Five Fabulous Facts

In an effort to appreciate the positive things in my day-to-day work and personal life, in order to not let bigger issues and things out of my control weigh me down. I realize that I already blog about the little positive things, because only I could find kids screaming their hate in my face, having The Hulk destroy my office, and doing food-related ice breakers with emotionally disturbed 11-year old boys endearing.

Regardless, here's five fabulous things about today...

1. Getting some awesome loose tea samples from one of my special ed teachers, whose having a Tealightful party that I am unable to attend (she gave me Carrot Cake Rooibos and Tealightful Sangria... yummers) 
2. Getting to announce and take pictures of all of my students of the month, plus the three homerooms of the month.
3. Collaborating on and finishing an FBA/BIP for a kid that is in desperate need of some behavior modification.
4. Going into a first grade classroom and having a little boy say, "You're the lady that people go to when they're sad." <3
5. Having a pair of young ladies drop off a cupcake for me at the very end of the day. Ain't nothing like elementary school birthdays.

Have a great weekend, folks!

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I Said Yes!

For those who did not see my Facebook post, Boyfriend is now Fiance. Yes, it's true, we got engaged over the weekend! So giddy, excited, cloud 9-ish, etc!

One of the kiddos said to me Monday, "You mean you won't be Miss ___ anymore?" No... instead of Miss Last-Name-You-Can't-Pronounce, I'll be Mrs. New-Last-Name-You-Still-Can't-Pronounce. :)

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Checking In, Hopefully Not Checking Out

After blogging about a universal Tier I PBIS support our school has, our Tiger Ticket program, I wanted to share another initiative new this year in our building. Check-in, Check-out is an evidenced-based Tier II intervention program promoted by the gods at the OSEP Center on Positive Behavior Interventions & Supports. Tier II are secondary prevention measures designed for 10-15% of the school population, or those who do not respond to the universal measures enacted for the whole school at Tier I. Behavioral Tier II typically looks like small group interventions and mentoring in my district.

Check-in, Check-out (hereafter referred to as CICO, because I'm too lazy to type it out every time) is a simple, individualized mentoring program. A mentor is given a case load of approximately 10 students to meet with individually during the first 15 minutes of the school day. Students were chosen for CICO by examining data from last year. If a student had 10+ office discipline referrals during the 2010-2011 school year, or if they have a Behavior Intervention Plan (BIP), they were put into CICO. From this data, we started the year with 55 students on CICO. Yeah... we've got some behavior problems.

Every day in the morning the mentor "checks in" in the classroom during breakfast and gives CICO students a daily report card. There are three goals they are working on in our building: be safe, be kind, and be responsible. The student then goes through their day and teachers rate their behavior on a 0-2 point scale in every subject area. During the 15 minutes before dismissal, the mentor returns to "check out" and see how the student did for the day. They record the number of points they earned on their daily report card, make sure they're ready to go home, and praise them for (hopefully) great behavior. Here are our daily report cards:

This is the card for our PreK-5th graders.

This is the card for our 6th, 7th, and 8th graders.

Due to a staff shortage and my principal's preference, I took on a CICO caseload. I have seven 6th grade boys, all in self-contained classrooms, two of whom were part of my social skills/anger management group last year. I also have one 8th grade girl who is new to our school this year who has already proven to be an interestingly behaved young lady. I shall have my hands full.

I'm really looking forward to getting into the data. Every two weeks, CICO mentors will be turning in a data sheet with all the point totals from the daily report cards, which will be entered into an online behavioral database. From there, we'll be able to analyze the data at 6-week intervals to make decisions about what the students need. Are they meeting their goal of 80% of their points? Should we prepare to phase them off CICO? Are they holding steady just below their goal? Should we continue CICO or add more mentoring to the program (Check and Connect)? Are they not meeting their goal? Do we need to look into more individualized services at the Tier III level, like individual counseling or a BIP?

Check back in, hopefully I'll have some interesting info for you to check out! (oh word play, I am so witty)

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Reminiscent of a Headless Chicken

So the start of the school year has been uber crazy for me. With my CSE chairperson being out on medical, not having a clerk since May, and my social worker only at our building 3 days out of 6, I've been wearing a lot of hats. I've been on the phone constantly with parents, placement, etc, running around helping teachers, making copies, emailing the upper up's about building issues, scheduling CSE meetings and testing munchkins, and meeting on/discussing kiddos. Normally, I take stress and a fast paced work environment super well. I love to be busy because I feel productive and like I'm making a difference. Today though, I had an experience that pretty much summed up my overwhelmed feelings lately.

There's a little boy who has never attended school before and was placed in first grade this year right off the bat. He is totally drowning--no understanding of structure, won't write his name or any words, won't follow routine, etc. Poor little munchkin. Anyway, he got moved down into kindergarten part way through today, and not long after, he got dropped off by his teacher in my office... screaming. At the top of his lungs.

He was utterly inconsolable and would scream in your face if you tried to calm him down. Didn't want a hug (which always works, uh hello), didn't want a tissue, didn't want to color or draw, didn't want anything except to scream. And scream. And cry. And then scream some more.

He screamed for virtually 30 minutes straight. Yeeeeppp...

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"Too Important to Fail"

If you missed this PBS special when it aired, you totally need to check out School Counselor Blog's post about Too Important to Fail, a PBS special discussing how schools are failing African American youth, particularly boys. I haven't had time to watch the entire video yet, but I watched about 10 minutes and it was wonderful (not the issue, but the content). If you work in an urban district, it's a must watch.

