Erin's Updates

Hi everyone. So I think I have posted on here once, but I really can't remember. This year I changed school's. I am still with the same district, but wanted to try something other than middle and highschool. I am now 2 days a week at an elementary school, seeing mostly artic kids and some language kids. Which we are starting to implement as a part of RTI, a speech improvement class for Artic kids that only have 1 to 2 sound erros, this way we can get those kids off IEP's and save ourselves so many meetings and paperwork! Oh the woes of IEP paperwork!!
One day a week I have been assigned what they call "Non-Public Schools" which, is what I thought they were calling "private schools" until I got two days a week assigned to the "Private School Team". These I found out quickly were two totally different things.

So the Non-Public assignment is for kids that the district has paid to place at "specialty" schools for their disorders, like Autism or MR, or if they are more involved kiddos with CP etc, where they coudln't function in our most severe classrooms at the public school level. So I only do assessments for the students and then present the info at their Triennial's or 3 year reviews.

Then for the "Private School Team", this is where parents have chosen to privately place their kids, but their kids still qualify for special ed. So under the IDEA law, we have to legally provide service plans for these students, which includes testing every 3 years for their triennial's and having an annual IEP for them to. So I see some kids, but its consult only on these two days, it's mostly going to meetings and deciding parent's areas of concern and then testing and holding more meetings to share results.

So my life in a nutshell is artic therapy, driving all over San Diego to assess heavliy involved students, meetings, and more assessments. Fun stuff!

My hopes are for next year to keep the "Private School Team" placement 2 days a week, and then go into working for this center for 3 days a week, where it's sorta like private practice but not. I have several SLP friends doing it and loving it.

I wanted to share a website that I found and did a 30 day free trial, and it is amazing! Definitely check it out, but be warned, if you are doing therapy with the elementary population you will want to print everything out! www.therasimplicity.com

I miss you guys and would love to hear updates from all of you. This summer I got to see Kay, Kellie and Amber all for a little bit in Abilene. So good to see you guys. This summer the highlights were a cruise to Jamaica, Grand Cayman, and Cozumel, and enjoying the beach here in San Diego, going home to Texas to visit family, and moving apartments.

Ok that's enough, my carpel tunnel is kicking in from typing :)