Mission Impossible?

I'm supposed to raise the DRA scores of my kids in about 2 1/2 weeks!! I found out that testing was going to start earlier than I thought. All of the testing has to be completed by the middle of the last week of school. I also found out that those with high DRA scores are tested last so that they can benefit from intervention the most. Those with low scores are tested first, so they have virtually no chance of passing. It all seems to be a farce. We're putting children through a mandatory situation and dangling this carrot that's unobtainable. I don't get it.

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Summer School

It's summer time and I needed a job, so I signed up to work summer school as a paraprofessional. In my city, there is mandatory summer school for those students who are at risk for retention based on their Developmental Reading Assessment (DRA) score. I'm working with third graders who are at risk for retention. These students need to reach a certain score on their reading assessment by the end of summer school or they will be repeating third grade. No pressure at all!

This requirement begs the question: Can a student's score be raised in only 4 1/2 weeks? Exactly what kind of miracle are we teachers, tutors and paraprofessionals supposed to pull in that short amount of time? I'm definitely interested in seeing the rate of success for this program.

The children go through intense reading sessions at different stations in the classroom. They practice their fluency, predict what will happen in a story, talk about the different parts of a story, and practice writing essays.

So far, the children have been okay. I have witnessed several children who have found it hard to be in school during the summer. They remind me of the students at my elementary school who had a rough time at the beginning of the year. Summer school starts almost an hour earlier than the regular school day, so these kids are really feeling it. So am I.

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It's Been A While

It's been a while, I know. I've been trying to survive the end of the semester. I need to write several entries about what has gone on for the past 6 weeks, but I'll get to that at some point. Anyway, the NY Times had an article about a recent ruling in favor of parents of children with disabilities. Basically, if a parent wants to take a school district to court over to challenge the services offered in the child's IEP, the parents do not have to use a lawyer, they can represent themselves. We'll see how this plays out.

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A Serious Lack of Craziness

You may think I'm crazy, but I have been secretly wishing to have a crazy parent in one of my meetings. Not cuckoo crazy, I want full-blown, throw a chair, frothing at the mouth crazy. So far, I have dealt with many parents who are supposed to be really crazy, according to my supervisor and the head of Psychological Services, but they have all been really tame in meetings. I have even had to deliver bad news, and these parents have taken the info in stride. Needless to say, I have been disappointed. I really want the exposure so that I know what to do when I'm out there on my own. I see it as getting good practice and preparation for the future.

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Backtracking

If you've been keeping track, this post is coming up out of order. I know that I have the option of pre-dating my posts and I'm taking full advantage of that. So while the next few posts were written after the fact, these were thoughts I had on those particular days and I'm just transposing written notes into my blog. But I really felt that I had a few things to say about what went on from the beginning of April to the end of May.

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High School Dropouts

The LA Times featured a four-part series on high school dropouts. Reporters looked at high school students at Birmingham High School in Van Nuys. Very informative. It does beg the question, how are high school dropout rates calculated? How can school districts say one number and then an outside evaluator will say a completely different and usually higher number?

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No new GRE??

ETS decided to scrap its plans to revise the GRE. After it was deemed susceptible to fraud after foreign students built databases of oft-repeated GRE questions, the academic world awaited a new version. But ETS said that it would have been too expensive, too long, and too hard to administer. Read more here.

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Just returned from NASP NYC

I just got back from the NASP (National Association of School Psychologists) convention in New York City. It was great to attend so many great workshops and presentations and get some new ideas. As a student, I appreciated the opportunity to see so many of the "celebrities" of school psychology, and of course New York was fantastic. I feel energized to try some new things for the rest of the school year.

Who Should Pay?

Recent article about a lawsuit filed by a parent of a special education student. The parent is asking the City of New York to pay for the child's education at a private school. The city is arguing that the parent never tried the public schools. The case is under review at the U.S. Supreme Court. Who should pay?

