1/14/09 (5 hours) 5

Today was my first real day at MST working with Mark Mecca, the school
psychologist. On Monday I went to see the school and make sure that it
was what I wanted to do and the program sounded great. I will be
working with Mark on most aspects of what he does, from filing papers
to testing to evaluating to writing up reports.

We started off the morning with finishing up an IQ test on one of the
students. Most of the tests had already been done, so Mark went through
the block design, math problems, and a few other tests. I was excited
that I knew what most of the tests were and how they were done, but I
found it hard to sit there and listen and watch Mark not be able to
give any feedback to the student. I think that would be the hardest
part of giving the test. After finishing up administering the test and
taking the student back to class, Mark, another intern, and I worked on
giving the student an IQ score. The other intern and I were able to go
through the books and find the different sections and different score
for the sections to come up with a full scale, verbal and performance
scales. This was a great start to my first day.

With the scores the way they were, Mark said the student should be
able to be classified with a learning disability, but we had to finish
scoring the achievement test that the student had taken. I was given
his test and the scoring guides and put them into the computer and
worked on scoring the last part of the test. Then, we had all the
information we needed and I called another lady from the team to tell
her that the student could be classified.

After that we went back to the offices with the rest of the "team" as
Mark calls them to work on a few other things. I was given the
opportunity to go interview the teacher of the student who had the IQ
test done and ask her a few questions about his performance and what
she thinks is going on. After interviewing the teacher, I came back
down to the office to write up the interview report, so with my notes
that I took from the interview of the one teacher and Mark's notes from
interviews with three other teachers, I wrote up the "teacher
interviews" section of the students report.

From there, Mark and I went to call the student's mother to try and
set up an interview. The social worker at the school said that the
mother was not all for having her child identified so Mark decided to
handle the phone call himself, which I was glad about because at my
first day I did not want to have to have a mother yell at me! I
observed the phone call and listen to what was going on.

Hopefully I will be able to observe the student next time, but we ran out of time today.

 

1/21/2009 (5 hours) 10

Today at my internship I got to sit in on an achievement test that was
given to a girl with a behavioral problem. We wanted to see if she was
doing poorly and misbehaving in school because she was unable to well
or if she was just not trying. It was really neat to understand what
was going on and see how standardized these tests are as well. I spent
most of my time with the achievement testing and most of my day with
this girl.

She has many problems in school and at home and is in foster care
now. I got to speak with her and she does not like school at all and
does not feel the need to listen to adults or any authority figures. I
am unsure what will be determined about her, but I do know that she has
problems dealing with authority. Her one teacher will not even let her
back into class at all, even after all the testing is done and after
she is given a behavior plan.

After the achievement test is done I got to plug all the grades into
the computer and figure out what the results are. Next time we are
going to analyze the results since it was time for a CSE meeting that I
got to sit in on. The boy who the meeting was for is in 11th grade and
is being evaluated for the first time and was determined to have a
learning disability. He and his mother are trying to figure out if they
want to place him in special education or not, but they are not sure
what do to. At the end of the meeting, they decided to place him in
special education, at least so that he can get help for the regents
exams that are coming up.

 

1/23/09 (5 hours) 15

Today started out with a classroom observation. I went to the classroom
and observed one of the students who would be tested later in the week.
I had to enter the classroom and discretely ask the teacher if I was
able to observe the child. I sat near the student, but not close enough
for it to be obvious. My goal during the observation was to figure out
the student's time on task, how he acted towards the teacher, how he
interacted with peers, and any other observations that may be
important. In order to figure out the student's time on task, I was to
look at the student 20 times in 10 second increments and look at
another student right after. I made a tally every time the student I
was observing was on task and every time the other student was on task.
Then I figured out the percentage that each of the two students were on
task and compared the two to figure out how the student's attention
span was. I also took notes on the interraction with the teacher and
peers. I was interested to see that although I was only observing one
student, there were so many students who were lacking attention, not
only this one.

