Making the Most of Plan Time

 At this time next week, I'll be sitting in an in-service, wondering where the summer went and how it's even possible that another school year is about to start. There are a mixture of feelings - sadness, anxiety, anticipation, maybe even a teeny tiny bit of excitement about getting back into the normal routine. 

Something that I am awful about during the summer, but manage pretty well during the school year, is meeting deadlines. It isn't the same mindset in summer; I need to turns into I should, which turns into, maybe tomorrow. And then it's August. Something that made a bit of a difference this year was, believe it or not, giving myself plan time, because the way I schedule my plan times makes so much sense, and is so effective, at work. Instead of telling myself that I was going to do laundry 'this week,' I told myself I'm going to start laundry 'between 3 and 5 on Tuesday.' We want to do [this major household task]. Ok, it's going to take us 3-4 days, so on this day, we're going to do [this part] for [this many hours] in the [morning/afternoon/evening]. Summer is too unstructured for me, so doing this meant that we actually accomplished things. Now, granted, Tuesday at 3PM would roll around and I knew it was the start of the laundry window...but only the start. "I can put this off for another half an hour." And I did, which shortened the window, but as long as I was starting within that time frame, it still felt like an accomplishment. 

If there's such a thing as an organized procrastinator, that's me. And I have to say, I've gotten pretty decent at being organized while procrastinating at work. .

Our contract allows for 100 minutes of plan time per week, to be organized at our own discretion. We also are able to make our own schedules, and add our plan minutes whenever we'd like. I tend to attach mine to my lunch time, for a few reasons: 

• My boyfriend and I do lunch over the phone every workday. It's a chance for us to spend 30 minutes together in the midst of the chaos and enjoy. There are times when I'm running late for lunch, and if he's got the time, he'll flex a little later so we still get our 30 minutes. So not only do I get quality time, but I have someone who is making sure that I take my 30 minute lunch, even if it runs into my plan time. 
• When I lose my plan time to a delayed lunch or a meeting, I need to contractually add in whatever time I've missed somewhere else that week (or early in the next) so I've still had my 100 minutes. I can highlight the missed time on my schedule and figure out how to add it in later in the day, week, or month. 
• I'm typically able to avoid meetings that are scheduled over my lunch/plan. With a 30-minute lunch and 20-minute prep back to back, that's nearly an hour of [hypothetical] duty-free time each day. My lunch is at 12:30 and my plan time is from 1-1:20. If a meeting is scheduled at 12:30, I tell the person that that's my lunch, and I can make a 1:30 meeting. If we have an 11:30 meeting that's running into an hour, I will excuse myself. Administration knows they have to give employees a lunch daily, and will back me up when I state that a meeting interferes with my lunch. It's far easier to make up a therapy session than it is to make up a lunch, and with our schedules, a 30-minute lunch is difficult to make up. It's not like administration can just come in and watch our groups for 30 minutes while we eat, like they would for a classroom teacher. And they really don't want to hear about an HR complaint or grievance over a missed lunch. So ensuring that I get my lunch ensures that I get my plan nearly 100% of the time. 

During the week, I will also write blocks of time into my schedule for testing and screening, consults, and device work. These are separate from my plan times. Sure, these are activities that can fall under plan time, but our jobs have so many demands beyond direct service that, if you don't make time for it, it becomes more difficult to do. The amount of these 'bonus blocks' I have depends on my schedule; I make sure I have my sessions scheduled in my weekly master schedule, and then fill in the empty times with those activities. 

Do I always get to do these activities as planned? Nope. But as I'm planning what to do for the week, I can write in exactly when in my schedule I'm going to do these things. I am very visual, so I color code my schedule. This is a redacted example of my schedule from April 2024. I'll explain more below. 

My pretty schedule

The yellow all represents the times I have available to do any of the following: screenings, makeup sessions, testing, report writing, parent calls/emails, scheduling meetings, holding meetings. Seems like a lot of time, I know, but it isn't. If I have meetings scheduled at any time, the yellow gets used for makeup sessions whenever possible. When I have to test, sometimes a student isn't available when I have time, so I have to move sessions or make them up to get the testing done. I've mentioned before that Mondays twice per month are our team meeting days or IEP scheduling days, so any groups I have there have first shot at having a makeup session anywhere in the yellow that week, if I have time. [Note: the orange is for 2x/week groups, so as long as I get them on Wednesday that week, I'll usually hit their minimums without having to make up both sessions]. At the beginning of the week, I write in what I'll do in each of those time blocks, just so I can hold myself accountable and know what I have time for that week. 

The orange and purple represent all of my general education students (48 in total) who are seen minimum 1x/week for services. The color coding isn't exact, as I will add in some 1x/week students to the 2x/week groups. 

The gray represents my consult students, or students who are on a monthly/twice a month monitor. I only have 3 of these students, so those blocks are also for teachers who ask if they can 'ask me a quick question'. I will also use these times if I need to observe a student in a general education room (or, if they're being pushed in from the self-contained room). 

