That Look - The PPT

I think that there comes a time when your savings account of experience--your training on dealing with parents; your knowledge of special education law; every lesson you have learned about dealing with the mentally ill, and whatever moxie you have that keeps you from curling up into a ball and crying--has to be drained in order to survive a meeting. I had one of those meetings yesterday. This has preoccupied my attention so much that I neglected to show for a PPT for an interdistrict student on Friday, oops. My team prepared for this meeting by discussing who was going to say what during the PPT. Our lineup included the school nurse (who talked about the need for medication management), the special education teacher (who had good news because his academics are really strong) the social worker (who interviewed the parents extensively) and me. We decided to go in this order, school nurse, special ed teacher, school psychologist and social worker.

I couldn't eat my lunch. Most people thought I was really nervous, but I wasn't that nervous. It was the nervousness I usually feel before a performance. It was a good kind of nervous, I knew that it would help me raise my game to the appropriate level. The meeting was in the afternoon, and I only took a couple of bites of my sandwich before I knew it was futile to try and eat. As I made my way to the conference room I had a worrisome thought: What if the parents didn't show? I hadn't considered that. They could have just blown us off and I would have prepared for nothing.

But, they did show and the show went on. I don't mind being the meeting coordinator, except for the fact that I have to wear 2 hats during the meeting: coordinator and school psychologist. For this meeting I had to talk about my evaluation results, so I was doing double duty. I'm not sure if people appreciate how stressful that can be. Well, I presented my results and I felt that my role was to present a dose of reality: the child is emotionally disturbed. He has a past of aggressive behaviors towards peers and adults, and suicidal thoughts. After the results were presented, I had to tell the parents that their son was eligible for special education services for Emotional Disturbance. Actually, it didn't go that smoothly. I think I actually said, "Emotionally Disturbed. That's such an awful term. If we can change Mental Retardation to Intellectual Disability, then we should be able to do something about Emotional Disturbance.

In the end, the parents took the news well, I think. The father remarked that they had heard the news before, and after hearing it from so many different people, there must be some truth to it. The team recommended the student enroll in a therapeutic school. The parents seemed more receptive to the idea of an alternative setting, but we shall see.

BBC

Mass Exodus

A week ago was Alejandro's last day at school. He enrolled in the alternative school last Friday. His last day was somewhat chaotic because we had an emergency snow closing. It was a sad day because he kept telling his teacher that he didn't want to leave, but there was nothing anyone could do. Once the paperwork had gone through, there were a couple of days when he was well behaved and appeared to be well-adjusted. My principal expressed regret on these days and I had to remind her that this wasn't consistent and we had done all that we could for him. So now he's there and we are left to wonder how it will turn out.

There was a kid headed down the PPT pipeline that ended up moving at the last minute. This kid demanded so much energy and time from everyone. He was hyper-emotional, (if that's possible), and any perceived slight turned him into a sobbing mess. We tried multiple behavior plans to no avail. Interestingly, this was a kid that was an affection addict. Whenever he suffered a meltdown, he immediately sought a hug from the teacher, but then he would refuse to let go. It was as if he tried to suck the affection right out of her. To make matters worse, his teacher was the affectionate type. She hugged children a lot, and this wouldn't be a problem for 99% of children because most of them need hugs. But for this kid it was like an addict rooming with a drug dealer. He may have matured eventually, but he had been emotionally unstable since the beginning of the school year. We had reached the point where we were going to evaluate him, but of course, he moved. Usually students move once they are evaluated, but he moved away before we even scheduled the PPT. At least he saved us the trouble.

The PPT for That Look kid is coming next week. I finished my evaluation and got a nice compliment on my report from my director. It's nice to get good and useful feedback. I'm sure this PPT will be interesting. I'll post the play-by-play next week.

BBC

RTI: An Update 4

My principal forwarded a referral to the PPT last week. I had the chance to present it to the team to have them review it and decide if we would accept it or not. I have learned that my teammates and I have the same philosophy on RTI, and I knew that they would have questions about the referral. The big question: Where was the data? I sat in on the meeting when the RTI team decided that this particular student "flat-lined" and wasn't making progress. My response was, "What about Tier 3?" My question was met with this response from my principal, "The administrators met and we were told not to get hung up on what is a Tier 2 intervention and what is a Tier 3 intervention." So I accepted this referral knowing that my team would reject it. This was better than me outright rejecting it at the RTI meeting, even though I could have. So the referral was missing some key information, such as the starting and end dates for interventions, the dates for some of the tests, and the pre- and post-test data for the interventions. Essentially, a lot of pertinent data was missing, and they needed to provide it.