For the rest of my time at MST I spent drafting up a behavioral
contract for the girl who I worked with the other day. I was given an
outline and given some direction on how to write up goals for her. From
there I was told to write up goals for her and figure out what could be
done to implement those goals. I spent a while trying to figure out
what her goals should be, but I finally figured it out and took up the
rest of my time writing up the goals and plans of how to implement
them. We decided that the best bet would be to give her a daily report
card. This daily report card, with a section for each of her goals, is
given to each of her teachers every day and they give her a score of
"satisfactory" or "unsatisfactory" in each of her goal sections. I
finished up the draft, but I will have to write the final report next
time.

 

1/25/09 (6 hours) 21

I began my day today by writing up the behavioral report that I was
working on last time. I had to write up a list of goals, the
consequences of what will happen if she follows the plan and if she
does not follow the plan, strategies for keeping up with the behavior
plan, and the daily report card. This took a lot of time to get
together, but I think it was a great experience. Mark looked it over
and made whatever changes needed to be changed.

Once the report was made and I went to find the student who I wrote up
the report with. She was hard to track down because she was in In
School Suspension for the day, but we didn't know that. Once we found
her, we sat down and talked about the plan that was made up. She said
she would try to follow it, but could not guarantee that she would
follow this plan. After great discussion, she decided to sign the the
contract, agreeing to it, but only after she realized that she would be
suspended if she did not.

After that discussion, I wrote up the results of the achievement tests
that was done earlier in the week. I plugged the results into the
computer and worked with Mark to analyze the data. After that, I wrote
up the part of the evaluation that involved the results of the
assessment. Not only did I write up the part that summarized the
scores, but also wrote up the part that explained what each section of
the achievement test involved and what the student's strengths and
weekenesses were in each section. This took a while because I had to go
though the whole test and see what problems were right and which ones
were wrong. I have to say, writing this was actually fun! I got to
analyze test results and write things that were from my own head
instead of just copying what other people wrote.

 

1/28/09 (5 hours)  26

First thing this morning I was given a form to fill out called the
"Documentation of Determination of Eligibility" for students who are
being referred to special education. The form wants to know all the
steps that were taken, like the parental contacts made and when, what
tests the student has been given, previous tests (like the Terra-Novas
and SATs), and reasons for the student to be in special education. It
would seem like the document would be easy to figure out, right? Not at
all. I had no idea what to look for at first, no idea where to look,
and it was all so overwhelming. I had to ask the office for all the
test results from the students previous years (he's in 11th grade so
there were a lot!) and go through his records to find any information
that may be able to fit on the paper. This task, although only four
pages long, took my almost an hour and a half to complete. It was a lot
of work!

After that, the school counselor came down to the office to ask
about some of the special education students. She was working on
filling out their paper work to get test accomodations for the SAT, but
didn't have much of their records. the college board, who is in charge
of the SAT wanted to know all the latest achievement test results,
cognitive test results, their special education classification, when
the student was first classified, and other questions dealing with the
same types of things. This too involved us (myself and the other
intern) going through records. For my last two hours there I went
through files for the studentsand in most cases found out that the
students would need to be retested in order to have the most accurate
data. All the tests had to have been done within two years and they had
to be certain tests (the most up to date of course). Most of the
students were tested  using the SB IV, but these forms called for the
SB V if using the SB tests. Today was a short day since the weather was
bad and I didn't want to get stuck there.

 

2/2/09 (6 hours) 32

There was no CSE work to get done today, so we got to spend the day
talking to the students. I met with a few students about their grades.
All the students I met with are failing at least three classes. When I
spoke to them I was to ask why they are failing, how they feel about
failing, and what they want to do to do better. I was to ask them if
there was anything I could do to help them and if they even wanted the
help. Two of the students said yes, they wanted help and they didn't
like that their grades were failing, but they were not willing to stay
after school for extra help or even take time out of their day to do
their homework. They claimed they wanted help, but they didn't show
that they were willing to take it. The one student I met with has
actually already started turning her grades around.Tihs was very
impressive, I hope it works and she stays with it. We will have to meet
with them again in a few weeks to see how they're doing.

After that I met with a girl who is in love with her female teacher.
This teacher was very nervous for a while about the situation, since
the infatuation was too high to just be something to ignore. The girl I
met with is very intelligent, she is just attention seeking. Her
teacher gave her attention and she took it the wrong way. The student
now says that she doesn't really spend much time with the teacher
because she know the teacher was a little weirded out by the fact that
she would write her love letters and all that. The teacher also said
that it is not as big a problem anymore, but it seems to come in stages
so we will need to meet up with her again too.