The red is my lunch and plan block, as discussed above in far too much detail. Those 20 minutes of plan time are when I will make my copies, organize materials for groups, and do tasks that are directly related to my sessions (organizing baseline activities, getting materials ready, progress monitoring). If needed, I will do a screening or pull a student for individual baselines, but this time usually flies and I do what needs to be done quickly in this block. 

The teal is my scheduled time in the self-contained classroom. There are a maximum of 8 students in this room, and they all receive 1:1 services for the most part. If I'm absent one of those days, or if students are absent, I may pair them up. Their sessions are a bit longer since they are seen within the room and I don't have to travel between my office and rooms for sessions. 

The green is for our building pre-K room. This is another "self-contained" room, but only because they're preschoolers and don't leave the room to eat lunch or have specials with the 'big kids.' Our pre-K program is a full-day program. In the past, I'd have to have morning and afternoon times, but now, since they're there all day and they nap from 12:30-2 (lucky kids), I keep to the morning because no one wants to bother a 4 year old after a 2 hour nap. 

The darker blue is my time to work on AAC. I will admit that I have been terrible with device maintenance, as well as creating picture cards for core boards. The self-contained room is at lunch/recess during the times I have these blocks, so devices and core boards are usually free, since the paraprofessionals have dedicated lunch/recess core boards that travel with the students to those locations. 

The lighter orange shades represent when I'm at a nonpublic building (any of my 3). When I schedule with them at the beginning of the year, I don't give much wiggle room at all. This may have to change if I have a student in the PreK at one of the sites who is only in their MWF pre-K class, but that gets scheduled somewhere when I have time on one of those days if the parents won't bring the child for speech on Thursday. [Note: I tend to push for walk-in services for those students since I'm commandeering a space that's used by multiple people in each nonpublic building. They are kind enough to include me in the schedule rotation and I try to stick to that as much as possible so as not to interfere with anyone else's time. This is what I tell parents who are reluctant to do walk-in, but I do what I have to do. There are MWF and TR pre-K classes, and most of the time, the kids who receive Speech are in the TR class, so scheduling on a Wednesday doesn't help me, either]. The buildings all eat lunch at the same times, so that is my paperwork block on Thursdays. This past year, I had 18 students between my nonpublic buildings. I anticipate about the same number this year, but may need to incorporate another day if that MWF pre-K foils my plans again. 

Finally, the light blue is my Medicaid billing time. This is scheduled at the end of the day so I can do all of my daily billing for the sessions or meetings I've had that day, and finish monthly notes on the last day of the month those students are seen. 

This is what works for me. It may not work for you, but I have advised CFs in the past to avoid writing 'paperwork' or 'plan time' in schedules. Actually planning out your week using that Eisenhower matrix of what is urgent for the week makes things a lot less complicated, and also helps me to ensure that my work stays at work and doesn't come home. 

Starting the Year Off Strong

 If you're not back already, you're preparing yourself for it. Or, you're trying to prepare for it. It's fun to think about how my start of the year preparation has changed over the past few decades (ew). 

In my first 5 years, I'd be in the building as soon as we were allowed in August. Cleaning, dusting, sorting and re-sorting materials, printing data logs, printing worksheets, whatever I needed to do for 2-4 hours every day for 2 weeks, I was doing. It was kind of funny, though, because at that time, I had one half of a half-classroom for myself, so it's not like there was a lot I could do. We also had a brick school, without air conditioning, so it was very sauna-like in August. 

In 2012, I met my boyfriend in August, and the start of the year routine changed because I had a different infatuation. I did go in a few days before, but it wasn't my sole source of August entertainment anymore, so preparation didn't seem like such a big importance. The following summer, we talked about going in early to set up and he asked how much I had to do. "Very little," I realized, since I don't work with kids the first week. "So why not treat yourself to some fun you time instead of setting up where you're spending the next nine months?" I had to admit, a week to pamper myself sounded fun, and I honestly didn't feel rushed or stressed out getting things set up during the first week instead of in the weeks before. 

That was the pattern for the next 3 years until we started spending summers with his family in Michigan, and driving back to Pennsylvania the day before I had to be in work for opening in-service. We did that for several years until moving to Michigan in early 2020. The 2020-2021 school year was virtual, so my beginning of the year preparation included moving my things from one room of the house to another. :) When I finally went back in Fall 2021, it was my first time in that room, so I had a lot of setting up to do. Thankfully, we were given a week-long inservice/set up time under contract hours, and we were living 30 minutes away from the school, so I didn't have to do any advanced setup. And now, I'm at the point where I organize most of what I need during the last week of school and spend the in-service week just dusting and setting up the room with as little stress as possible. 

