Do parents advocate for more special education staff?

[niccig]

For the restroom situation, I would probably encourage the parents to file a OCR complaint (or threaten to) - that seems discriminatory to put special education students in a restroom to receive services when general education students get classroom and/or office spaces. Usually districts are more scared of OCR than their state IDEA complaint dept.

I told her to ask the principal if the Gifted and Talented students use the restroom for their classes. It's ridiculous you have to even go to those lengths.

[amandabea]

I started this post to bring awareness to the issue of overburdened caseloads. Some states do have a caseload cap and some states do not. Even with a cap, it's not always enforced.
...

Just putting it out there for parents to ask questions and support ALL the school staff for reduced numbers.

thank you for sharing and for doing what you do!

[PZMommy]

Niccig, are you at one school, or are you shared between schools? I know the SLP at my school is 2 1/2 days at my school and 2 1/2 days at a different school. It is crazy! We get our OT even less than that. Plus they see students after school (I'm guessing from pre-k programs that qualify for services) I know some of my students are in groups of 5-6, and no one gets more than 20 minutes per week as there just isn't time. I had a student who was completely unintelligible last year, and that was the max he could get. He is actually in a special day class at a different school this year. It is sad because kids need more services, but there is no time for that. I'm in an area where parents do not seek private services, nor did they use early intervention prior to starting school. I feel most of my students make very little progress during the school year, due to the case load and how little time students get with the service providers. I've been at my school for 11 years, and we have never had a SLP stay for more than a year. We've even had some leave mid year. It is like starting over every year. It is a very broken system!!

[gatorsmom]

I'm not sure I'm answering your question exactly, but I was very impressed with the Early Intervention program in our district in Minnesota. It offered a Birth- Kindergarten Early intervention. Ds1 was in the speech program from 22months until his 5th birthday. At 3yo he was no longer getting home visits and instead he was enrolled in the preschool program at a local public school which focuses on the kids in the Early Intervention programs. At one point while we lived there, there was something being voted on which could negatively affect the level of services they provide. The teachers and therapists at that school started handing out flyers and buttons several weeks before asking parents to vote down the new proposal. The day before and day of the vote teachers and parents were holding signs around the school asking parents to get out there and vote. It worked and the proposal was voted down. I remember at the time that our therapist said that most parents didn't know how badly their program could have been affected or how deeply services would have to be cut if the vote had passed. I am certainly glad they made us aware of it. Dh and I made a point of voting.

[niccig]

Niccig, are you at one school, or are you shared between schools? I know the SLP at my school is 2 1/2 days at my school and 2 1/2 days at a different school. It is crazy! We get our OT even less than that. Plus they see students after school (I'm guessing from pre-k programs that qualify for services) I know some of my students are in groups of 5-6, and no one gets more than 20 minutes per week as there just isn't time. I had a student who was completely unintelligible last year, and that was the max he could get. He is actually in a special day class at a different school this year. It is sad because kids need more services, but there is no time for that. I'm in an area where parents do not seek private services, nor did they use early intervention prior to starting school. I feel most of my students make very little progress during the school year, due to the case load and how little time students get with the service providers. I've been at my school for 11 years, and we have never had a SLP stay for more than a year. We've even had some leave mid year. It is like starting over every year. It is a very broken system!!

I have 4 sites. 3 are at once location (childcare, TK-1 and 2-5) but all have different administrators, staff. I don't mind having 3 there, as I can walk across the road as needed to see someone, do screenings. I had a smaller 4th site last year and got a bigger site this year. My main school enrollment increased so I'm now 10 kids over the state caseload cap and talking with supervisors, but don't expect to get it adjusted for a couple more weeks - as district employee they do need to keep me close to maximum. If I was contract staff, then they don't keep you to the cap. Contract staff also get moved around more often, and will be moved if the district gets an employee they can put at that school (District hires throughout the year). We do get to have a say if we want to stay at our school (don't always get to do so though). To keep the SLP, give them a room that they don't have to share and have teachers/admin be flexible. My new site principal insists on me being there on a Wednesday, but that's my meeting day at my main schools. So I have to alternate - one week I'm at new school on Wednesday and main school on Thursday, then I have to switch the next week - it's a huge PITA to schedule all my therapy sessions with alternating days, so I won't ask to return next year. Shame as the caseload is super easy. My main school is more involved caseload, but I have my own room (1/2 a classroom), principal will buy me materials, teachers are very flexible and understand I have to change session times sometimes, I have great SDC teachers and aides, 2 aides translate for me anytime I need it etc. It's a further drive than I want, but willing to do it for the work situation.