After that I was going to meet with another girl who had written a
suicide note that a teacher had found. From what I gathered from Mark
the girl seems depressed, but at the same time has her happy moments.
When I went to get her from class, she looked very happy so I did not
get her. Mark said not to disturb her if she looks like she has a
purpose in the class and I thought that playing the piano was a big
enough purpose in the class.

We looked for othe students to speak to, but none of them were there today, so we put that aside and called it a day.

 

2/9/09 (6 hours) 38

I spent my whole day today on one student. I started off the morning
by writing up a review of recods for her. A review of records is when
you go t hrough a students file and write down any important
information that people will need to know when reading her report. I
wrote down test results from previous tests and their dates, her
grades, her medical conditions, past classifications and past IEP
modifications. Anything that seemed important I wrote down, seeing as I
can edit anything out later that doesn't seem that important. 

Next, I met with the student whose records I went through. I had to
ask her questions about what she wants to do after high school, what
she likes and dislikes about school, if she is still recieving the
services she is supposed to, and if she felt she still needed them.
Also, anything she felt she should tell me she was given the option to.
She didn't really seem that thrilled to talk to me, she said she'd
rather be in class, but this is something that needed to get done.
After that, we started an achievement test with her and got about half
way through, to the math fluency part, and we had take her back to
class so she didn't miss her test.

We'll have to finish up the test next time.

 

2/11/09 (5 hours) 43

Today we finished up the achievement test we were working on the
last time I was there. We continued with the test and eventually
finished it. Towards the end I do not think she was giving her best
because she was unable to concentrate and scored less highly than she
did at the beginning. We gave her a little break and plugged the scores
into the computer. As predicted, she scored less on the end few tests
than she did at the beginning.

After a little break, she was ready to take the IQ test. Everytime
it's done I still love it. It's amazing to me that these little tests
and questions can predict how well a person can learn. I love looking
at the answers that are expected, because some of them I would never
think of saying myself. I would love to take an IQ test and see where
my score ranges.

After that I had to analyze the test results so that next time I can
write up the report on it. It's getting easier and easier to figure out
where the scores fall.I've finally memorized that normal curve to
determine where on the range the students fall: 80-120 is average with
80-89 low average, 90-110 solid average, 111-120 high average and
anything below 80 is below average and anything above 120 is high
average. I guess after going through test results so many times it gets
easier to remember it.

 

2/13/09 (6 hours) 49

Today involved going through the files of many kids. We had to prepare
for the upcoming CSE meetings.We reviewed the records of all the
students who would be reevaluated this month. We also tried to meet
with a few of the kids to interview them and do classroom observations.
Turns out that today was not a popular day to come to school. We only
had the chance to talk to one of the student, and it was just briefly.

We only could talk to the student briefly because another student
had gone missing.We had to look for her all over the school. I had to
look in the bathroom for her, we had to look in different classrooms
and outside different doors. We finally found her and took her to the
office where she would have to spend the rest of the day.

Since it's the day before Valentine's Day, there was a dance from 12-3
in the gym. Only children who paid two dollars were able to attend the
dance, and even then, if they had poor behavior before or during the
dance. We went to the dance to see what was going on. I was shocked
that there were no students actually dancing. All the kids were either
sitting on the bleachers or standing along the wall. They looked like
they were having no fun. But, I guess that's just how dances are in
middle and high school. 

 

2/23/09 (5 hours) 54

Today was such a busy day. Wednesday is a day full of CSE meetings,
which means everything needs to be done before then. We started off the
morning doing achievement tests on two students. They were more than
half way done so we only needed to finish up the writing section on one
and the applied problems and writing section on another. Once that was
done, it was time to write up reports for those students.

At least three reports needed to be written today, because there
were six meetings on Wednesday and none of the reports were written up
yet. Using Mark's template again, I was asked to write a whole report
on my own to see how I did. I had done this once before, but this time
it was without any guidance besides the template. I gathered three
other examples of reports, including the one I previously wrote up,
just to make sure that I could find the answers to my questions if I
needed to. Mark and the other intern at MST were each working on other
reports as well, so I would have to answer any questions on my own.