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Fed Up

These past two days really tested my patience. I volunteered to counsel a girl who has a proclivity to skip class. I took her case because the vice-principal decided that she would need counseling as well as the behavior plan that he designed. She didn't really warm up to me, which was fine, I'm still a stranger in the building. We talked for a little bit and she told me that she wished she could start over. I took this nugget and went with it. I asked her what she meant, and she said that she wished she could start eighth grade over because her grades weren't great. I explained to her that she was getting a second chance now and a fresh start. She told me that she was having a hard time with her school work, social studies in particular. So I had her get her assignment and we sat down and looked at it together. The lesson was on Reconstruction era federal government. There was a question about the 3/5 clause that she had to answer. I practically pointed out the paragraph that she needed to read in order to answer the question. But of course, she refused to read the paragraph and expected me to do all the work for her! When I refused, she asked to leave and I let her. I couldn't believe the nerve of this girl. The look of indignation that she gave me was priceless. I had enough of her attitude so I was happy to have her return to class.

Today, one of the 6th grade boys I worked with rubbed me the wrong way. I really needed his mother to sign a consent form for one of the counseling groups that I run. I purposely went to the school on Monday to specifically give him another consent form to take home. As I went with him to his locker, I saw one of the old consent forms that I had given him a while ago. I made him take that home too. I told him that it was important for him to have his mother sign it. I really needed it. Well, this morning, I saw him and when I asked him for the form, he said that he didn't have it. It wasn't the fact that he didn't have it, it was the cavalier attitude he had about it. He didn't even apologize for not having it. That pushed me over the edge. I can understand not having it, but the fact that he wasn't even sorry about it really pissed me off. This kid really needs to grow up and honor his responsibilities. He needs to understand this now.

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Article on Middle School

I read and article today in the NY Times about middle school teachers. It' worth a read, and it really opened my eyes to the unique psychology of the middle school teacher. It does take a special person to deal with the turmoil of adolescence.

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Manifestation

I sat in on my first manifestation determination meeting today. There was a middle schooler with LD who threw urine on to another student. We were supposed to determine if the behavior was caused by (or a manifestation of) his disability. Here's what happened: The boy had to use the bathroom and school security didn't allow him go back into the building. He decided to urinate into a Pringles can and in order to get rid of it, tossed it from the can out the window of the bus. Meanwhile the bus was next to another bus, in which a student had his window down. The victim basically had urine thrown on him.

I still had questions about how all of this really happened, because I felt like there were some details missing. Nonetheless, it was determined that this was not a manifestation of his disability, so he was suspended.

It was nice to see that his mother was livid at the meeting. Cursing up a storm and disgusted with him. I'm so used to parents that look like they have given up, or have no control over their kids. I'm not saying she has any control, but at least she cared enough to put on a show. I just hope the kid doesn't get into further trouble while he's out of school.

And that was just part of a crazy day which included a girlfight in which a security guard got punched in the face when he tried to break it up, and a model student bringing a cap gun to school. Good times.

Burning Out

I'm tired. I can't wait for this semester to end. I've got a lot on my plate, and I'm realizing how much has to get done in the next few weeks.

My supervisor posed an interesting question to me. She asked me which setting I preferred, elementary or middle school. I told her that I liked working with the middle school population, but I hate how the middle school is set up. The school psychologists at the middle school have a lot of administrative duties, and when they aren't doing paperwork, they test children. Ugh! They don't have dedicated counseling caseloads. I enjoy counseling, and there's only so much testing you can do. Well, the question my supervisor asked me was "Do you think it (the middle school's school psychology practice model) could be changed?" I hadn't thought of that.

When I think about applying for jobs, I think about how the "perfect" job probably doesn't exist. There is a huge gulf between the utopia of how school psychology should be from the university's perspective vs. the harsh, ugly reality of what actually happens. I haven't thought about finding a situation that's okay, but could be changed. In my mind, I think that I could change things, so that may contribute to where I decide to work, (that and whoever has an opening!) It would be hard to gauge in an interview if a system could be changed to fit my needs. I guess I would need to have some key questions that I would ask of the administrators, so I could get a better picture of how well I would fit.