"As little stress as possible" is a great mantra to start the school year - especially since you know you're going to be stressed a lot for the next 9 months. Here's what I do to get myself started: 

The week before in-services start, I shop. I usually get a few new outfits or a new tote bag or something, and start getting myself back on a more typical sleep-wake cycle (so, wake up at 8 and go to bed at 11, rather than wake up at 11 and go to bed at 3, lol). 

During in-service week, we are required to do some online trainings. These are usually website-based trainings that you can't skip, and take about 3 hours. They are the same every year, so I will do these at home while watching TV or something to get them out of the way. 

We have a lot of down time during in-service week for room preparation, so that's what I focus on. I'll print out data logs and IEP summaries for teachers and get those in mailboxes, hang up our super power badges, and fill up the treasure box. I'll also prepare for the deluge of first-week screening requests - you know, they've barely had time to hear a child but they 'must' be seen. [Note: always make sure the student in question doesn't already have an IEP; you'd probably not be surprised by how often that happens!] To do that, I make sure I have copies of my screening referral form and results pages ready in a binder so I can grab and go with those. I also make sure I'm prepared for baselines or reevaluation requests for any students who have IEPs due in September. Once my room is set up, and my forms are ready, I'm ready to start the year. 

The first week of school is chaos. Whether it's year 1 or year 21, it feels like you're trapped in a whirling tornado that sucks the energy out of you as time simultaneously flies and stands still. I nap every day during the first week when I get home, for at least 20-30 minutes, because I'm that tired. I don't work with kids unless we have an evaluation that needs to be done ASAP. I work on scheduling, usually because the end of this week is when administration finalizes the master schedule, so it seems fruitless to try to make a schedule when it'll change 7 times anyway. I've read a lot of great posts and articles about allowing teachers to select their own times with post-its on a schedule board outside of the speech room - but I'm too much of a control freak for that. I draft a schedule that I share with our special ed teacher and literacy interventionists so we don't have overlap, and then share with the teachers using a fun little page. Typically, we start the week before Labor Day, which means I'll already be behind on my Monday students. Mondays are also a day when we usually have a building substitute for team meetings and IEP days. To help combat missed sessions or not meeting minimums, I rarely schedule kids who are seen 1x/week on Mondays. Mondays are reserved for 2x/week kids or monitor-level students (1-2x/month). I have a self-contained room with 8 students, and it's tough to get all 8 sessions in one day, so I'll usually split them into 2 mornings a week. One full morning (usually Thursday) is reserved for my nonpublic sites; this usually carries into the afternoon. There will always be more students who pop up at nonpublics, and one of my sites has crazy class schedules. That means, when I pick Thursday as my day there, I will inevitably be given a student who is only there Monday/Wednesday/Friday for their preK program. This is when I either offer walk-in on the day I'm there or get bonus mileage money because I have to travel there on another day. 

Once I have my schedule set, I organize my data logs by days/groups. I have 5 brightly-colored folders that are labeled with the days of the week. My self-contained rooms and nonpublics all have their own folders separate from the days of the week folders. I'll keep any papers I need for that day in the folders - data logs, permission to evaluate forms to send home, worksheets, 100s pages, etc. Each student has a folder that I keep in a file cabinet for additional papers/IEP copies, so I will usually keep student papers in the daily folders until I have time to file. 

Another time-consuming, yet beneficial-later, task I complete the first week is my Medicaid billing schedule. Our district uses a program that allows us to create a schedule in anticipation of Medicaid billing. I'll use my master schedule and just schedule the Medicaid students on a day for the entire school year, without worrying about the time of their session. So, for example, on a Monday, I'll highlight all of my Medicaid students that I expect to see on Mondays and paste them in one large 3PM session on Mondays. I repeat that for every day of the week, and then at the end of each month, I create a monthly summary placeholder at 3:30 for each student on the last session of that month. When it comes time to bill, I simply have to go into that student and adjust the time, minutes, and write my note. It's a pain when students are dismissed, or their schedule changes, but, overall, this really helps me to keep updated with, and keep track of, my Medicaid billing. 

Week 2 is when sessions start. My first sessions include reviewing expectations and my rewards system, and getting some baseline data. I make sure I've got baselines on all goals and objectives by the third week (sooner if an IEP is due in September or October), and that's usually when I've gotten used to who works on what, so my session planning is easier. Being 20 years in, I don't actually plan my lessons anymore; when I get to school in the morning, I go through my data logs for the day's sessions and grab materials. I'll lesson plan if I need to create a core board page for students centered around an activity, or if I need to get baselines on new skills. I also love to do 100s sheets for articulation. We do 100s weeks in Speech, usually every third week. I usually wait to make those copies until teachers have brought their students into the room after morning bell so that the copy machine is free. 

Organization is the word that I use the most when I'm mentoring a CF. It truly feels less chaotic when you have organized materials to work with. Starting the year off organized means you're prepared for the turmoil of the rest of the year, too! 