It took a while to write up the report, since I had to go through the
review of records, all the previous tests that were done, his academic
history, his interview, his teacher's interview, his parent's
interview, and the recent tests that were done. My report ended up
being almost 12 pages long! It was really exciting to write up a whole
report on my own. Mark checked it over when I was finished. I only had
a few changes to make, so that was reassuring. By the time the report
was edited and ready to sign, it was time for me to leave.

 

2/25/09 (6 hours) 60

Today is a day full of CSE meetings. There are four that I will be
able to sit through when I an there, but there are six throughout the
day. When I first got there this morning though, I had to finish
writing up a report that was not finished the day before. Mark had to
make sure he was fully involved in the meeting, so I and the other
intern worked on the last couple details that needed to be in the
report. While working on that, I was listening to the meeting since I
was in the same room.

Luckily, all the parents agreed to let me and the other intern sit
in on their meetings, so I got a full day's worth, and saw many
different groups of people. The first however, was the most
interesting. The parents of this student are divorced and the mother
has custody. The father does not agree with special education and the
mother just wants her son to succeed in school, no matter what it
takes. During the meeting, the father was full of complaints about the
special education system and how it was "dumbing down" his son rather
than helping him learn to do things on his own. Luckily the mother has
custody because she agreed to keep him in his program because he needs
more help that a regular setting would give him. The father pulled the
child out of the room and started yelling at him because he "wasn't
sticking up for himself" and the father thought he should. A meeting
that should only have taken about 45 minutes took almost 2 hours, which
left the other families waiting for their time for meetings.

The next three meetings went fairly well. One mother has no idea
what to do with her son because he seems to have given up at school due
to his failure throughout his academic career. He enjoys getting in
trouble because he gets attention from his peers and just cannot seem
to bring his grades up. They decided to give him an ultimatum in which
if he doesn't bring his grades up by the end of the quarter, he will be
placed in a more restrictive setting next year. The next meeting, the
mother was very concerned about her daughter who is in 11th grade and
cannot mulitiply or divide simple numbers. Therefore, she is failing
her 11th grade algebra class. Who wouldn't?! It seems awful that an
11th grader cannot do simple math, but it turns out that more and more
kids are just unable to because they rely too much on calculators and
not on learning the basics. The last meeting was the most pleasant. The
son and his mother are so much alike. He is the most respectful student
I have met since I've been there. He is polite and friendly and seems
to respect all authority. His mother seems to be the same way. It is
obvious that she loves him and wants the best for him and encourages
what he does well. His behavior reflects her care for him.

Overall, the meetings went really well, but the day was long. I can't imagine having six meetings in one day. I would go crazy!

 

2/27/09 (6 hours) 66

Today was a day of nothingness. The day started off with a team meeting
with all the school psychologists from five different schools, the
social worker, and the coordinator. They spent about two hours
dicussing problems they had and solutions to fix those problems. They
went over plans for the next bunch of CSE meetings and dicusses what
the dates are. It was neat to see them brainstorming, but I felt a
little out of place since I had nothing to contribute to their
discussion.

After the meeting was over, most of the kids were in lunch so we
couldn't get anything done on the list of things to do. Those who
weren't in lunch were either not at school or taking a test. With that,
Mark asked me to call one of the student's mothers to ask her to come
in to sign the permission to test forms to test her daughter for
special education. The mother was confused and doesn't want her
daughter in special education, but does want her to be tested. I tried
to explain that to her, but she didn't seem to grasp the concept. I
must not have been clear enough. She said she would call her daughter's
therapist and then call me back.

After calling the mother, we went out to lunch with the other school
psychologists and just talked about different things. It's interesting
to see that they all have such different personalities, but all do the
same job. It's nice to see that different personalities can work in the
same environment.

 

3/2/09  (5 hours) 71

My day started off today with an achievement test for the student
whose mother I spoke to the other day. The mother agreed to having her
daughter tested, but did not want her in special education. This is my
first time meeting the student and it was obvious to me that she too
wanted nothing to do with special education. She just kept saying that
she's not stupid and these tests aren't going to show anything and that
her problems weren't in school so special education would not help. She
has many problems outside of school, including her father being in
prision. Her teachers think she is depressed and want to do something
to help her. As she was doing the achievement test, she was getting
much father on the questions than any of the student I'd seen so far
and she is only in 6th grade. She seems like a very bright girl. She
eventually gave up on the test and said she needed to leave. So, we
took her back to class. Later in the day she caused a scene because she
said she wanted to finish the test, and the security guard had to bring
her to us so she could finish. After she finished I put the data in the
computer and got the results. They showed that she falls into the
average section for everything she was tested on, if not higher than
average, which means something is getting in her way in doing well in
school, which she would remind me that whatever is happening is
happening outside of school.

