End of the Year

Here it is, the end of another school year! Hooray! Whew, I made it through another year.

Yesterday I just walked to a park with my preschool class; it's only about a half-mile or so (I'm bad a guesstimating distances like that, so it could be less) but it took about 15 minutes to walk it with 11 preschoolers and 4 adults. Also, I was not aware that we were walking to the park, so of course I did not have appropriate walking shoes on. Every other day of the year I wear comfy shoes, but yesterday I had on chunky heels. Sheesh!

I think my boyfriend and I have our apartment all situated, we're just waiting for the actual apartment number. Whew, that's one thing down. However, I am still looking for a job. Sigh. Ultimately, I probably won't be working for my contracting company in the upcoming year because I seriously doubt they'll find me a job. My HR rep told me yesterday (again) that it's going to be really hard this year because the government keeps saying that money is coming, but they haven't approved it yet. The fiscal year doesn't start until July 1st, so, a lot of schools might not be hiring until then because they won't know what kind of funding they'll have.

Also, one of the jobs that I applied for was recently filled. I had to e-mail the HR director to find this out. No one bothered to even contact me. Frustrating!

On a higher note, after calling a couple of people, filling out some basic paperwork, a $200 check in the mail and an unnecessary $40 (I failed to read that this did not apply to me), I think I can mail out my application for Mississippi Licensure on Monday afternoon and at least have that out of the way. Sigh. I hope this all works out for my job.

New Phone!

Wow, it's been a week already?!? Where has the time gone? Well, let's travel backwards in chronological order to see if I can get you caught up on the high points.

I purchased a new phone today! I have never done this online, as I am more of an *in person* kind of consumer, especially for phones that I have to use daily for 2 years. However, I have talked to two friends who own this phone and like it. It's the Samsung Alias 2. I'm excited, especially after much time and frustration spent on the Verizon page Saturday and today, tooling the website (which isn't that impressive) and chatting with reps.

Today I spent a little over an hour doing an *interview* with a new SLP who would like my job. That's right, I was the one who took her around and showed her the ropes. It was slightly awkward on two levels. One, I know her. When she was in undergrad I was in grad school and we worked on an article together. So, it was weird, but also kind of nice because I felt like I could talk to her more like a friend. Two, the director of student services had other obligations, so I was the one showing her around. On top of that, while I've enjoyed this position, we all know there are downsides to every job. So, I tried to give her the information she needed, while trying to put a positive spin on things without lying. Who knows, maybe the people I didn't like, she will get along with fine. She really seemed excited about it though, so that's good.

I've been looking for a job in Mississippi lately, so I spent some time filling out job apps Saturday. Haven't had to do that for a while (my contracting company has been taking care of that). Not fun. Went to my parents house on Saturday for a cookout and just to spend some more time with them. When Scott and I left, I realized that I won't be able to do that anymore in Mississippi and how much I'm going to miss it.

Sunday we went shopping after going to the Flying Bean/Joe which is our favorite coffee shop and we religiously go there every Sunday morning (pun intended). The shopping was to Kohl's because we had some Kohl's cash to spend. I got a bracelet and earrings to go with my new dress (to wear to weddings).

Other than that, we've just been plugging along at trying to get more details worked out for this big move and me trying to finish out my school year before the craziness that is summer begins.

Shhhhhhh...I'm at work

I stayed up until midnight last night trying to get my IEPs done for today so that I could also work on the high school ETR/IEP for tomorrow's meeting. However, I've been really bad this year with IEPs and got all but one done which I planned on completing this morning in my break between meetings. Obviously, I am a procrastinator of IEPs because I should have done these 2 weeks ago, or 1 week ago, or even anytime before last night; but alas, such is the way of this professional. Procrastinator to the core.

So, here I am in between meetings, and the damn program is down! This program that they use to write IEPs is down every other day, I swear! I should have turned off the stupid TV last night to concentrate better, but I didn't. Now I'm stuck with an unfinished IEP and a dead program! Rar!

While waiting, I tried looking up whether the disability one of my students has should be called Down's Syndrome or Down Syndrome. While in graduate school, one of our professors was adamant about Parkinson disease not being said/written with the possessive -'s because of one reason or another (I obviously cannot remember the specific reason). I found a section on Wikipedia about eponyms, which is apparently when the medical name of a disease is derived from a person's name. In that Wiki page is a section called Eponyms and alternatives which had interesting pro/con lists for the use of eponyms. It seems that the medical community in general is against using the possessive -'s for names of diseases/syndromes since usually the person who's name is used never had nor owned the disorder. In my search I also read something about how the *syndrome/disease* word should not be capitalized either. So, ideally it should be written as Down syndrome. I find it all very interesting and also know that to change the view of the general public away from calling it Down's Syndrome or even Downs Syndrome will probably not ever happen.

