Long Day, Poor Memory

Today just felt like a long day but I can barely remember any of it.  So I'm going to try to hit the highlights.

I got into work and was told by the office manager that the company that oversees our IEP program managed to upload the information that I couldn't upload yesterday.  That was a pleasant surprise and allowed me to complete an IEP.  I wouldn't have been able to finish the IEP without the assistance of our district transition coordinator, who is in charge of assisting students in their post-high school plans.  Well, that isn't true.  I would have been able to finish it but it would not have turned out as well as it did without her help.

Earlier in the day, I talk with my office mate about emptying out one of our file cabinets and just sharing the one file cabinet.  I have an ulterior motive, which I share with her, to have the newly emptied file cabinet to the basement and use it to store the psych testing supplies that I haven't been able to organize.  She agrees and we move what little stuff I have into the other filing cabinet.  I also pack up the protocols from the evaluations that I did during the previous two years.  I put the date on them as well as the general date when we will be able to dispose of them.  I look at the "2017" that I write on it, sigh, and wonder where I'll be by then.  I move the used protocols to the basement and into a storage room.  The maintenance man in our building move the filing cabinet to the basement, right next to the other filing cabinet that we, psychologist, rent two drawers from.  I mark the filing cabinet with a sticky note, "Commandeered for psych testing supplies."  I then go in search of something to replace the filing cabinet since that is where our printer sat.

Scavenging is a time honored tradition in education.  Before I started in my first district, I was shown my office, which had a very nice bookshelf.  For a bibliophile like me, it was awesome.  When I moved into my office, two months later, the bookshelf was gone.  One of my future coworkers had claimed it for their office.  During the summer after my first year in that district, I scavenged a bookshelf from a classroom whose teacher had been let go.

Jump to the present day, and here I am scavenging another piece of furniture.  The maintenance guy tells me that their is a nice computer desk, just the right size, in another room that no one is using.  I quickly retrieve it and it is just perfect.

Later in the morning, I finally had a meeting with the principal of the school that I'm assigned.  We discussed the protocol for several activities, such as requesting a risk assessment and getting general education teachers to review the IEPs, as well as several specific things like the training I'm trying to arrange for FM systems.

After I return from the school and have lunch, I begin shuffling protocols and testing supplies in the basement.  It takes a while because I feel like setting up the drawers according to themes: cognitive assessment, adaptive/learning behaviors assessments, emotional assessments.  It ends up being a little more messy than that but at least I have a rough draft to work from.  After a while, I run out of gas but I'm pleased with my progress.  So I return to the surface world.

I work on some more paperwork and get a call the my school's secretary.  She informs me that another student is ready to be enrolled and the student has an IEP.  I haven't received notification of this student yet, or a copy of their IEP so I seek it out.  The office manager tells me that they were waiting for word from the board office and she'll pass along the IEP to me.  I call the school secretary back and tell her to hold off schedule.  She tells me that the student has several medical appointments the next day so Monday would be a good start day.

Finally, I work on some paperwork for my office mate.  I try to complete a couple of "requests for board approval."  Unfortunately, this gets held up because I need some information.  For one, I leave a voice mail for the parent.  For the other, I have to contact Phonak, the makers of fine FM systems everywhere.  I'm trying to get a price quote on an FM system.  The interesting thing is that their company doesn't put their catalog on their website and I doubt they even have a product catalog that they would send to customers.  So it is sort of like going to a car dealership where they don't put the prices on the car.  When I call the company and speak to the rep, I explain that the student doesn't have a hearing loss and only needs a device for amplification due to an auditory processing disorder, hoping that this will knock out the more expensive models.  The rep rattles off some names that I barely understand after asking me some questions.  I stick to my guns with the "we only need it for amplification" and the rep says that she'll pass the information along to the person that handles written estimates and that they'll email the quote to me.

I always hate the way I feel after these sort of encounters.  I feel the same way I do when I go to the mechanic: that I'm being swindled in some fashion.  Its the reason why I loved Saturn.  I don't like bargaining because it isn't something I'm good at and take no pleasure in it.  I know I wasn't bargaining in this case but I was working blind.

That is it for today.  Tomorrow is Friday, department meeting day.