Keeping up with IEPs and Evaluations

 

Selfie taken during last IEP season

It comes every year. You think you're prepared. You think you're ready. You know it's going to be difficult, but you're going to survive. Maybe you stash an extra candy bar or seven in your desk. Maybe you feel yourself staring daggers at people who seem happy and carefree. Perhaps you kiss your pillow and beg it for a few hours' reprieve with no nightmares about missed deadlines. 

There is always a time of the year called 'IEP season'. For some, it's right at the beginning of the year. For us, it's that February-April stretch. For a lucky few, it's the end of the school year, and once it's over, it's summer. And sometimes, it happens twice a year, like a terrible version of El Nino. It's that time when you have 17 IEPs and 6 evaluations due within days of each other, and you have no idea how you're going to get through it. 

You will, though. And the best way to get through it, as Scar from The Lion King would tell you, is to be prepared. The best way to prepare is to know that the tsunami of paperwork is approaching. To-Do lists are great, but how do you stay on top of your due dates? Do you rely on whatever computer program you use to sort through by due dates? Do you have a list for the year that you keep with you or post on the wall? Do you have a 90-day calendar that you mark with due dates? What works best for YOU?

What works best for me is an Excel spreadsheet that I print out at the beginning of the year. Spreadsheets have never been my jam, but a colleague showed me how to create multiple pages of a spreadsheet and it changed my world. My Excel file is called 'compliance [School Year]', and that's exactly what it is. I have pages for each month, and I'll list each student's name, IEP due date, and reevaluation due date in the appropriate month. Sometimes, the IEP and reevaluation aren't due in the same month; in those cases, the student gets listed in whichever month the earlier one is due, since we typically will hold an IEP and reevaluation meeting together in my school whenever possible. I'll relist the student in the later month, too, if we for some reason don't do them both together. I am analog, so I print this list, and just write in new students (new evaluations, kids who transfer into the building, etc) on the printed sheet and will add them to the computerized master once their new IEP meeting is held. 

I staple these pages together and write the months at the bottom so I know what I'm looking at just at a glance. This gives me a chance to figure out when I'm going to be busy. 2024-2025 is going to be ROUGH for me in February and March, but January is really light, so I am already thinking that I'm going to hold a lot of my February meetings in January/early February, and then start scheduling the March IEPs throughout February and March; so, rather than have 17 meetings in February and 18 in March, I'll have 10 in January, 10 in February, and 15 in March (ideally) - it's still a lot, but I don't know that we have 17 school days in February, so 10 feels a lot more manageable. 

As I go through the year, students whose meetings have been held get crossed off, so it feels good to see the progress. I also try to make sure that all meetings for the following month are scheduled by the end of the current month, and this list makes it easy to keep track of who needs to be scheduled. I'll also highlight reevaluation dates for the current year for myself so I can see those at a quick glance. If I see that I have 3 reevaluations due in February, I'll make sure I've got those permissions out in December for updated testing so I've got enough time.  This has proven helpful this past year, as it seemed like both my school psych and I could NOT keep '2024' and '2025' straight. In May, we were talking about what consents we needed to meet for in September, and she kept mentioning one kid over and over. I grabbed my list and looked, and asked her why we were doing it a year early. "He's due in November, we need to have it done." "But I have him on my list as November 2025." "Yeah, November....wait...crap, it's only 2024 this November." I've done the same, but that's the most recent example I have. ;) 

Like most of the 'master copy' forms I use, it may take a little time to set this up, but once you have it set up, it's SO easy to edit and have ready for the next year! 

I've made an editable blank version available for FREE in my TpT store, too! Just download and go! 

Screenings and Evaluations

 Well, nothing says 'fun' like talking about one of the most important parts of the job, right? Let me soapbox for a moment, though. ;) 

Multiple times every year, I am reminding teachers that 'screening' and 'evaluation' do not mean the same thing. They aren't synonyms. "I told the parents you're going to evaluate the kid for speech." Well, that's great that you told them that, but I'm not doing that; I'm screening them to see if I need to ask them for written permission to evaluate. During one school year, many years ago, in a different district, a teacher put in writing to several parents that she was recommending their child for a special ed evaluation. Our special ed director was livid, to put it mildly, as the teacher was committing hours of testing by the school psych and myself without any Child Find, MTSS, or any other intervention to go on. Many of these families were also very upset by getting a letter stating they needed to be evaluated without any other background. They just thought their students struggled 'a little'. And, in 6 of the 7 instances, they were correct. That's right; 7 evaluations, 1 student who qualified for special education. And 6 sets of parents who were very angry at the district because they felt they had been pressured by the teacher into the evaluation, despite our director providing them procedural safeguards and stating they were absolutely within their right to decline the evaluation. [In hindsight, a prior written notice may have been more appropriate, but that's another topic and it was a learning experience.]