Once again, the issue is that those that are properly trained and well-versed in RTI are not responsible for it. Nor do we want to be. But regular ed teachers have no clue how to do this and they aren't providing the right information nor are they conducting proper progress monitoring. This whole operation has been piecemeal and the worse refrain that the administration has used is "this will look different in different schools." So there is no expectation of uniformity, except in really lame cases such as the form that people fill out. We wanted more information and felt that the RTI form is inadequate because it tends to lead to underreporting. When I suggested changing it, I was met with some resistance. Can we add an additional form? It's obvious that this whole thing is a mess because people have no concept of what we are doing. People are frustrated because they aren't sure of when PPS gets involved. I've been running interference between my principal and the speech and language pathologist because there is a misunderstanding on how language issues should be detected. I suggested to my speech and language pathologist that she create a screener that looks at articulation and some basic language issues. She should spell out each step with boxes and charts and labels so that each part is completed. There should also be a criteria of 80% proficiency, so that teachers know what is expected. Then each teacher gets one when they suspect some sort of language issue. That should stave off the mob that's slowly building. Unfortunately, my SLP hasn't received any directives from her supervisor, so she is at a loss. Hopefully, this language screener will appease my principal and we can keep this process moving along.

BBC

That Look

"He just had that look in his eyes." The words from my principal as we debriefed on what had been an absolutely crazy 2 hours.

It all began innocently when a new student began his first day of school. What began innocently as a chld with some social anxiety saying he didn't want to eat lunch in the cafeteria, quickly turned into me slow-chasing this child around my building, while preventing him from climbing over the stair railings.

First, he refused to leave his classroom because he didn't want to eat lunch. The social worker convinced him to come to her office. He then ate lunch in the main office, which seemed to be working. I was in meetings all day so I didn't know that he spent a part of that lunch period roaming the hallway in front of the office. Someone asked me who his teacher was, because he was a new student, no one recognized him and, oh yes, he was refusing to talk. I jumped in and tried to talk to him, but that didn't work. That's when my adventure began.

I'm in an elementary school that has 3 floors. I never really thought having 3 floors in an elementary school would be cause for alarm. That is until I met this kid, Elijah (name changed for anonymity). So I was in slow pursuit up the stairs, because I knew that he had some anxiety issues, and I didn't want to make him more anxious. But he was raising my anxiety level by trying to climb onto the railings. To make matters worse, when I told him to get down, he refused, and he wasn't talking-just grunting and gesturing. The only time he spoke was when he told me he wanted to play the drums. I followed this kid around from about 20 minutes. When he tried to squeeze in between the railings that's when my principal stepped in (a little bit scared at this point) and told him he had to go downstairs. After a few minutes of "chasing" him around the office, he finally settled in the copy room. Of course to get there he had to break the sanctity of the teachers lounge. The teachers that were in there were alarmed and flabbergasted to see a kid traipse through the lounge. When he found the piano, it had a soothing effect and it pacified him. And that's where he stayed until his mother arrived to pick him up. He was immediately suspended.

The next day, his mother provided a stack of paperwork from his psychiatric intake, hospitalizations, school suspensions, and other mental health matters that occurred since last April. This would have been handy to know the day before. I immediately set up a PPT because this kid came with mental diagnosis and had a full evaluation. The report was pending at the time of our meeting.

My director did not like the idea of this student being in my building. He is too much of a risk, especially to himself. My director immediately suggested outplacement into a therapeutic school, that specializes in problem behaviors and emotionally disturbed children. I was shocked because this happened so quickly, usually this kind of outplacement takes months. It's not cheap. But I guess it's cheaper than having a possible suicide on your hands. The mom agreed to having her son attend the school while we complete an evaluation. The child has not enrolled yet, nor has the mom gone to the school for the intake interview. The child has been on homebound (receiving lessons at home) in the meantime. It will be interesting to see where this ends.

