Off Balance

I need an administrative assistant. I really do. Because I am paid for 18 hours per week of work. And I spend exactly 18 hours per week providing direct therapy for my students. That leaves another 4-5 hours minimum per week of unpaid work--this is called caseload management. Some of it is good stuff--writing progress reports and new goals, sharing strategies and education with caregivers, coordinating with other members of the student's IEP team. Oh yeah, and planning lessons and therapy. And taking data on progress. And creating therapy materials. And cleaning play dough off the rug.

Some of it is not so good stuff, like completing time surveys and submitting them online. Completing a very lengthy developmental profile for each student twice a year which goes into some central repository and the parent never reads. Right now we have switched to a new online IEP system. To get started ( and yes I am doing this at home in bed because I only have zero paid minutes per week to do this stuff at my actual work site) "all students need to be verified and SEIS records need to be initiated. All service providers need to verify their student caseloads and confirm their students' services, and case managers need to Affirm and Attest each student in SEIS to validate this information." THERE IS A 27 PAGE MANUAL EXPLAINING THIS PROCESS. Excited yet? This is work--entering all this information is work, but it is not really the work I am being paid to do. Why am I doing it? Because the state and federal governments are asking educators to provide more and more and more documentation that progress is being made, and there is no one to provide the documentation except the people providing the services. Kind of crazy.

I am sure you have heard this rant from folks working in the schools before, but it is just feeling so crystal clear to me lately. Next week I have a small space in the morning when I would love to go observe one of my students at his other preschool. This would be the best use of my time and I could brainstorm with his teachers there about intervention strategies. It would be a good bang for the buck for our poor strapped education system. Instead I will be feverishly affirming and attesting the pile of IEPS I have.

The world of private speech and language therapists looks mighty attractive during stretches like this, when I am just exhausted by the hurricane of kids and families and PAPERWORK. I just have to keep remembering that I like the real work that I do...but I like it a lot better when I have time to do it.

I know there is a reason for documentation and measurable goals and online data systems, but there is a point when the pros outweigh the cons. I see it at my work, I see it at my kids school where testing and standards are not always the road to best practices and deep learning. We need some balance in this system.