Back to the topic: screenings and evaluations. Yes, they go together like peas and carrots, but they aren't the same at all. For us as SLPs, we have an interesting role in the schools as the only evaluating case managers in the district most of the time. I, and many colleagues, firmly believe we need to screen a student when a teacher or parent has concerns as part of Child Find to determine if we have enough data to proceed to an evaluation, or if we need to bring other professionals into a possible evaluation. We all have our different methods of screening, preferred screening tools and setups, but one thing that I'd absolutely, positively beg (and have begged) SLPs to do is: get it in writing. Yes, I know a lot of times, things in writing feel scary, but a paper trail is your best friend, and I'll share three instances of why I feel this way: 

1) Many years ago, a family requested a speech screening for articulation. The student was aware of their errors and stated they didn't like to answer in class because of their speech. I asked the teacher to complete a referral form, and also had the family complete family input forms. The teacher had 0 academic concerns other than 'sometimes needing the student to repeat things'. The family had 0 concerns other than the articulation. Student qualifies, works on sounds, moves to middle school. The family, during the summer between elementary and middle school, has the student tested for dyslexia and student is diagnosed 'mildly dyslexic.' Family sues the school for denial of FAPE, stating they had shared concerns for 'years' about student's reading abilities. In our meeting with the district's legal team, I presented all of my documentation - including those screening forms and input forms. Our lead attorney's eyes lit up; she noted there was no indication, ever, in writing, of any academic concerns from family or school. We weren't settling; we were going to fight this. After discovery, when the family's attorney saw the documentation, they asked for a settlement. The district declined, and the case was settled in favor of the district. All because of a few sheets of paper. 

2) More recently, a teacher asked if I would be willing to screen a student for language concerns. Absolutely, and here's the referral form. When the teacher returned it, she had written some information that kind of raised some flags that she wasn't concerned about 'just language.' She had listed a lot of behavioral and social concerns, as well as gross and fine motor problems, that went beyond language. I asked about PT/OT screens, which the parents also consented to along with the speech screenings. The three of us had the same results: we saw concerns in our own areas of expertise, but felt the school psychologist needed to be brought on board because we had concerns that went outside of our scopes. I reached out the the family and requested a meeting to discuss all of our concerns, which was not well-received. 'My kid just needs speech!' I explained, multiple times, that I was happy to recommend a speech evaluation, and PT/OT wanted to evaluate in their areas as well, but since we all had concerns that none of us could evaluate, we needed the school psychologist to meet with all of us as well. We couldn't evaluate the academic, behavioral, or social concerns that the teacher was raising. The parent refused, and a week later, a state complaint is filed against us stating we refused a speech evaluation. My director calls me in, and I share the screening form, my results, and my emails to the teacher, PT/OT, parent, and school psych requesting a meeting to discuss a consent to evaluate including PT, OT, Speech, and get the psych's input. Complaint dismissed. 

3) Even more recently, a teacher asked me if I would screen a student in her class. Absolutely, but we are in the middle of IEP season, so it's a fairly busy time for me. I will schedule a screening as soon as you return this referral form to me. Just leave it in my mailbox or slide it under my door and the student will be screened as soon as I get a minute. Several weeks go by, and I get a phone call from my principal. "Why aren't you screening students?" Um, because my screening list is clear. Principal tells me there's a complaint from a teacher in the building that she had referred a student to me 'weeks ago' and I hadn't done anything, and she and the parent were upset. I remember this teacher had asked me for a referral form, which I had given her, and after checking through my screening folder, I didn't have any forms. Principal asks if I had screened the child; I hadn't, I didn't even know the child's name since I had no form. Principal calls the teacher, who states she had the form on her desk but hadn't filled it out because she was too busy. Principal reminds the teacher that I can't screen a student whose name I don't even know. I never did receive that referral form, now that I think back on it. 

The moral of this rambling is to please, please, always have written documentation to protect yourself. Yes, we work under time constraints a lot, but using a screening request form has helped me to not only keep track of screenings, but also to ensure that I'm not getting 'evaluation requests' in writing from teachers, that the correct people are brought in before we initiate an evaluation, and that teachers understand I need information and can't just "listen" to a student for 5 minutes to determine if they need a language evaluation! 

Organization: Data Logs and the Eisenhower Matrix

 Data Logs: 

"Keep good data." "Where's your data to support that?" "You need to organize your data." "Look at your data." 

I HATED the word 'data' in grad school. I'd think, leave me alone; the data is in the client's progress. Listen to them. Talk to them. Yet, in the real world, that doesn't fly. Don't use any of those statements in a due process hearing! The data needs to be documented in order to make changes to therapy, adjust goals, show progress, write new goals, or think about dismissal. 

In my career, I've taken over caseloads from 5 different therapists and received data on transferred students from dozens more. And every single one of them used a different data sheet or tracking method, which is both infuriating and invigorating. I say 'infuriating' because it's not the way *I* take data so it doesn't make sense to me. And 'invigorating' because it's not the way *I* take data and it makes me look at the goals or progress in a different way and evolve how I think. (I'm a Gemini, duality is my jam). I've mentored CFs and grad students who always ask, "How do I take data?" The answer always is, 'in a way that makes sense to you and helps you to see what a student needs and how they're progressing. 

