for days that I knew I was going to be in but this is hard to do because, by the law, you have to give 15 calendar days notice of a meeting to the parents. This was hard to do because I didn't know where I was going to be in 15 days. So I had to put off a lot of stuff. The end result was that I was still doing IEP meetings in June, right up until a few days before the school year ended. The majority of my coworkers were done with their IEPs by the end of May and just finishing off the paperwork so that they could go away for the summer worry free. Such was not my fate.
So now we reach the end of the school year. So if you aren't a school psychologist, you might be wondering how things work for the summer time because the legal timeline for referrals does not stop just because everyone has gone home for the summer. Once someone has been referred to the child study team, we have 20 days to have an initial referral conference where it is decided whether testing will occur or not. Then from that point, we have 90 days to complete the testing and have an eligibility meeting. For students in special education that have been referred for a re-evaluation, we have 60 days to complete the re-evaluation and have an eligibility meeting. In addition to this, there are often issues that come up during the summer that requires someone attention since coordinating things between the district and out of district placements is a colossal task.
So what do districts do. That depends on the district.
Option #1: Several child study team positions may actually be 11 or 12 month positions which mean those staff members actually work during the summer and get a certain amount of vacation time during the summer. This has the benefit of ensuring some continuity of care since the staff may know what is going on from the rest of the school year.
Option #2: Hire staff within the child study team to work the summer on a per hour, per diem or per case basis. Again, this has the benefit of continuity of care. The only real downside to this is a financial one and that is really only if you care about it: the money you are paid doesn't go toward your pension. But this is a contractual thing and I have even heard that some people that are hired on as an 11 or 12 month position may have some sort of stipulation in the teacher contract that the pay from working in the summer doesn't go toward the pension.
Option #3: Outsource the summer work. Particularly the evaluations. The particular county educational commissions have school psychologists, social workers, and LDTCs that do evaluations. They are hired on a per case basis. My district has used them during the school year when we don't have someone that can do the evaluation in a particular language. They do the assessments during the summer. The danger with this is one that has started rearing its head again. Just like outsourcing food and janitorial services, some district have looked at outsourcing child study teams. There is a rumor that a town in Monmouth county is doing that this coming school year. Most of their child study team has been RIFfed (Reduction in Force for folks at home; or just fired; RIFfing is the easiest way to eliminate tenured staff). I heard about this when I was training to be a school psychologist. It has been tried before and with budget issues in New Jersey, it is coming up again.
My district does a combination of #2 and #3. I took part in option #2 last year but not this year due to the aforementioned problems. So this left me with having to do my IEPs at home during the summer which, thanks to the miracles of modern computing, I was able to do. But working from home stinks with a capital "inks." With a young child at home, who doesn't nap, it is hard to get work done. And then there is the lure of all the things you would rather be doing.
I did get my paperwork done eventually. And I went to work for two days to print out the IEPs and put them together with the paperwork from the meetings.
And as far is work is concerned, that is how I spent my summer vacation. While the extra money from working during the summer would have been nice, it was really necessary for me to stay home this summer and I don't regret it for a moment. The last time I was home for the summer was during undergrad.
Well, like Marty McFly, I've turned translucent as I faded from sight and the few people who read this thing have probably gone away. Although, I'm amazed that I actually picked up one new follower in the past week. While it may look like two new followers, one of them is actually me. I accidently ended up following my own blog in an attempt to do something else. Now I have to figure out how to un-follow myself.
Anyway, thanks to a friend that I haven't seen or heard from in ages and who has been reading my blog without my knowledge, I've decided to get back into this. As I noted below, I stopped writing my blog due to some personal issues that have been putting me through a wringer. Those issues are still ongoing so there will likely be periods of time that I skip. I'm going to try to use this as a hobby.
So what I'm trying to say is I'm back for as long as I can be. So what can you expect? Well, I'm going to do this post now which will include a bit of "diary" stuff. Then I will probably disappeared for another week or two. Then come September, when schools all over New Jersey start up and the faculty and staff have their first day, all bright eyed,bushy tailed, and eager to start the school year, I'll start with regular posts.
So without further adieu...