Also, she filled out a BASC self-report, and her teachers filled out a
BASC report for her as well. We recieved only one of the teacher ones
so far, but I got to enter the data from her's and the data from the
one teacher's and look at the results. It was so interesting that
questions like that can come up with results. I went through and
highlighted ones the were "at risk" and ones that were "clinically
significant" and which topics they were under. Then I went through and
saw which ones the teacher's results said that she might fall into.
ADHD, Autism, Depression, and others were a few of the topics that the
student may fall into. The other intern looked through the results from
her self-report and analyzed those. The results were very different
from the teachers. It was neat to see that.

 

3/4/09 (6 hours) 77

Today we had to go through files about students past behavior interventions. During the CSE process, those who are requesting the assessment need to fill out paperwork saying that other steps were done before the initial referral. We had to go through two students behavior files and see what kind of behaviors they have had in the past. We listed out all the behaviors and tallied them up. We put the dates next to the tallies so we knew when the behavior occured. We then compared the behaviors to see if any of the interventions were working. The interventions included suspension (both in and outside of school), write up, parent-teacher conferences, student conferences, and a few others. If the interventions didn't seem to be working (if the behaviors were still occuring) then the referal could be made  for special education services. This process took all day. The students files were huge and it took forever to go though and the form seemed pretty monotonous. It was interesting to see all the interventions for the students that consistently do not work. It's kind sad that the school goes through the trouble to suspend someone when that doesn't even work for all students. I think that this process, of going through the students' files, is useful although boring because how is is possible to see what works for those students if we don't know what doesn't work. 

That project took up almost the whole day. For the last half hour we collected the results from the rest of the BASC reports and started to plug them into the computer. I didn't get to read the results yet since we didn't finish plugging them in the computer.

 

3/6/09 (6 hours) 83

There is one student at MST, an 11 year old girl (who tells everyone she is 13), who is constantly in and out of Mark's office. She comes in to talk, for water, for pens, and just for some attention. The past few days she has been in more than often, claiming to have a 19 year old boyfriend who she is sexually active with. She also said that this boy is being tested for AIDS and has two children already. Once she told us this, she left and we went to talk to her couselor. We set up a meeting with her parents, just to make them aware because this is endangering her welfare. Her parents weren't able to come in for a meeting today but they said they will be in on Monday to clear things up. 

After that, we went to School 84, a school for children with severe disabilities. I loved the school. It was such a great experience.The atmosphere is so different than at MST. The hallways are twice as wide, to accomodate for the wheel chairs and other activities. The teachers and children are all so friendly. We got a tour of the whole school, which is from 5-21 years old. There are regular classrooms and vocational classrooms which allow for the students to learn skills they will be able to use in the real world. There was even an "apartment" in the school that helped the students learn to set a table, vaccuum, get out of a bed into their wheelchair, etc. This helps them be able to function on their own without so much help.

 

3/9/09 (6 hours) 89

Today we had a meeting with the 11 year olds' parents. They were very supportive and discussed with her the consequences for her actions. She made it known that she was making all this up and that she just wanted attention. Everyone at the meeting discussed their concern about her and tried to figure out what was going on that made her need that kind of attention. She said that she just like the attention. I don't think she realized what she was doing exactly. She stayed in school after the meeting, but was causing problems in her class. She didn't want to go home because she said her dad would beat her, but her parents were going to get her a counselor so she would have someone to talk to. She spent the rest of the day in the principal's office.

We then had to write up a Behavior Intervention Plan for the girl. That took some time because it was hard to write up for her not to share problems that aren' there. We didn't want to make it seem like she couldn't talk about her problems, but she must not share them with everyone, or broadcast it, or tell problems that are not there. Her plan is to go to counseling and talk to an adult if she feels the need. The plan took some time to create, but it was finally done before I had to leave.