Back to grad school, they made us complete these grids on extra long sheets of paper for goal and progress tracking. The clinical staff called them 'O Grids'. We called them 'O Gods.' The 'O' stood for 'objective', and they were a nightmare to set up for every single client. We'd write SOAP notes for every session and bring our O grids to each clinical supervision meeting. Did they match? Did they make sense? What did the data tell us? Our favorite part of O Grids was shredding them at the end of a semester once our semester report using the data was written. 

After graduating, I got a job in outpatient rehab, and documentation was just writing a brief note on a daily log sheet, then using those to write a 3-month, 6-month, or reevaluation for insurance documentation report. I never thought about data again for 3.5 years until I got my first school job with a caseload of 85. I cried during the 2 weeks I was writing progress reports. I had so many pieces of paper, so many goals, so many objectives, so many numbers...it drove me nuts. Following that year, I decided I was going to create my own way to track data, and played around with formats until I found one I liked. I started the school year with it, and it worked pretty well. I was impressed. 

And then I realized.... I had created an O grid. 

Mother of God, they got me. 

The dreaded O Grid

Fine, you win, grad school clinical staff. It works. It works even better now that I have a laptop file with a log for every kid on my roster, complete with a blank version on the first page. When I get a new student, I copy the grid and paste it in the Word document where the student should be alphabetically. When we do an IEP review, I copy/paste the new goals on the existing data log for the student, print it out, and get ready to go. 

A few reasons I like this format: 

• My due dates are included on the top. This way, I'm reminded every time I see that student of their IEP or triennial review dates. 
• I have space on the page for other notes as needed. Some things I'll write in include: parent name/number, teacher name, days I see the student, frequency, behavioral notes.
• I can keep track of their rewards in the rewards system I use by stapling their rewards sheet to this data log. Fewer papers to shuffle through = happier SLP.
• I can easily glance back at a previous session for progress monitoring and adjust our levels. This way, I can see that we've worked on /s/ in words for 3 weeks at 90% and maybe we should move to phrases. I can also draw an arrow after a number to remind myself to bump up a level next time. This comes in handy at progress report time, too. And it's amazing for keeping track with Medicaid billing! 
• I can keep track of attendance on one sheet for an entire IEP year or school year. I just mark 'absent' with the date at the top, draw a line through all of the objective spaces for that date, and move on. 
• I can bring this documentation to meetings and have one easy page to look at, rather than a pile of pages. 
• I can save these and pass them on to another SLP when the student moves to a different building, so they have a quick and easy (hopefully) record. 

As I mentioned above, I created a Word Document with this blank grid template as the first page, and copy/paste onto subsequent pages for every student on my roster. Then, I'll copy their objectives/goals into the spaces going down the left column. I leave a blank row, then copy/paste the objectives again, until I have filled the sheet's first column with objectives. I do that for every student, then print out the file (minus the first page). Yes, it's a lot of work to start, but once it's set up, it's easy to change goals or add/delete students as needed! 

When I track my data, the top row is for the date. I'll write the date in, and then, for each objective I target, I keep track of the data in the space for that objective under the date. I'll usually write the percentage or fraction, maybe a quick note about compliance or level of prompting, and that's it. I track my data separately, on an app or pen/paper, and then write it on here. It'll be interesting for this upcoming year, when we'll be required to use a program the district has purchased for logs....but I plan on still being an analog girl in a digital world. :) 

Just don't tell my grad school supervisors that these are actually helpful. I was not a fan of these in the early 2000s. :) 

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The Eisenhower Matrix 

So, we've talked data and grids, and it makes my brain think of an organizational strategy that a director introduced to me awhile back that has honestly helped with a lot of time management (home and work, thank you). This was something that President Eisenhower used to organize himself, and if it was good enough for the leader of the country in the 1950s, it's good enough for me. 

The matrix (not the Keanu one) helps you to decide how to prioritize your work. I got in the habit of making a matrix for myself during the school year when it was a particularly busy time of the year (first weeks, around progress report time, during IEP season). It honestly helped, and I've suggested that colleagues use it as well. I have one colleague who takes on a lot of 'extracurricular' planning tasks that really interfere with her ability to stay on top of her own work without stressing, but she is NOT a delegator. Someday, she will be, and I encourage her to delegate more to her para's, but everyone has their own needs, right? 

Dwight David Eisenhower had 4 D's in his organizational strategy: Do, Decide, Delegate, Delete. Some versions of the matrix include this, others use an Important-Urgent, Important-Not Urgent, Not Important-Urgent, Not Important-Not Urgent framework. I prefer the 4 D's, because how do you differentiate (another D!) between 'Important-Not Urgent' and 'Not Important-Urgent'? 