BBC

Bearer of Bad News

I had a PPT where I had to tell the parents that their son has significant issues and needs to attend a program in another school. Fortunately, the son was previously identified. It's hard being the bearer of bad news. Most parents don't take that kind of news too well, and who can blame them? There is no way around it, but as a member of the PPT I have to give the information as honest as possible. I think that some people find it easier to sugarcoat their news, or downplay the seriousness of their information. Unfortunately, the parents leave these meetings not understanding how limited their children are.

My most recent case involved a student that if he was a year younger (4 years old) he would have qualified under the disability of Developmental Delay. But since he was already 5 years old, no one wanted to revisit this case in less than a year to give him a new label. He entered my school as a kindergartner with a disability of Speech (Language) Impairment. Obviously to us he had more issues. These issues came to light during our evaluation. The good news was that the mother was aware that he had some limitations. n her words, she "hoped the news would have been better." The good part of the job is that we usually offer great recommendations to help the child. In this case, the child needed to be placed in a different school with a smaller, more intense kindergarten program. The parents agreed that it was a good recommendation and he entered the program today.

BBC

ED not only means Erectile Dysfunction

Recently I was part of my first evaluation for a student with Emotional Disturbance. As I told the parent that her son qualified for services under Emotional Disturbance, the words sounded really awful coming out of my mouth. The mental health field has made tremendous strides by changing mental retardation into intellectual disability. Why hasn't there been a similar change in Emotional Disturbance? The term sounds very negative and contributes to the stigma of being in special education. Hearing that a student is ED conjures up images of the worst kind of student in the classroom. No one hears ED and has pleasant thoughts.

The student was the subject of my last post, "Stuck in a Corner." He's definitely ED, no question. His inability to regulate his emotions prevent him from meeting success in the classroom. In the PPT I described him as having 3 sides, 1 side is jovial and compliant, 1 side requires constant prodding to motivate him to perform, and 1 side is completely non-compliant. I have seen these different sides of him during the evaluation and observations. Now that he has been identified I hope that his new program for next year will help him find success.

BBC

Snow Days

The kid in me loves snow days. There's nothing like waking up to a fresh coating of snow and seeing that school is canceled. On the other hand, when I have meetings scheduled on that same day it throws off my whole schedule. I am up to my ears in PPTs that haven't happened yet. I've had 2 snow days so far this year, and of course both of those days chock full of meetings.

I've had to make arrangements to have these meetings occur. I tried to fit some in next week, but they will only run into the other scheduled meetings. And the weather forecast for next week calls for another snowstorm.

BBC

You Give and You Give II

It started as a side comment, and I didn't put much stock in it. Then by the end of the day, I received the dreaded salmon colored sheet; someone was transferring to another school.

A couple of weeks ago, we held an initial PPT for a student who enrolled in our school at the beginning of the school year. Let's call him Allen*. Allen came to us from the city, which meant that it would take several weeks to receive his educational records. When they arrived a month and a half into the school year, it was discovered that he had been retained twice prior to enrolling in our school. To make matters worse, my principal, in reference to information that Allen's father gave her, re-enrolled Allen in 4th grade, although he had completed and passed 4th grade last year. Furthermore, Allen's 12th birthday just passed. Therefore we had a 12 year old in 4th grade and at that rate he would be driving in middle school. The team decided to bring in the father and devise a plan that would consider testing him for special education. Preliminary assessments showed that he was barely reading on a 2nd grade level and that his behavior was sometimes a problem (hello, he should be in 7th grade, yet he was in 4th!). We were also going to move him up a grade or two, but we wanted to hear more about how he was functioning in his current classroom. His father came to the meeting and talked about what little he knew about Allen's upbringing and schooling. Dad knew that Allen was really struggling and needed assistance. It wasn't hard to sell testing to him. We explained the evaluation procedures, filled out paperwork, then Dad signed the consent for evaluation form. The team also decided that Allen should be instantly promoted to fifth. And so it was. Until today.

This morning, the special ed teacher was walking around with Allen and wanted me to hear something from him. Allen told me that he moved yesterday and that he was now living in the city. Word reached my principal and she started investigating. My district, like others, has been cracking down on non-residents attending our schools. When word gets out that a student has moved, then the authorities look into it. By authorities, I mean my principal, because my district only has residency officers at the middle and high schools. My principal talked to Allen's grandmother, because she was listed as the apartment's lessee. The grandmother said that Allen and his father moved out because of a dispute. When my principal talked to the father, he said that there was a misunderstanding and that he expected to work things out and still reside with his mother. Two hours later he came to school to withdraw Allen. Apparently he couldn't work things out with his mother and ended up moving for good. So now Allen is gone, for now.

