SPAW! SPAW!

I hope you all read the title "SPAW! SPAW!" to the sound effect of a large predatory bird cawing. No? Well I did in my head. SPAW stands for School Psychology Awareness Week, in case anyone was wondering. So, how was your SPAW? I spent mine on maternity leave, making informal Individual Education Plan goals for my baby daughter in my head, as in: "Baby B will reach for a desired object on 4 out of 5 trials as measured by mommy charted records."

Since I was not at work this year for SPAW, I thought I'd do a little recycling for those who haven't been with the blog since 2007, but are too daunted by the hojillion posts to go searching for what the days of a school psychologist are like. Here's a hint: never the same. You never know what will present itself when you walk in your school doors, and chances are, your plans for the day go out the window within the first hour or so. It's what I like about our profession--never a dull moment. So here are some oldies, but goodies, about the day in the life of...moi.

A typical day, full of children trying to run away from me and foreign objects being thrown.

Another day, another quest for a pen and additional time to do my job.

Three days smooshed into one, full of cold pricklies (guns and whatnot) and warm fuzzies (kids making real changes).

Top 10 things I do as a school psychologist

Fuzzy math: why we never have time to do our job

Somebody, hug me. I hate when advocates get unnecessarily saucy in meetings.

And to spice it up with something new, here is a sample of how your friends at the NFtSP Blog Facey Face page spent their SPAW:

• Teaching social skills, counseling, and behavior plans.
• Sat on teams for inclusion, Positive Behavior Intervention System (PBIS), and "yellow zone" behavior interventions.
• Provided parents with the information that they need to ensure that their child receives accommodations when writing SAT and other necessary exams, and when attending post-secondary school.
• Giving a questionnaire to fifth graders to assess for the prevalence of bullying at their school.
• In my current job I rarely ever test anymore. This week I was schooled on the most effective way to steal cars. (I work in a juvenile jail)
• Implementing check-in/check-out program for the district! Oh, and in Response to Intervention (RtI) meetings out the wazoo.
  
• Started a group for 5th grade girls targeting current relational aggression issues
• I spent 5 hours of my day today in a student crisis situation...
• Created a "Manners Jeopardy" game for our middle school counseling groups... in light of thanksgiving coming up. Doesn't hurt to remind 7th and 8th graders about table manners, conversation manners, etc!
• I had a rather humorous counseling session, followed up with the student showing me his sticker chart for good behavior later in the day.
• Helped a life skills student conquer his bus phobia with a get on the bus, get off the bus, ride laps around the parking lot with a very patient bus driver yesterday. The kiddo took a mass transit bus to a field trip today and the school bus back.
• I attended a full day of training on the iPad. We just got them to use to administer AIMSweb probes to our elementary students (and to have a little fun with!)
• Helped a first grade classroom teacher plan a re-entry plan for a student with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) returning to school from a partial hospitalization program
• Prepared for and led a middle school team meeting to prepare for the admission of a student with autism and is non-verbal moving to our district from a foreign country at the end of the month. I had requested translated reports and video of the student in his current educational setting from his parents and shared all this with the group today. I told them they were going to do amazing things with this student, who to this point, has not received much in the way of meaningful instruction. And I meant it! They are pumped!
• RtI meetings, threat assessment, behavior plans
• Wrote 2 behavior plans, manned a school-wide community service project, and managed data and made decisions about students on our Check-in, Check-out Tier II PBIS program.
• I have the Michael Franti "Be a Learner" song from third grade Second Step stuck in my head after doing the same lesson in three classrooms. It's catchy!
• Provided Grief/Crisis Counseling Support and drove a parent to visit a program for their child.

See, we are more than just testing and IEP machines! Spread the news!

Oh, and in case you were wondering, Baby B is at 80% mastery on her IEP goal, as she reached for her Whoozit toy four times today. Genius child.

You Are All Winners. But Only One Gets A Prize.

Last week, I ran a contest to win this fabulous classroom observation app for the iPad. Using a random number generator, the winner is... "JFValerie"! So if you are JFValerie, send me your email at rebecca(at)studentsgrow(dotcom).

Thanks to everyone who participated...I loved reading about your best classroom observation moments! Hope you all are having a fabulous SPAW (School Psychology Awareness Week)!

Little.

I warned you guys that since I’m on maternity leave, posts were going to be a bit baby-o-centric. Today’s post is about baby laundry. But not really.