Here's a link to a great article that explains this better, and here's an example of a matrix I've used: 

Time Management Template - This Week

Do Now Write IEPs due this week Baselines for AB IEP Medicaid weekly billing	Decide When To Do Screenings Finish eval report for BN due end of month ESY data by end of May
Delegate Follow up on meeting time for IO; ask teacher to send Dojo message Schedule DS IEP; ask learning support to schedule as case manager	Delete Consults this week; reschedule for next week\ Prize box refill; not needed til next year

I'll be honest; I rarely use the 'delete' box, because when do we ever delete things? I'll usually put those in the 'decide' box, bur in this week, I was apparently just over some things for the week. :) 'Delegation' is my favorite box. If I can't get a response about a meeting, I put it on the teacher after the 3rd attempt. If we have a meeting that needs to be scheduled and I'm not the case manager, I delegate that to them. The best part about this form is crossing things off as you go, and, rather than just having my page-long to-do list that eventually overwhelms me, I've got a list of things to do THIS WEEK that feels way more manageable! 

Organization - A Journey from Type P to Type A

 I was never an organized child. I wouldn't say I was always late, because my parents had us go everywhere 30 minutes early. I wouldn't say I was a slob, because my room was somewhat presentable, and I didn't have moldy orange juice cups scattered around my room like my brother did. I wouldn't say I was scatter-brained....well, ok, that one, I would, and still will say that about myself. 

I don't think I learned the importance of being organized until I bought a house at 29. I had lived on my own in college, but moved back home to start taking chunks out of my student loan debt (45 payments to go and counting!). And even then, I wasn't particularly organized. It really happened after my boyfriend and I started having more of our lives and finances combined that the need to organize finally struck its chord of importance with me. Yes, he could keep track of his own stuff, but we both started becoming aware of what the other needed to do, and it became a co-organization effort from both of us. Even now, looking around our house at the constant organization in progress, it drives me to keep making things more organized. I thought I liked chaos, but apparently, I don't. :) 

I felt like I had a decent approach to keeping myself organized at work, but it seemed like I'd fall apart every year, at least 2-3 times a year, about having "so much to do and no time to do it" and being "so far behind that I have to take work home." I hate both of those things, and I started working to do things to help myself with it. I've gotten close, because I don't know that I freaked about about being overwhelmed at all this past year (double-checking with my boyfriend, he confirms it was a calm year). I brought work home twice, both times because a special ed teacher "forgot" until 3:55 PM on a Friday that we had an IEP meeting scheduled on Monday at 9AM. Out of my control, but still had to get done. 

Reading through any /slp Reddit or Speech forum, there are tons and tons of posts, especially from newer SLPs, about feeling overwhelmed. Too much paperwork. No plan time. Progress notes take forever. Don't know if they're making progress. Can't keep track of evaluations. Missed a deadline. I'd also heard these over the past two years from a colleague I was charged with mentoring - a very talented young SLP with a passion to work with students and a drive to help them succeed. During our first year, I harped on the importance of staying organized, and had shared all of my materials that I use to stay organized. Not every material works for every person, but these are ideas that help me, a person with decades (ugh) of experience - so learn from my mistakes and start your career on a better foot than I did. During this person's second year, they unfortunately got very far behind on paperwork, to the point that our supervisor asked me to mentor them again for the second half of the year. It turned out that this person hadn't followed through on an organizational routine as I had stressed about and suggested/presented during our first year into the second year, and their world crashed in January when the supervisor found out they had never completed the first round of progress reports or done Medicaid billing all year to date. "Too busy" wasn't an excuse for legal compliance. We went through getting organized, and the rest of their year was a struggle between catching up and staying caught up, but they walked out of their building on the last day of school without a single thing past due. 

So, I thought, to give MYSELF some structure for the rest of the summer, and to hopefully help other struggling SLPs, I'd devote a post each Tuesday for the rest of the summer to organization for an entire school year. I'll include links to materials I've created, but, for the most part, it's information and ideas for keeping ahead of the paperwork tsunami. Being organized has definitely reduced my stress, and increased my productivity. Instead of taking work home, I'm doing extra work - like PD - during my paid work time. I logged 18 hours of PD in May/June through self-study, because I was able to use my plan times for PD and paperwork, rather than just paperwork. 

Here's what I'm thinking for the rest of the summer: 

July 16: Data Logs and the Eisenhower Matrix

July 23: Screenings and Evaluations

July 30: Keeping up with IEPs and Evaluations

August 6: Starting off the Year Strong

August 13: Making the Most of Plan Time

I just kind of depressed myself realizing there are only 5 more weeks of summer. Well...it'll be organized, at least. ;) 

Communication Station

 In the past several school years, I've always included a note with our final progress reports to contact me over the summer with any questions or concerns. And it's always a quiet summer - until this year. I got an email from the parent of a student I work with on fluency skills with a video attached. This student made a little video to show how she was practicing her fluency, and that even though she's been "way too bumpy" in the past few months, she's still working hard and misses me. It was the sweetest video and I've probably watched it 8 times already this morning/afternoon. What a wonderful surprise! I usually check my emails on Mondays during the summer, and Mondays only, so it was perfect timing, as they had sent the video on Saturday and I was able to respond fairly quickly. 