We do see private preschools either before school or after school - we need to see anyone over 3 yo with IEP. Parents must bring them to us at our school if there over 3 and not in a district preschool program. We're getting more and more unintelligible preschoolers and K students. I think it's because the state cut early intervention several years back and it's very difficult to get EI services or parents don't know how to access services or move and can't keep up with services. There's also research into affect of devices on speech and language - not enough research yet, but many SLPs feel it is negatively impacting speech and language development. I saw a family at a restaurant last night try to engage maybe a 2- 2.5 year old with kids menu/coloring last night, but she was fussy about it and the phone came out and no one spoke to her again for most of the meal. I see younger siblings of my students being pushed in double stroller as walk to school and each child has a device and no one talks to them during the walk. Sigh. You learn speech and language through interacting with a person. I'm always going to stay busy.

I can't complain as my OT friend has 19 schools. Yes 19!!! Can you imagine how much time she's driving. And my situation is better than many other school districts. I don't have 100 students I'm expected to see, I don't have to do lunch duty/bus duty, or expected to go to teacher professional development meetings that have nothing to do with me. It could be a lot worse, I could be a lot busier and have less time to do the work in.

[georgiegirl]

I don't see how complaining would change anything. Schools just don't have enough resources. Reducing your caseload means some kids don't get seen (unless the school/district hired more SLPs). Complaining about class size also does nothing. My sister was a SLP in public schools in Southern California before having kids. And my stepmom is in the business as a lawyer representing parents/kids. Getting what you want/need means someone else doesn't get what they want/need. There's no way to win.

[niccig]

(unless the school/district hired more SLPs).

That's the key. School districts in states that don't have a cap, can decide to NOT hire more staff and just keep piling more kids onto the caseload. Many school SLPs bill Medicaid for many of their students - the school is getting money from the SLP's work. My state has a cap and my district does stick to it, so I'm in a better situation than many.

And not complaining means nothing gets changed. Like a said upthread, school SLPs are making noise to their district, to their state associations and licensing board and to the national association. Change though often happens when parents say they've had enough too.

[annex]

From an IEP compliance/ethics point of view for these high caseload situations, when a SLP updates the IEP annually and has all this data that shows the student isn't making progress towards goals - isn't best practice to say this student needs more service time to meet the goals?? But when you look at your caseload creeping up, isn't your only choice is to offer less service time in order to stay in compliance? I'm curious how that plays out from a SLP point of view in terms of the ethics...

Also parents really sit in your IEPs and agree to less service time when their student is NOT making progress??? I always fought for more when my student was struggling - less when they were clearing out IEP goals in just a few months - but I'm guessing you don't see that happening from the parent side? I never felt I had a leg to stand on about in what setting the service was delivered in (push in, pull out, group, individual) because that isn't something you can write into IEPs generally...

[niccig]

From an IEP compliance/ethics point of view for these high caseload situations, when a SLP updates the IEP annually and has all this data that shows the student isn't making progress towards goals - isn't best practice to say this student needs more service time to meet the goals?? But when you look at your caseload creeping up, isn't your only choice is to offer less service time in order to stay in compliance? I'm curious how that plays out from a SLP point of view in terms of the ethics...

Also parents really sit in your IEPs and agree to less service time when their student is NOT making progress??? I always fought for more when my student was struggling - less when they were clearing out IEP goals in just a few months - but I'm guessing you don't see that happening from the parent side? I never felt I had a leg to stand on about in what setting the service was delivered in (push in, pull out, group, individual) because that isn't something you can write into IEPs generally...

it's unethical to factor in your caseload/schedule when determining service team. When we're considering service team we need to consider minimum amount of time to make progress on goals. Why minimum? Because the student is missing classroom instruction to be in speech therapy. It's different for a private SLP, they can say 2-3 hours or even more per week and the child is missing out on after school activities or downtime at home. 2-3 hours at school is a LOT of classroom time the child is missing out on. So we have a discussion about will the benefit of extra pull out time outweigh the negative of less classroom time. It's a balancing act. I have one parent that is a teacher at my school, and she decreased amount of resource room time as between resource and speech, her daughter would be out of the classroom 30 minutes every day and 2 days it would be an hour - and it's not just 30 minutes, that's the session, it's the 5-10 minutes added on when student comes back into the room and has to get resettled. Then they have to catch up on what they missed. This parent knows this as she sees it from the teacher side. My DS missed math every Monday for orchestra lessons, turns out that was the time the teacher introduced new math concepts. DS struggled with math last year and I didn't know he missing the math explanation every week.

[niccig]

double post