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18 Ways to Scare a Social Worker

18 Ways to Scare a Social Worker

I recently saw a hilarious post on Sublime Speech about the Spookiest Things To Do To an SLP. I figured I’d jump on the fun and make a list for school social workers as well (I did borrow a few of hers!)!

  • Blinking voicemail light to start the day
  • A move-in student with a behavior plan and social work minutes
  • “unfounded”
  • Medicaid
  • Burps, gas, and runny noses
  • “I DIDN’T TAKE MY MEDICINE TODAY!”
  • An invasion of the Unthinkables
    – A required 8-hour workshop that doesn’t offer CEUs
  • “I don’t allow _______ accommodation in my classroom.”
  • 10 calendar days or 10 school days?
  • An IEP invitation for tomorrow morning at 8:00 am
  • “My child has ADHD, and Bipolar Disorder, Intermittent Explosive Disorder, and ODD, Tourette’s, and Anxiety, and Autism. They also have bad handwriting and can’t tie their shoes.”
  • Required professional development about teaching math under Common Core
  • Changing special ed. legislation
  • SQUIRREL!!!
    – Questionable administrator discipline handlings
  • License renewal time!
  • Overdue re-evals

Anything I should add? What else scares you!?

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Inspiration :: Thank Goodness for SLPs!

In our building, we are SUPER fortunate to have 3 amazing speech-language pathologists. While this may seem like a luxury to many districts who don’t even have 1 whole SLP to themselves, our ladies still stay extremely busy! Our building is primary low-income, so a lot of our students need language interventions (wait, you mean they’re not just “speech” teachers!?)

Most days, I don’t know what I would do without our SLPs! Sometimes being a social worker in a school can make me feel like an outsider, but these ladies know exactly what it’s like to balance caseloads, IEP meetings, and medicaid billing, on top of the “usual” school duties. The other day, one of them posted this article to her Facebook. I thought it hit the nail on the head in terms of what working with SLPs is like and thought I ‘d share it with you all. Hopefully it’ll bring a smile to your face!

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Quote :: Being a Rebel

Steve Jobs Quote

I’ve written a post before about how to help kids who break the mold – who don’t fit in and who fight the way that things are “supposed to be.” Call them stubborn, headstrong, spirited, whatever you want. Regardless of the term, these kids have the potential to make working in a school exhausting! Yet these are the very kids who have the potential to take what we know as a human race and stretch the boundaries. These are the visionaries, the trail-blazers, the innovators.

As a kid, my parents would both tell you that I was a troublemaker. They recently gave me some letters I had written to Santa as a child and rather than give the traditional, “For Christmas I want…” list, I instead interrogated him as to how he could possibly make it to all the houses in one night, how millions of toys could fit into one sled, and whether or not Rudolph existed. Why couldn’t I just accept that a jolly man in a red suit could deliver presents to all the good boys and girls like every adult had told me?

Yet despite the headaches I undoubtedly caused my parents as a child, many of those same characteristics have helped me to serve my students. Whether it’s fighting for or against a special education placement for a student because I truly believed it to be in their best interest, or questioning why we have to treat a student “the same as we’ve always treated other students like them,” working in schools can be messy. And what our kids need isn’t a world of “yes ma’am,” “go-with-the-flow” people. What they need are advocates, champions, and strong examples of confident adults.

It’s a great reminder for us as we think about working with our more challenging students.

“Here’s to the crazy ones, the misfits, the rebels, the troublemakers, the round pegs in the square holes… the ones who see things differently — they’re not fond of rules… You can quote them, disagree with them, glorify or vilify them, but the only thing you can’t do is ignore them because they change things… they push the human race forward, and while some may see them as the crazy ones, we see genius, because the ones who are crazy enough to think that they can change the world, are the ones who do.”

– Steve Jobs