I was sickened when I heard this. I told my principal that I was distraught because this has happened several times now. We've lost another child that we were trying to help. Some people already started their evaluations, luckily I hadn't. There's a chance that he isn't gone for good, some students return after a short stint away, my school's population is very transient. I hope he returns, for his own sake.

BBC

Elizabeth's PPT

We had an interdistrict PPT for Elizabeth today. It was an interdistrict meeting because Elizabeth is under the custody of Children's Services. Our goal was to get her former district to provide an aide to supervise Elizabeth in our school. There were many people at this PPT. Representatives from her former district were there, as well as her educational surrogate, foster parents, and numerous therapists. The staff members from my school were also present. We discussed Elizabeth's issues at length. We came to a decision that her therapy at school and in private practice shouldn't overlap, which was fine with the school. We don't feel comfortable providing therapy for her sexual abuse. It sounded like her therapy is going well, she has a lot of issues to deal with. The positive thing is that she is very open about her past, which is something rare in victims. At the end of the meeting, we revised a few of her goals and the other district agreed to pay for a paraprofessional to work with Elizabeth. Mission accomplished.

BBC

The Art of the Question II

Today I had two PPTs and they were both successful. One was for a new student who is having some difficulty making the adjustment to our school. Mom requested a PPT immediately and we've had the opportunity to meet and learn more about her son before the meeting, which is always nice. There were things that the mom told me in private about the student's history that I wanted to share in the meeting, but I felt like it was off-limits until she mentioned them. Luckily for me, she opened the door with some choice comments about her family's history of bipolar disorder, schizophrenia and depression. This admission led to other questions that we all had about the medication the student is currently on and his behavior at home. I felt like a lawyer in a tv drama where there is evidence that is inadmissable but then the defendant makes a statement that allows for a certain line of questioning. I felt on edge because I was afraid that we would end the meeting without discussing some of the bizarre behaviors we had seen, his medication regiment, or our thoughts about further testing. We were so focused on making the meeting a positive and safe experience for mom, who evidently has her own mental issues, that I was afraid we were treading too lightly and would leave the meeting with no substantial knowledge gained. Fortunately, Mom was forthcoming with some of the information, but as someone once told me, for every one thing admitted, there's most likely two or three more alarming things that are omitted. In the meeting she mentioned that her son was "institutionalized" (to use her word) over the summer. When I spoke to her before the beginning of school she told me why this occurred. During the meeting she didn't mention the reason, but she talked about the boy's issues with his absent father. Classically Freudian or Oedipal, take your pick. As the mother was talking I felt myself enter the zone and all of a sudden not only did I know what to ask, but I also knew how to phrase it in a way that would give me what I wanted without making the mother defensive. My clinical interview skills are improving. I felt like I accomplished what I wanted to do. This student will require a lot of brainstorming and program reviewing because I feel that we will have to change our strategies frequently to meet his needs.

BBC

Investigative Reporter

There are so many new kids in my school this year with significant behavior concerns that I've spent the majority of my time on fact-finding missions. I've been contacting numerous PPT coordinators, school psychologists, directors of special education, and pupil and personnel directors since the first day of school by email, snail mail, fax and phone.

Today I learned that a child that was supposed to have been outplaced in a different district is now coming to my school. I heard that he was a handful from his former school psychologist. He only speaks Spanish and exhibited some disturbing behaviors after being in school for a total of 4 days last year (he enrolled in April). After being suspended twice, his mother requested a PPT and a psychiatric evaluation was recommended. The results came back over the summer and for some reason the higher-ups (my director) thinks that my school would be an appropriate placement. This child is apparently very aggressive; at his last school he bit the social worker.

Today I was on the phone talking to his former school psychologist. As she was giving me detail after detail I felt like I should take a course in shorthand because there was too much information for me to write down. I may need to go to some type of journalistic training to learn how people take notes so quickly. I felt like a reporter because I wanted to get every detail correct so that I can share accurate information with my team members. I will have to schedule a PPT to determine this kid's eligibility and quickly devise a plan for how to address his needs. Just another opportunity to gain valuable experience (that's what I keep telling myself.)

BBC