It's That Time Of Year Again...

...that's right, IEP season! For those who don't know, IEP stands for Individualized Education Program. Every student that I see is on an IEP with some kind of speech/language need. The IEP, in a nutshell, is a document explaining what the student qualifies for (Speech, OT, PT, etc.), where the student is functioning now (especially w/r/t their IEP areas of need), the goals to be achieved over the next year, and what other services (specialized instruction, extended time on tests, calculator for math, etc.), if any, the student will receive.

Back in February I did about 18 IEPs for my high schoolers. Two weeks ago I did about 13 IEPs for one class of preschoolers and this week I'm doing 6 more for my other class (have more than 6 students in that class, but theirs will be redone in December which is sweet for me because I won't be there!)

Anyway, also throughout the year there are always a couple of students who are either identified as needing testing to see if they qualify for services or possibly they move into the district and need their IEPs redone to work with the new school. Well, the psychologist informed me of a high schooler a few weeks ago who was in need of some testing. At the time I asked her when it needed to be done by and she said she didn't know, but sometime before the end of the year. Well, I tested him last week and haven't gotten around to writing up his report yet. I got an e-mail at 9:30 this morning informing me that his ETR/IEP meeting will be this Friday at 9am! (ETR is Evaluation Team Report and is a report with all of the testing that is done rolled into one overly long document). I was furious! I am in the midst of preschool meetings and she tells me I have less than 48 hours (and 2 full days of work) to write up this report and make up an IEP for this kid?!?

So, here I am, typing a blog entry, watching TV, and trying to muster the mental energy to pound out these damn reports! Bah!

Craziest Day I've Had in a While

The preschool teacher that I work with on Wednesdays has an assistant/aide in the class. This aide is rather useless in my opinion and does little more than sit, check folders, and run a pointless center during *center time!* This aide was out today, so the teacher asked me if I could be in the classroom the whole time (sometimes I'm in and out doing various tasks) to help out since the sub-aide wouldn't be there for a while. I agreed.

The morning went well. I enjoy just getting down and playing with the kids in a language rich kind of way. Being invited to help out made me feel like less of an outsider. I played with the kids who needed my services and while I wasn't sitting down doing 1:1 *therapy* I got to guide the kids into some really nice play schemes. During my 90 minutes between preschool classes I wrote some HS interim reports, wrote some e-mails, talked with a HS teacher (DRAMA in the HS), and wrote lengthy notes to parents in our speech notebooks. It was a rather productive 90 minutes. Then I realized I hadn't eaten lunch yet and was due back to help in the classroom. Now, a sub did show up later during the morning session, but we all know how children do with subs. It doesn't matter the age of the children, they all know what's up and that it's time to be crazy. So, I took a swig of water and went down to the classroom.

The afternoon class is a bit more crazy than the morning class, but still a good group. All was well until the teacher was choosing some students to write the letter of the week on the dry erase board. She only chooses some students (why, I do not know). One particular little boy was skipped for today. That was the end of it. He began crying and when crying didn't work, he was downright mad! Now, he's not one of my *speech kids* but the sub-aide had left by now (she had to leave early) and I was the only help. I removed him from the area, sat him down, and looked away, thus ignoring the bad behavior as I have been taught to do. Well, let's just say that over the next 45-60 minutes I was hit and kicked (not hard, he knew better), and screamed at, "Talk to me!" "Don't tell me no!" "Put my shoe back on!" "I want to write an A on the board!" "I want a sticker!" "I want to be good!" and other variations of that theme. This little guy is has a psychiatric diagnosis, of what I do not know. However, it was unreal as well as very sad. He could not regulate his screaming/crying/yelling to calm himself down. Needless to say, I went home with a headache and questioning my actions with him and how the situation was handled. Rough afternoon. :(

In an earlier post I mentioned that Dr. MacDonald had said some quotes during the conference that were good enough to write down for remembering later. Here are some of the best ones:
"Common sense is not common behavior." (I think referring to parents playing with their children.)
"If you're not waiting, you're taking up the space that he needs to learn." (again referring to parents playing/talking with their children.)
"Don't expect impossible things. They (children) can't talk adult because they're NOT adults."
"Children are supposed to be learning relationships, not just school skills."
"Children think, 'Love me or hate me, but don't ignore me.' They don't care what kind of attention it is." (talking about not giving attention or talking to bad behavior.)
"My job is to help YOU help your child, my job is not to fix your child."