They say to nap when the baby naps. But I see her naps as my only opportunity to get the laundry done and eat with TWO hands. I am getting rather babydexterous in that department, but it’s just more fun to eat without holding a baby. Today, I was folding the baby laundry when it was done, and I just love how little everything is. Little baby socks! Little baby leg warmers!** Little t-shirt! I die. I love all things little. People are always telling me to enjoy my baby because they grow up so fast. No problem! Do you see that little face? I'm soaking it up all the time. It is true that they grow so fast though. I was initially bummed out when she grew out of her bassinet, but then I got to put her in her crib and voila! she looked super little again. Yes!

My friends know about my love of little. When I moved to Cali with one of my best friends, she was in charge of stopping me from buying little things for the apartment, like mini-spatulas and itty bitty useless cookware. Whenever I showed her such things in the store, she would make me answer the question, “Are you buying that because you need it or because it is little?” Most times, it was because it was little. And little is cute. I would say, "Gah! Fooled by the little again!" and put it back.

This is why it is surprising that for most of my career as a school psychologist, I have worked with middle and high school students. They are decidedly not little, and let’s be honest, not so cute. One would think I’d be a preschool assessor with my preference for little. But there is something awesome about working with the adolescents, even if they can be rude or standoffish.*

I wrote a series on middle school students when I first started my blog. As a sidebar, I think my writing has evolved from then. I used to be super researchy and informative. Now I’m trying desperately to connect baby leg warmers** to school psychology. Anyhoo, my point (I have one, I’m just sleep deprived and it takes me a while now) is that I think people are much less forgiving of adolescents’ developmental mistakes than younger students’ mistakes, because younger students are still cute and little. It is kind of cute when a Kindergartener uses faulty logic to explain their actions, and not so cute when a 13 year old does it.

I find that as a school psychologist, while teens are not little and cute on the outside, when I am working with them one-on-one, I find the cute on the inside. So many times, adolescents have presented as hardened and aloof, and then when I get to know them, they surprise me with saying funny things or sharing a the softer side of Sears (e.g. A 10th grader dressed like a thug sharing he loves poetry, or an 8th grade girl who initially acted snotty to me admitting she wants to be a vet because she loves fuzzy animals). You have to look for the cute in teens, it’s not in your face.

Please remind me of this when Baby B is an adolescent and makes mistakes that are not cute. I have a feeling though that even when she is 16, I will still secretly think of her as my cute little girl, even though she will have long grown out the baby leg warmers.**

*One of my friends teaches 7th grade, and she told me once, “I can’t help it. I love teaching the little bastards. I don't know why.” I wouldn’t have put it in those terms, but I agree that I too love adolescents’ sauciness.

**Baby leg warmers. I die.

Go On, Win Yerself Something Purdy.

I love getting emails from readers, especially when they offer something pretty for my readers. I tend to not pimp out things to buy on my blog, unless it is shamelessly something I wrote, of course. But in this case, you get something freeeeeeeeee and who doesn't like free? You guys don't have to pay $29.99, I give it to you for FREE99.

Enough hooplah. Enter my contest and win an app for tracking behavior during classroom observations! Some momtrepreneurs/school psychs in my home state of Colorado developed this app and wanted to share it with all y'all:
The Behavior Lens app. The app has four observation types: Interval Recording, Duration, Frequency, and ABC. The look and design is very sleek and sophisticated, yet extremely intuitive and easy to use. The best part is that it automatically generates graphs from your data which can be easily shared with parents and teachers through email or attaching them to documents.



Now, of course you have to be fancy and have an iPad to use it. I am still sans iPad, and I do think people kind of rub it in my face when their emails end with "Sent from my iPad," but who am I not to share the iPad app love?

So how do you enter the contest? You can enter in one of three ways (or all three!)

1) Write a comment at the end of the post telling a story about the craziest or most inspiring thing you have ever observed in a classroom (don't use names or identifying info, please!)

2) Pick your favorite post on NFtSP about behavior and share it on Facey Face or Twitter. Use the button at the end of the post. Be sure to tag @Notes from the School Psychologist Blog (Facebook) or @studentsgrow (Twitter) so I will be able to see who re-posted it.

3) If you aren't already a fan of the blog on Facey Face or Twitter, sign up and then return here and post a comment that you are signed up.

I will then put your names in a numbered list and use a random number generator to pick the winner. I will announce the winner of the app on the blog. The app is valued at $29.99 so go forth and enter! Or...is it actually priceless because you get to show a fancy graph on your iPad at IEP meetings? So jealous.