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Dreaming About Work

For the first time I had a dream about work. It started with me working on an evaluation of a child that will likely qualify as Intellectually Disabled (ID) and a mother who is resistant to that label. Everyone on the team knows the history and knows that the mom doesn't want this label. I've been working on building a solid case for having this child properly labeled. He's in middle school and is currently labeled ADHD. I'll admit there is some evidence of attention problems but the child is having all sorts of difficulties. I think his current IEP has close to 10 academic goals alone!

I've been thinking about this for a while because I accepted the challenge of pushing for appropriate services and diagnosis for the child. I just feel that the mother thinks that her child just needs intense instruction and that he's easily distracted. It's so much more than that.

So I was working on scoring adaptive scales before I went to sleep, then I dreamed about the upcoming meeting, and then woke up and continued to think about it. I'll be glad when its over. After checking his records today, I found that a neuropsychologist had made a similar diagnosis years ago, so I know that another qualified person tried to approach the diagnosis. Maybe I could use that to my advantage.

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Clueless

I think it is safe to say that whatever kids were doing in college in our day, they are doing in high school today. And whatever kids were doing in high school, they are doing in middle school today. A kid came into the guidance office today because his two friends had gotten into a fight. Apparently, the fight stemmed from what occurred at a sleepover this past weekend. As soon as the kid mentioned the word sleepover, I knew I was in for a real treat.

The boys had a contest on who could stay up the longest. The loser would be subjected to having someone's balls put on him. This led to lots of scrotums (or is it, scroti?) being placed on people and someone feeling uncomfortable with the homoerotic activity. When my supervisor heard about the prank, she erroneously believed that "balls" was a euphemism or slang for something else. Oh no, this kid meant testicles, and I knew it. I found it humorous that my supervisor and the rest of the guidance staff could not fathom middle schoolers doing this. I remember thinking that this was probable in high school and a definite in college. I guess I'm not that innocent. One of the counselors came in and said that she wasn't surprised. She thought some of our kids had talked about rainbow parties. My supervisor and the rest had no clue what rainbow parties were. That's when I realized that there is a real generation gap when it comes to sexual knowledge. People of a certain age don't think that kids are doing these things, but they are. I think we are doing these kids a huge disservice when adminstrators and mental health staff members focus on the act being inappropriate and not on the fact that it is happening. School pyschologists and counselors have to know the lingo and the activities of children and youth. It was astounding to see how clueless the mental health staff was in my school. They are just now getting around to using the internet. But there is still so much that they need to learn. No wonder kids get away with so much. People really have to stop being shocked and start taking action.

Hormones

I'm beginning to think that my sixth graders are starting to get hormonal. There have been a lot of interpersonal conflicts recently. Girls are fighting and boys are being sexually inappropriate. It's just hormones running rampant through sixth grade. I feel like we're a couple of months away from rainbow parties and lewd details on myspace. It's scary only because I know its going to get worse before it gets better. The next couple of years are going to be rough for these kids. Adolescence is full of confusion and emotion. You couldn't pay me to go through that again.

Everything is so freaking dramatic. At the junior high, I had a girl that was ready to fight three others because they were talking about her. First, she came into the office to tell me that she was mad and ready to fight 3 girls. I immediately noticed that she was wearing shoes that didn't match. She chose a more comfortable shoe for her right foot because she hurt her ankle and was wearing a splint of some sort. Anyway, it was really noticeable that she was wearing two different shoes. Apparently one of the girls wrote a note to the other girls remarking that she was wearing mismatched shoes. This is why the girl wanted to fight?! Despite my efforts to make her see how ridiculous she was being, she still felt that she had justification to fight. Fortnately, I do believe that in the end all violence was avoided that day. Whew!

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Sometimes You Do Get Through

I had a breakthrough today with one of the kids I counsel each week. One of his goals is to acknowledge his strengths and weaknesses and accept that he has a learning disability. After having some unsuccessful sessions with him, I finally sat down with him and talked about what he as good at in school. It was weird because, for some reason, he was more receptive to what I was saying in session. We were able to talk and discuss what he needed to work on in school, and he was able to tell me some ideas on how he could change. For this kid, it was a huge step towards meeting his psychological goals. This really made my day. I'm learning to appreciate those good days.

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Suicide Risk?