 

3/16.09 (6 hours) 95

Today we finished up testing one of the students. I'm really getting used to the way the tests are set up, both the IQ and the Achievement tests. There are CSE meetings coming up and there are a few kids left to test. We wanted to finish up testing one student today and get the whole report written up. There was a little bit left to do with the achievement test and the whole IQ test needed to be done. We finished up the achievement test and I started scoring it up while Mark administered the IQ test. After observing the IQ test I looked through the book to score that up and find the student's IQ. We shared the information with the student and discussed with him what it means. From there I was to observe the student in the classroom. I did the time on task and wrote about what the class was learning about. About 12 minutes into my observation, the student left to go to the bathroom and didn't return for the rest of the period. I saw the student walking down the hall with a girl as I left. 

When I got back, I was to write up the report using the information we had gathered from testing and the interviews and classroom observations. I'm getting the hang of writing reports so they don't seem to take as long. I would have a hard time writing the report without the help of Mark's template, but I am getting used to it.

 

3/17/09 (4 hours) 99

One of the eighth grade students at MST has put much time and effort into starting a Japanese club at school. She sent out surveys and had meetings with the princpals about permission to start the club. Mark would be the advisor of the club, along with this student, and they have finally been given the permission to start it. 

I spent my whole four hours writing and rewriting a permission slip for the students to be able to attend the after school program. It was hard to get the wording right and make the parents understand what the program is going to be about. Finally I finished it. Tomorrow I will give them out to the students.

 

3/18/09 (6 hours) 105

I started off today by handing out the permission slips to the students who were invited to the Japanese club. That didn't take long, which was good because we had to go to a school psychology meeting at OTC. This meeting had the majority of school psychologists for the Buffalo School district. A lady from the state was there and they had prepared questions to ask her. To me, it seemed just like they all gathered there to complain. I didn't find it enjoyable. It was simply that they were there to say what was wrong and that everyone else has to fix it. Yes, I understand that there are problems and that many of the school psychologists can't do anything to fix it, it seems kind of pointless to me. Why complain about something that hasn't been fixed in years.

After that meeting we had to make it back to MST to meet with another family to declassify a special education student. He didn't feel that he needed the special education and didn't like the title that was put on him. His family wanted to get him out of it as long as he agreed to keep his grades up and partipate. He also needed to agree to see a counselor outside of school because he gets very angry when it comes to his mother. During the meeting I wrote up a behavior contract for him that was signed by him and his family.

 

3/19/09 (6 hours) 111

Today I finished writing up a report that one of the other interns started the other day. He wasn't going to be there for the rest of the week and it needed to get done. There wasn't much else to get done, so that didn't take long. 

After finishing that report we  went to visit Emerson, another one of the Buffalo Schools. This one is located on Chippewa and has a restaurant on the bottom floor. The students are given certain periods a day to cook in the kitchen, which is open for breakfast and lunch. (I would strongly suggest going there) The program is great. The students are taking classes and are spending time cooking. Other students go out into the community to work and are given work experience. We stayed there for quite some time observing the school and the atmosphere. It was a great change from MST.

 

3/20/09 (5 hours) 116

Today was a monotonous day. We spent the whole day finishing up IQ tests with the students. There were a few that were half way done that we needed to finish. Along with that, I filed a lot of the files that we were done with and would not be needing anymore. There were a lot of little ends to tie up. We got all the paper printed for the CSE meetings next week and got rid of all the information that we no longer needed. I shredded some papers while the IQ tests were being done. All the loose ends were coming together for the meetings next week.

 

3/27/09 (4 hours) 120

Today's my last day. We had a meeting with the other school psychologists from the team. A guest speaker came in. He is a pastor in the community and does an outreach program for inner city students who need some guidance. He talked about how he was in  jail and that was not what he wanted. He not helps children who are going down the same path he was  going down. He goes into their homes and gives them food and mattresses if they need them. He helps their whole families rather than just them. He also brings in people who are or were in gangs to help the kids realize that they do not want that. He was a great guy who has come a long way from where he was. I was really glad that he came in.

Other than that, I spent most of the day talking to Mark and the social worker, Greg, about any questions I may have had. I think this was a great experience and had opened my eyes to many things that I hadn't realize before.