The End of the 2009-10 School Year & What I Did on My Summer Vacation (Work Wise)
When I last left off, I was in the middle of IEP season. Depending on the sort of district you work in, you may have IEPs scattered throughout the school year but the two districts that I have worked in have had the trend of once January passes, IEPs begin in earnest. Things were going along well enough. I had IEPs scheduled for March and then I got sick. This had the impact of causing me to be out of work for several day and causing me to have to cancel two days of meetings. Now that was bad because that meant I would have to reschedule about 10 or 11 meetings. Spring break also got in the way. So more lost days that I couldn't do anything. Just before spring break, I got some very bad news.
This bad new impacted the rest of the school year. I had to schedule IEPs for days that I knew I was going to be in but this is hard to do because, by the law, you have to give 15 calendar days notice of a meeting to the parents. This was hard to do because I didn't know where I was going to be in 15 days. So I had to put off a lot of stuff. The end result was that I was still doing IEP meetings in June, right up until a few days before the school year ended. The majority of my coworkers were done with their IEPs by the end of May and just finishing off the paperwork so that they could go away for the summer worry free. Such was not my fate.
So now we reach the end of the school year. So if you aren't a school psychologist, you might be wondering how things work for the summer time because the legal timeline for referrals does not stop just because everyone has gone home for the summer. Once someone has been referred to the child study team, we have 20 days to have an initial referral conference where it is decided whether testing will occur or not. Then from that point, we have 90 days to complete the testing and have an eligibility meeting. For students in special education that have been referred for a re-evaluation, we have 60 days to complete the re-evaluation and have an eligibility meeting. In addition to this, there are often issues that come up during the summer that requires someone attention since coordinating things between the district and out of district placements is a colossal task.
So what do districts do. That depends on the district.
Option #1: Several child study team positions may actually be 11 or 12 month positions which mean those staff members actually work during the summer and get a certain amount of vacation time during the summer. This has the benefit of ensuring some continuity of care since the staff may know what is going on from the rest of the school year.
Option #2: Hire staff within the child study team to work the summer on a per hour, per diem or per case basis. Again, this has the benefit of continuity of care. The only real downside to this is a financial one and that is really only if you care about it: the money you are paid doesn't go toward your pension. But this is a contractual thing and I have even heard that some people that are hired on as an 11 or 12 month position may have some sort of stipulation in the teacher contract that the pay from working in the summer doesn't go toward the pension.
Option #3: Outsource the summer work. Particularly the evaluations. The particular county educational commissions have school psychologists, social workers, and LDTCs that do evaluations. They are hired on a per case basis. My district has used them during the school year when we don't have someone that can do the evaluation in a particular language. They do the assessments during the summer. The danger with this is one that has started rearing its head again. Just like outsourcing food and janitorial services, some district have looked at outsourcing child study teams. There is a rumor that a town in Monmouth county is doing that this coming school year. Most of their child study team has been RIFfed (Reduction in Force for folks at home; or just fired; RIFfing is the easiest way to eliminate tenured staff). I heard about this when I was training to be a school psychologist. It has been tried before and with budget issues in New Jersey, it is coming up again.
My district does a combination of #2 and #3. I took part in option #2 last year but not this year due to the aforementioned problems. So this left me with having to do my IEPs at home during the summer which, thanks to the miracles of modern computing, I was able to do. But working from home stinks with a capital "inks." With a young child at home, who doesn't nap, it is hard to get work done. And then there is the lure of all the things you would rather be doing.
I did get my paperwork done eventually. And I went to work for two days to print out the IEPs and put them together with the paperwork from the meetings.
And as far is work is concerned, that is how I spent my summer vacation. While the extra money from working during the summer would have been nice, it was really necessary for me to stay home this summer and I don't regret it for a moment. The last time I was home for the summer was during undergrad.
Wednesday, August 11, 2010
Blog On Hold
While it is obvious that nothing has been happening here for sometime, it is because life got busy and then a personal hardship/tragedy/whatever hit. This still is not over and until it is I can't see myself posting anything.
And if you happen to be a certain someone who I reconnected with over the phone AND who was reading this thing, please drop me a PM so that we can stay in touch.
And if you happen to be a certain someone who I reconnected with over the phone AND who was reading this thing, please drop me a PM so that we can stay in touch.
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