October is the New April

If you are in education/special education/student support services you know how crazy April is and can be. Tons of meetings to attend, evaluations to conduct, and standardized tests to administer (Well, the latter of that one happens sometime in the spring, but who’s really counting).

It would seem that October is not just for Halloween candy, as the bewitching hour has infiltrated the school walls. OCTOBER IS THE NEW APRIL.

Coming back from Columbus Day weekend was an influx of meetings, evaluations, crises, and overall stress. I have kids coming out of the woodwork. I figured that in high school, one would need to bribe teens with money to be seen in your office. Nope, not this year! This year I have a waiting list on my white board if I leave the building to go do a record review, observation, or anything else out of the building.

Over the past few weeks I have had the usual number of PPT meetings on top of my current caseload of 4 students for regular check-ins. I took on two outplacement evaluations, one of which became my first case study for my program. Okay, time to start balancing and scheduling, but still pretty manageable. However, throw in a few self-referrals, students in crisis, and progress notes going home* and you have yourself on school psychology overload. Most mornings I didn’t know which way was up and found myself staying at my placement until 3:30-4pm (8-9 hour days!). The last straw was this weekend when I had to take some work home. Now, I had been very diligent about buckling down and focusing during the day, or staying a little later, leading up to last week. By the time Friday rolled around I wondered where the time had gone. As a result I worked from home all weekend to finish a report for case 1.

Going in today, my supervisor and I received a few comments about looking tired or worn out. Um, of course we do! Oye. So, after spending most of the day working on this report to finish it up and send it out, I can finally adjust to my routine again for the remainder of the week. On the table includes catching up with students who either (1) were missed last week or (2) blew off the appointments I squeezed in and starting to work on a new assessment case.

So as we enter the last seven schools days of October, let’s hope things slow down thanks to a sugar coma.

Until next thyme,

Erika

P.S. If you are on twitter and discussing the craziness that has been October use #OctisNewApr!

* Student: “How am I going to get into college now!?!”

Me: “Um, aren’t these mid-semester grades?”

Student: “Yeah, so!?”

Me: “Oh, okay. Just checking”

...Crazy kids