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Awesome Bullying Resource for Staff & Students

My building, like so many others, faces a big problem: bullying. Most of it is verbal, done online, or done on the sly during the day. Most of it doesn't get reported. When it does, action is taken, but is it ever enough? Can bullying ever truly be eradicated from a school building, or any other establishment or workspace? I could blog on this forever, it's a never-ending battle. Last year I attended a two day training on today's bullying, bullying theory, the district's anti-bullying policy, and the severe negative effects of bullying.

We watched a video that I HIGHLY recommend you both view and purchase for your school. The 40-minute documentary is called Bullied: A Student, a School, and a Case That Made History and it is absolutely free through the Teaching Tolerance website. Bullied tells the inspirational and eye-opening story of Jamie Nabozny, a young gay man who was severely bullied in school. From the website blurb:

"Bullied is designed to help administrators, teachers and counselors create a safer school environment for all students, not just those who are gay and lesbian. It is also intended to help all students understand the terrible toll bullying can take on its victims, and to encourage students to stand up for their classmates who are being harassed."

 

I can't speak highly enough about this excellent documentary. It is SO powerful. Aside from the fact that it is free to order (why haven't you ordered it yet, you've had a whole paragraph!), it comes with a great viewer's guide with lesson plans, quizzes, and facts for both staff development and student discussion. There are "school climate" surveys for both teachers and students, to gauge how safe invested parties view the school. There are talking points and activities to address empathy, discrimination, courage, and justice when showing Bullied to students (I would recommend it for the 7th grade+ crowd). There's also information specifically targeted towards bullying and LBGTQ youth.

Go now! Order it for your school! Use it for staff development or in classrooms and to start the discussion about bullying at your building. A "zero tolerance" policy is only as good as the universal enforcement behind it. To quote the sign on my door: "Bullying: Confront it. Report it. End it."

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Generosity

My mother always said, "It never hurts to ask. The worst they can say is, 'no.'" She was a smart cookie.

As I discussed previously, I'm in charge of the Students of the Month and Homeroom of the Month initiatives at my building. Over the summer, my principal discussed a few changes to the way the students and homerooms are chosen with me, which I don't really agree with. I'm of the opinion that we should reward kids frequently, consistently, and for relatively simple and minute things. Build up the sense of self-esteem and self-worth in knowing that they can "do it," then increase the expectations and level of performance for a reward, otherwise you'll have no student buy-in. My principal has very high expectations for our students, which in theory is a great thing, but it's hard to expect high poverty, low performing students to have 95% attendance, 100% uniform use, etc. But I digress.

My principal did make some great suggestions though. She wanted to reward our star homerooms with a pizza or ice cream party every month and award repeat winners with a special class field trip at the end of the year. Our student winners get some neat things already--their picture taken and put on a bulletin board, their name announced over the loud speaker and put in the school newsletter, and a certificate--but, I suggested more meaningful incentives, like gift cards or "good for" coupons to local restaurants. My principal also suggested a special field trip for multiple student winners, to really recognize their substantial achievements. Bigger and better rewards for being a kick butt student? Sign me up.

Off I went to fundraise. I totally spammed the postal service asking local fast food chains, grocery stores, dollar stores, etc for donations and funds. Mind you, I'm absolutely prepared to shell money out of my pocket to reward my kiddos, but I knew this was going to be too big of a cost. We typically have 20 students and 1-2 homerooms crowned every month. At first, I had no bites and only rejections, and I was bummed. Then, I started playing phone tag with our local McDonald's corporate office, who wanted to donate coupons. When they asked me what I was looking for, I said that we expect to give out 25 coupons to kids a month, and left it up to them to determine their contribution. Well, they offered me 25/month for the ENTIRE YEAR, all personalized for "McStudents of the Month." Later that week, I received 10 certificates for a free pint of ice cream at a local frozen custard store, 100 coupons to Wendy's, and today, 50 coupons to Burger King, all personalized for my school. Woah.

I was so totally blown away by the generosity of the local business community. True, I understand that they have a commitment to donations and giving to causes in the area, but I never expected such a great response. I'm so thrilled and excited to shower my school with incentives and rewards!

Moral of the story: if you want something, ask for it, because you just might get 250 McDonald's hamburgers and fries out of it.

 

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Professionally Proactive

This weekend, I attended the New York Association of School Psychologists (NYASP) executive board meeting in Albany. Wow, what an experience! We covered so many topics and I haven't totally processed everything yet. There were about 40 attendees from all over the state, representing NYASP's public relations, legislative involvement, budgeting and accounting, the newsletter, the awards committee, continuing professional development, conference committees, and of course, local chapter representatives, which is were I fell.

I have to admit, I was wary of attending the board meeting. I wasn't sure what to expect, but only heard great things when I asked colleagues in the area that I traveled with. While my co-representative is a newer member, the other three ladies are seasoned practitioners in the field and with NYASP, so they took us under their wings, which we needed and appreciated! Once the board meeting got going, it was quite enjoyable to discuss issues in the field with like-minded professionals. Mostly, I just sat back and took it in, or chatted with my co-rep. The other board members know their stuff and care so much about the field of school psychology, our interests and expertise, and of course, the kids. It was so great to be with people who "get it" and are working to make sure that other stakeholders do too.

My co-rep and I left with tons of ideas and things to plan for our chapter in the coming year. The first step towards reaching that goal of being more involved in the profession is complete!

 

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