Communicating with them reminded me of how important the school to home connection is in our jobs. When in a clinical, home-based, or private setting, parents often have the ability to watch a session so they know what to do at home. That doesn't happen in schools. It's something I've offered to parents at IEP meetings; if you want to set up an appointment to come in and either talk with me about what to do at home, or work with me and your child to see what we do, please let me know. I've never had a parent take me up on that, either, but it's something I may try to push for a little more this year. 

Our district switched to a trimester schedule during the pandemic (our virtual year), and has remained with it. I absolutely love it because it's one fewer time per year that I'm writing progress reports, but many families aren't so keen on it - particularly with my non-public buildings who are still on a quarterly schedule. One way I've worked with them on that is with monthly update sheets. They get a quick note home in any month when we haven't had a service plan meeting or a progress report, as well as a 'show off skill' sheet (aka, homework). The kids don't like the H-word, so we usually pick a few skills they've gotten good at for the month that they want to show off at home. The parents have expressed that they appreciate knowing what to do without being bombarded on a weekly basis, and appreciate the update. It takes me about 30 minutes to complete the sheets every month (for about 20 kids), so it isn't TOO much out of a week! 

Last year, during a departmental meeting, a colleague who worked primarily with walk-in students (usually preK kids) mentioned her frustration that the parents wanted to talk after sessions to understand what to do, and she didn't have the time in her schedule. I shared these sheets that I used, and my colleagues all asked if I'd mind sharing. The colleague with the walk-ins told me a few months later that it had significantly helped her keep on schedule when the families knew they'd get a monthly update, and they'd either call or email, rather than hound her at the end of a session. So I thought, maybe it would help others as well!

In the spirit of "try before you buy," there's a FREE version as well as the full-year paid version. 

Here's how I use them: 

• I figure out how many notes I need for the month and divide that into whether I need the articulation sheet or the open ended sheet to go with it. Then I'll make a copy of the parent note on one side and show-off sheet on the other (for less paper waste), and make enough copies for what I need. 
• About a week before the month ends, I'll start to fill in the sheet with just a quick description of what we've worked on (/ar/ in words, /s/ blends in sentences, answering who/what questions from 3 sentences of a story). I'll also give them an idea of where I'd like to be in the next month (next month, we'll work on: same; increasing to phrases; fewer cues or more response choices for independence). Notes from the SLP are usually brief, such as a reminder about an upcoming meeting, 'I hear a lot more carryover in conversation', etc. 

  

  Example of a parent communication sheet for October. 

  
  
• Then I'll fill out the back of the sheet with words the student has done particularly well on, or language skills (name 3 in each category, describe each word using 3 attributes), so they can 'show off' how well they've done and get some well-deserved praise. 

  

  Example of an open-ended 'show off' sheet. 

  
  

  

  Example of a show-off page used for articulation 
  
  

• During our last session of the month, it's 'show-off day'. Most of the students who receive these pages are at my non-public buildings or in self-contained classrooms, and don't participate in the rewards system that I use with my gen ed public school students, so this is also their 'prize box day'. We review what I've written on the note and practice what's on the back. After that, we'll usually do one additional activity before they get to pick from the prize box. 
• The sheets I complete are for the entire month; so at the end of September, the September Summary gets sent home. Our trimesters end in November, March, and June, so no notes go home that month, since they're receiving official progress reports. Non-publics are usually done for the year in May, so they don't get a note home in May, since they get their progress report and summer practice pack. So, at the very most, I'm completing these forms seven times per year. 

Is this a little extra, unnecessary paperwork? Sure. But this has really helped me to build a solid rapport with families. I have families who are comfortable telling me they really don't practice the sheets much, but they're grateful for the updates, and it reminds them to do some extra home practice (for a week or two before life happens and they fall off until the end of the month again). Hey, I get it, and I appreciate the honesty! 

Should I be doing this with my gen-ed public school students? For sure, but that's another 45 notes, and while I said the 20 I do take me 30 minutes, I just haven't been able to consistently keep up with doing 65 every month. That's definitely a goal for this school year, though. 

One surprising thing that happened last year was at a service plan meeting in March. The student was in kindergarten and was making a ton of progress. The family said that they were practicing his show off skills religiously, and the teacher asked what we meant. I explained, and the teacher asked if I'd mind giving HER a copy of the sheets so she could work with him during class, too. I have no poker face, so I'm sure my jaw dropped - a teacher asking for more work? But sure! 

We are specialists in communication disorders, but our communication with our families shouldn't be disordered!