I've hit a wall.

I have a dilemma.

To give you some background: I work in a district that does not have a special day class. Our special education kids are either given RSP services in the "Learning Center" or if they are very low may be sent to the county classroom off site. The school I am primarily at is a 2nd and 3rd grade school (yes every 2nd & 3rd grader in the whole town). Right now our school only has four IEP students, two HH and two ID.

Let me give you a scenerio... a kid is referred by their teacher for help because they are low and way behind in her class. Let's say they are reading at a level 2 when they should be at a level 16-18. The teacher would like them to be assessed. A COST meeting is called (Coordination Of Team Services) to discuss options for this kid before we talk about assessment. The team decides to progress monitor weekly using DIBELS to gain more data since the student is already receiving two periods of learning center assistance and wants to see if the student is improving.

The next COST meeting comes up (two months later) and the student has gone from reading one word per minute to fifteen words per minute with scores showing that he is making progress but in no way will he meet what he should meet for his grade level. This is where I hit my wall. Normally, this child would be assessed right? They are not making enough progress to meet grade level expectations. This child could possibly be assessed for SLD or ID. However, since the district does not have a special day option, he is already receiving the max period of learning center time, he is too low for "reading lab" since that is reserved for students at level 10-12, teacher is not referring him for tutoring because "it won't benefit him" ... what else is there?

What can I do for him? I feel like there are no other services I can even provide for him.

Being a school psychologist does not make us superheroes, contrary to popular belief. We can not perform brain surgery and bring the kid back "all fixed". Yet, I feel like I need to do something else... being an intern makes me feel even less powerful and I don't feel like I have any right to revamp any programming since I will be gone next year and anything I try to change will be lost anyways.

Help Please? Or have I done everything I can do? I know not all kids are mean't to be rocket scientists... society has jobs that do not require as much thinking as others. Right now I just feel like I am helpless and I do not like to feel that way.

On the other side of the table.

It has been a fun and exciting week! Since I am so new to the field and so new to being "on my own" (for the most part) everything is still very exciting to me. Since coming back from winter break I have worked very hard on being more organized. I am always organized for the most part but what I really want to do is schedule my counseling sessions better. The problem with that is a kid may be on my calendar but then when I am about to call them in I get called in for an "emergency". This may be a kid refusing to do x-y-z or maybe a full on tantrum. One of the fun things I was able to be a part of this week was interviewing candidates for an independent facilitator position. This person will be working 1:1 with students who need the assistance but to start out this person will be in our Head Start Preschool classroom assisting a child with autism who has just joined. Interviewing was exciting for me because I have never been on that "side of the table" before. I have been a part of many interviews. It was really nice to be able to discuss the candidates and be a part of the process to hire a new person. I feel very fortunate and appreciate being chosen for various jobs in the past even more now. We interviewed six people and only one person was chosen. I saw that even though the person chosen did not have the most experience she came in with confidence and kept our attention for every question we asked. She made us feel comfortable and interested more than any other person. With that type of personality and energy she was by far the best candidate because I just knew that children would love her.

There is a down side to being on that side of the table. One thing I learned was that if I don't know the answer to a question I need to be honest and instead of babbling on and making things up, the best thing to do would be to talk about how I would begin to find the answer. Many times the interviewees went on and on and I just kept thinking "Stop! You're going the wrong way!" but I just kept smiling and nodding interestingly. The last thing I wanted to do was make anyone feel as though they had completely messed up. I asked myself, how would I want someone interviewing me to look? So I tried to be that person.

Although this week was very fun and exciting for me. I do have some bad news to report. Sadly, I had to make my 2nd CPS report ever. It always breaks my heart to make that kind of report because I struggle with trusting that the foster care system would be better if that child was actually taken from the home. That my friends is another post in itself!

Have a great weekend!

Kids are so Honest.

I absolutely love how honest so many young children are. I work a lot with 2nd and 3rd graders in my internship and yesterday I was counseling a very honest, very outspoken seven year old. In my office I have two personal photos in frames above my bookshelf. One of my husband and I and the other from our wedding day on the beach. Upon entering this little girl looked around my office at various posters on the wall, coloring pages that I hang on a bulletin board colored by students to decorate for the closest holiday, and then she came across my photos. She started giggling loudly and walked up to the one from my wedding. "Ew! Sick!" she said as she continued to giggle. Surprised, I laughed a little and thought what could possibly be wrong with the photo from my wedding day? When I asked her what was so "ew and sick" about the picture she said, "Why did someone take a picture of your butts?!" Butts? I thought... Well see for yourself...

Oh the mind of a child. Here we were thinking we were being so artistic and symbolic by "staring out in to our future". Thanks for the reality check little one.

A day in the Life...

Greetings to all!

I am a student studying school psychology.  I have spent over 500 hours volunteering my time in the field without pay to learn the varying responsibilities of a school psychologist.  I am currently in a paid internship with 700 more hours (the remainder of the school year) to complete until graduation!

After reading various blogs by others in the field, I have decided to join in the fun and begin my own blog starting with my experiences in my internship.  I have tried to write blogs before including boring day to day life blogs (who cares?!), photo blogs (eh kind of cool),  and I even attempted a 365 photo blog without success.  I find that sometimes I need to step on to my soap box and shout to the rooftops about kids I encounter (keeping their privacy of course) or just vent about the stresses of being a school psychologist... especially being an intern.

Sometimes I come home and tell my husband a story about something I encountered that day only to hear a response like, "oh try this... " or "cool".  I am glad that he has taken the time to pretend to listen to me and sometimes he actually does but I know he gets tired of hearing things that he may not understand and I don't like to get advice from him because I usually find myself telling him how his plan wouldn't possibly work in a school setting.  Another major dilemma that I am about to enter in to is finding a job... dun dun dun. Out of everything I have experienced and been confronted with, the idea of a job search is the most scary!

I am hoping that this blog can be my outlet, and that I can also draw the attention of others in the field to comment and give expert advice.  I hope if you are reading this, you will stay tuned and find my rants to be interesting, comical, obnoxious, and controversial... depending on my mood.  I leave you with this amazing video that was shown to our internship class by our advisor.

The Speech Therapist Meets with the School Psychologist
by: nobodyreally