Today I get called to a third grade classroom because a kid said something disturbing that attracted his teacher's attention. The kid was playing a game with other students and blurted out "Raise your hand if you wish you could die," and he raised his own hand. So I get buzzed to visit the classroom.

The child talked to me and I tried to figure out his state of mind. I asked him how he was feeling, and he kept telling me that he was okay. Although, I could clearly see that something was bothering him, especially when I took into consideration the anguished look on his face. He looked like he was on the verge of tears. He told me that he was feeling sad, but he wasn't sure why. I asked him if he said that he wished he could die and he said yes. "How often? " "Sometimes."

Now at this point, I'm taking this very seriously. I'm looking at an 8 or 9 year old child with possible suicide ideation. What do I do now?

In the back of my mind, I was screaming at myself, "Find out if he has a plan! Find out if he has a plan!!!!" I asked him why he sometimes feels like dying and he said, "I have a boring life." I dug a little deeper and asked him what could change that would make his life not boring. He replied, "I could play baseball." After explaining to him that baseball would be possible in the spring and trying to gain more information, I couldn't get a good read on his intentions. He kept telling me that nothing else was making him feel sad. And I was starting to get pressed for time (I hate it when that happens, but I had to be at a meeting later.) So I knew there had to be more but I didn't feel that I had enough time to get what I needed from him. Our conversation left me with a feeling of uneasiness, so I told my supervisor and sat in on their conversation.

She was able to ask him about a plan, which he had none. Overall, her approach was great. She was able to get more information out of him and learn enough to assess the situation. The child seems depressed, so I may check in with him to see how he's feeling over the next couple of weeks.

I know that these things come with time, but I really felt like I didn't know what to do. Correction - I knew what to do, I just didn't know how to do it. Watching my supervisor talk with the child was a great learning experience for me. I hope that I can gain those counseling skills before I'm out there on my own.

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Puzzles vs. Mysteries

If you haven't discovered the genius of Malcolm Gladwell, author of "Blink" and "The Tipping Point", and contributor to The New Yorker, you really need to read his work. Everything I've read by him has made me think about how I think about things. His latest article discusses the Enron scandal, and examines it through national security expert Gregory Treverton's interesting concept of puzzles vs. mysteries. To summarize, Gladwell argues that the US Federal Prosecutors treated Enron as if it was a puzzle. There were many pieces to gather and once they gathered each piece, they would know what Enron was up to. His argument is that Enron was actually a mystery. All of the pieces were there for everyone to see, it just took the right person to look at the information, know what he or she was looking at and interpret it.

That got me to thinking. Sometimes in school psychology, we tend to look at assessment as a puzzle. We look at a child and try to gather pieces of the puzzle, and when the puzzle doesn't make sense, we keep trying to find more pieces, i.e. we conduct more tests. But what if we looked at the assessment process as a mystery instead? What if it's a matter of interpretation? I think we tend to steer away from looking at the process as a mystery because we want everything to be concrete, make clear sense. But we all know that, sometimes, things are bit murky. We, as school psychologists, are given the task of looking at the murky information, make sense of it and interpret it for others to see. I think that one byproduct of this change in philosophy will be a reduction in the number of tests given to a child. A kid can be tested to death if the results don't support a clear answer to why he or she isn't functioning well in the classroom. Somehow this needs to be addressed. Maybe a change in philosophy could be the change we need.

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Back to School

Ughhh! I didn't want the break to end. I was in serious denial on New Year's Day. When my alarm went off this morning I had to resist the urge to hit the snooze.

The first day back after the Christmas break is interesting in a school. All the kids are sporting new clothes, new sneakers, and new hairdos. Teachers look rested, and everyone talks about starting a diet and complains about how much they overate during the break.

One of the kids I counsel got a grill for Christmas. Gold plate and cubic zirconia, gotta love it. The thing actually looked uncomfortable. He insisted on wearing it during our counseling session. I should have threatened him with reporting his new mushmouth to the speech and language pathologist, but I was getting too much of a kick out of watching him try to talk. If this kid ever knew what braces felt like, he probably wouldn't bother putting that thing in his mouth. But he's young, what else could I expect?

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