u/Existing_Judgment814

Hi. The school pulled me out of my cafeteria duty today to corner me into the office with all administration to query what my "Understanding of my role in Intervention is".

They had previously sent me an email during the first 2 weeks of school assigning me Reading Intervention but nobody had told me explicity, nor was it ever provided to me in writing that I was doing reading intervention. I was trying to do my file review and draft an SLP pull out schedule when the email came through to a huge group of staff. I went immediately to the Head SPED and told her my concerns and we agreed to defer the duty.

Evidently, when I tried to explain that I had spoken with the Head SPED a month ago and she agreed to defer that duty until my all my initials and re-evals were done for the month of October, the principal tried to insinuate that I was acting like I was too good for helping out and that they are "all hands on deck" and that she was "tired of (me) saying that I have tests only I can perform". Head SPED remained silent and did not offer to confirm that encounter. Also, I have to schedule my IEP meetings around the Principal's personal schedule for things such as her nail appointments during the workday.

My friends said to keep a log of these interactions, to keep my job and seem happy to help because I can't quit. I don't know how much farther these guys are going to go...I told them I had no idea why I was assigned math intervention and I was wondering what the legality of that was but they said anyone can do it including the janitor because they "care about the kids who are so far behind" and said you don't need any qualifications or credentials. What I don't like about this isn't necessarily just the lack of communication, it's more the attempt to minimize the SLP diagnostic responsibilties and indirect service time as well as the personal threats such as saying "So you aren't going to do it then"? before I can respond..and pulling me into the office with no warning. Could this constitute harassment?

Beginning of the year is really hectic but I'm also learning a new casleoad and site. I feel like a lot of my day is spent doing AM and PM duties and trying to fix the schedule so as not to conflict with all the other providers.

I can't believe it's the second week and I have 0 therapy planned because I spent 6 days on moving into the room, file managment for scheduling and case review between duties and trying to find out where everything is in the building. I just barely got a phone and a radio. I wish I would have known it was going to be this difficult to prep materials (no color printing or laminator available on demand because equipment is broken or on hold).

What do you guys like to do to get to know your new kids? I'm trying to go for a tech free classroom this year and I'd like to get as much spontaneous language as possible but don't have anything planned yet other than a stack of board games and toys. What are your most creative getting to know you SLP activities (no prep)?

What the title says!

I have 50 universal screens for Kindergarten and absolutely do not want to add these kids into RTI based on one single screen alone. Also is your school doing language RTI as pull outs or MTSS in the gen ed classroom?

How do your universal Kindergarten screens look in terms of procedures?

This may be the dumbest question but I noticed the Reading Specialists in the Tier I and II models have the "never give up" approach to literacy. Regardless of the developmental age or grade level, FSIQ score, or academic achievement, these instructors don't discharge or change goals, or reduce services.

I was trying to explain to them the concept of a therapy plateau and how on our side we absolutely can discharge if benchmarks just simply cannot be met. This is also a nuanced conversation because our scope is waaaay bigger than literacy alone. But even when we share the same students and those students make no progress in our services, literacy keeps plugging along with them.

Any ideas as to if maybe literacy has more room for growth than language does or if maybe language instruction in the way a speech therapist does it is maybe less effective *after* a certain point in K-12? (Think higher level grammar goals or appropriateness for the developmental level of student?) Sorry if this sounds confusing I just don't know if maybe I'm doing something wrong myself or if the science of reading/literacy movement doesn't want to accept limitations as part of their working model for a reason.

A couple of warning signs that your school is probably toxic is if they give you a hard time about this. Sure, a shared room or portable with another SLP or maybe the OT is fine. It's not ideal, but it will do.

Now if they try to put you in a shared room with someone who say is doing behavioral health services and there's no privacy between you both, that's a red flag. If they try to put you in the cafeteria, gym, or other public space, the hallway,...full stop. If they tell you that you don't need space because you are only there 2-3x a week, remind them you also perform evaluations which is TESTING. You see all the major schoolwide performative drama over mandatory state testing, right? The entire school shuts down for 2 weeks for that and everyone gets special headphones, visual blockers, and quiet space for students performing math and ELA testing. Remind them that your testing is also important and requires a safe, quiet, and private space.

Finally, if you come to school and one day your room is now filled with boxes and used as a storage room, if the ceiling is broken and water is dripping in a bucket, or they offer a room filled with prior years of garbage collected from previous teachers., if they tell you to move rooms every week/month for months...all of this needs to be addressed. It all happened to me and I didn't know what to say or how to act. Find out who your direct report is. A lot of these jobs nobody takes any accountability for managing us and we don't know who is supposed to be our go to person. Sometimes we just arrive on site from a large district Admin office and the school doesn't even know we are coming.

