Friday Comes Early

Today was the last day of the week thanks to the NJEA Convention this weekend.  I started my day with some paperwork and then a trip to the middle school for a classroom observation.  I got to learn how to round numbers again which was as much fun as observing the student.  I had intended on going to another classroom to watch another student but then I realized they had lunch next period.  So I had gone back to my office with the intention of going back a period later but I lost track of time.  By the time I realized it, the student didn't have any good classes in which to watch them.  The road to Hell...

So I wrote up my observation and did various other tasks throughout the rest of the day.  One of my office mates received a phone call from a mother whose child (now a 6th grader) was declassified several years ago.  The mother just had a 504 planning meeting yesterday and was in somewhat of a panic that the plan wouldn't be sufficient for her child's needs.  After a speaker phone conversation among the three of us, we helped the mother decide to request a child study team evaluation.  I told her that the worst that could occur, without knowing anything about her child at the moment of our conversation, was that we would do the initial referral conference and decide that an evaluation wasn't warranted at this time and might make additional modification suggestions to the 504 team.

Following this I gave my director a heads up about the incoming request.

I was also doing some research on the DSM-IV and was looking over APA DSM-V Development website.  I thought there was some interesting stuff in there, including the new Non-Suicidal Self-Injury diagnosis.  While I know nothing is finalized and the diagnosis of disorders is beyond the purview of my position, it still had some interesting ideas on the reorganization and the change in diagnostic criteria.  Since my entire professional background before working in a school was in behavioral mental health, I still geek out about this sort of thing.  It is also interesting to see the comparisons to the old criteria and the rationale for the changes.  Thanks to the internet, it is almost like looking at the beta test results of a video game.

If you are in the Dirty Jerz and work for a school, have a good long weekend.