Observation

I started off by going to the school and observing a student in their classroom.  I went to the classroom and motioned for the teacher to come to the door.  When I asked the teacher if the student was present, she immediately turns to the student and starts to call out their name.  I tried to hush her before she does so and I'm still not sure whether my cover was blown or not.  The situation wasn't any better because I really didn't even know what the student looked like because our school information system doesn't have their pictures in it yet (today was picture day).  So I end up observing the wrong student for the first couple of minutes until the teacher gets the class going well enough that I can get her attention and get an ID on the student.

In the past, I've had several observations where there was a far more interesting student to watch in the class than the one that I was there to observe.  It really makes you wonder just how good the referral process is and has caused me to say to myself, "Why hasn't anyone mentioned this kid?"

But that is not the case today.  As a whole, the class was pretty mundane and there really weren't any outstanding behaviors.

Later in the morning, I returned to my home base and settled in until 2:30pm when I was scheduled for an initial referral conference.  I spent the time between doing some house cleaning in preparation for the impending move because I just know that word will come down from on high suddenly.  I find a lot of interesting little, inherited, knick-knacks in desk.  My desk was the former desk of two school psychologist, one of which had been in the district for 30 years.  It is amazing what you can find.  I manage to suppress most of my hoarding tendencies and actually get rid of some stuff.

I also manage to complete most of a psychological report and I call the teacher that I returned the surveys to yesterday to explain why she got them back.  Now all I need is for the teacher to complete them properly and the report will be done in an hour...okay, maybe a bit more if I get hung up on the the social/emotional section.

I submit my paperwork to attend the state school psychologist conference in December and I also put out a couple of emails to colleagues to see if they are going.  If any of you are attending, I'll be the one wearing glasses...

The initial referral conference rolls around.  It is another interesting case but it is difficult to see how it is education related.  The young child has food eating issues that don't seem to be related to a medical condition and aren't necessarily something that would have an educational impact.  We agree to do the evaluation to see if there may be an education impact.

That brings me to the end of my day and I head on home.  Tomorrow is some fun and frolic with testing.  I'm going to also try to do part three of "I fought the law..."