Not being provided a space to work is a dignity issue for us as a profession and I do think it lowers our morale. The kids are aware of these kinds of environments and it brings them down too. We just need to say something and do something. It's not a favor, it's not asking too much. It's the bare fucking minimum. If your school gives you a hard time about it then run. Fast. An issue like this is not going to go away on its own and nobody else is going to advocate for a Speech room in a public school environment.

I am not personally familiar with the concept of a "pink slip" but from what I have gathered it means a school district is asking you not to come back for the following SY. It's not a termination, it's a non-renewal.

I'm looking for answers as to why this is even a thing in public education and if it has to do with budget cuts or just perceived poor fits AKA they just don't like you enough and have no problem letting the position stay vacant until someone else can be hired or burden the other SLP with a heavier caseload. I thought union membership prevented moves like this?

Are there places that protect their staff from this kind of move that offer full time SLP jobs with benefits as a direct hire? I'm concerned this field is not as secure as I would like to think it is given the amount of 1099 and per diem only jobs or district jobs that keep reducing year after year. Has anyone else seen a reduction of good positions in their area (as opposed to the areas with a very high demand but that nobody will accept because of the well known ritualistic abuse by the places doing the hiring)?

Hello! My himmie is 7 years old and saw the vet recently for softer than usual stools. He recommended a hydrolysed protein diet trial but there's only 2 kinds of wet foods for this and she rejected one and likely will not accept the other because it's salmon flavor only.

Where are people finding wet food alternatives for hydrolyzed protein diets? The Hills z/d is what she really hated and I had to return it. I heard you can try more rare meat like lamb or venison but what brands has anyone had success with?

All other hydrolyzed protein cat food is dry only!

Does anyone else live in an urban area that has been broken up into charter schools and charter school corporations?

It's almost impossible to get a union represented direct district hire anymore where I live because the charters have contracts with high turnover agencies that pay below market rate. Has any city held onto a strong public school district and resisted the charters? Public schools are closing here all the time but it seems like more charters keep popping up. Those are most of the jobs that I'm seeing posted.

I've worked for bad districts and bad charters-both exist. But I would prefer to have a stable position with a stable district and charters are a wild card: the SLP is on their own, they might be asked to perform very strange duties outside the scope of practice bordering more on other licensed positions, they typically don't offer unions or pensions, and are at will employment.

In order to lower out of pocket investment I need to purchase just a few things-not a lot, and not an entire SLP language program investment, to get started for K-5 mild to moderate.

If you were stuck on a desert island doing groups what 5 functional materials/things would you be using to teach groups that can be used in multiple ways for different goal areas?

Just checking-How do you know if there's any promise at all a student will ever get the /r/?

I'm talking end of 2nd grade...constant max cues to get /r/ in isolation. We get it once or twice a session and then the next week it's like back to baseline as if therapy never happened. I've done the mirror, the mouth puppet, auditory discrim tasks, offering to teach both methods of elicitation: retroflex and bunched... bright kid but just can't get this and there's no progress. She complains it hurts to curl her tongue but doesn't want to do the bunched method. Would it be possible for her to acquire this sound as she gets older with more tx?

I feel bad but I can't see her having individual tx on a school caseload where the heavy ASD cases are the only individual sessions and parents will never go for private practice.

Nobody seems to understand that cognitive/academic skills don't equal perfect articulation. Teacher says "but she's so smart". Yeah I know, it's not a matter of intelligence, she just isn't getting this sound.

Someone a while back had posted about the dark triad phenomenon of very unwell personality disordered people overwhelming the SLP field (e.g. narcissistic, sociopathic, etc.) I looked up the term and did see that it references many of the people I've come across which would explain the mean and nasty experiences I have had with some of them.

I'm not sure if anyone else has had a similar experience but I am curently working with another SLP that was hired before me and does not invite me to the same table with all of our colleagues at staff meetings, eats lunch with them next to my room daily and does not include me, and said she was looking forward to my replacement coming back as I'm covering another SLP's leave. We text and chatted many times at first but I eat lunch alone and told her that I don't have much of a support system and worry about finding work after this "gig" is over but she still approached me excited as hell to let me know the permanent SLP is coming back soon.

She seemed so nice and sweet at first but when I ran this by someone else they said she's not naive, she knows exactly what she's doing.

How is everyone handling toxic co-workers, and specifically ones that are also on your SLP Team? How do you know when to drawback and stay away?

My SLP colleagues have been screening kids without parent permission. I was always trained to not do this because it's a violation of their LRE.

What is your state doing?

And what expressive/receptive screeners are you using because I haven't found a single one that doesn't over identify the student who later becomes a DNQ on the TOLD or CASL.