Proactive Scheduling

Sep 3, 2012 by Teresa Sadowski MA CCC-SLP

In over 25 years of scheduling speech and language students only ONE year did I work with an administrator who had the foresight to create a schedule for our special needs students before the end of the previous school year. You might ask why I am writing about this in September. Well, it takes pre-planning and scheduling insight to get to the point where scheduling in June for the following September can actually be done. Three factors happened that actually made this scheduling process possible. The overall school schedule was remaining consistent the next year. My recent experience tells me this doesn’t happen too often. Having a consistent schedule year after year is actually a positive universal support and something schools should strive for. Staffing was remaining the same in terms of the positions...

Having trouble getting your schedule to work?...

Aug 26, 2012 by Teresa Sadowski MA CCC-SLP

It’s inevitable, the school speech language pathologist will have difficulty putting together a workable schedule. Some years it’s just more difficulty than others. We all know the obstacles we face (15 scheduling obstacles). I have a simple tip for those of you who feel completely overwhelmed. Ask for help. One year I was working in 2 buildings and wasn’t very familiar with the overall school culture. We were packing 20 kids into 19.5 hours (I realize that is a luxury to some of you). The schedules were extremely different but most core classes were taught in the morning. It didn’t take me long to realize I didn’t want to waste extreme amounts of time and energy needed to create, recreate and then revamp a schedule that probably couldn’t work. In the mean time...

Scheduling: School Speech Therapists Are the Experts...

Aug 23, 2012 by Teresa Sadowski MA CCC-SLP

The beginning of the school year is always filled with excitement, anticipation and hope. It is rather nice to have a job the starts “fresh” every year. Schools look polished, organized and clutter free. The kids look happy, enthusiastic and clean. However, for therapists this feeling of euphoria is always short lived. First we see our numbers and our caseload. Usually we can deal with that by slowly chanting “it is what it is, it is what it is”. We start thinking of therapy ideas the minute we know who are students are. That’s truly one of the fun parts of the job. Then comes the next step, da-da-da-dum………….working out a schedule. School Speech Language Pathologists are good at many things but we are experts in scheduling. There is no graduate course that prepares...