So. Much. Writing

I typically have 10 or less IEPs in progress at a time, meaning I have received notice I need to do a health assessment on a student but either have not done the assessment, or finished my report, or tied up any loose ends.

For the last two weeks I have been holding steady at 25-28 open IEPs…AGHH!!! I got slammed with requests and just haven’t been able to finish them up completely. Why? Examples:

• Turns out one of the kids has seizures but has never had a health care plan written for him, so I need to do that and then get it signed by the parent...Which should have actually been done several years ago when he joined the district. Oops. This is what happens when caseloads are too large. 
• A significant fraction are due to parents not turning in the required form on their student’s health history that I need
• A student needs glasses according to her grandmother, but passed my acuity tests without them, and continually leaves them at home “on the counter” so I can’t complete my assessment.
• A small fraction are preschool students, which involve getting in touch with their parents. No easy task when I have access to a private phone line about 1.5 days per week.
• One of them is a 4^th grader whose teacher brought him to the office because his left upper lip appears paralyzed in speech. He couldn’t cross his midline easily either: ask him to touch his right hand to left ear, no problem; left hand to right ear was slooooooow. A call to dad via the translator prompted an immediate doctor’s visit. His parents had also noticed “slowed speech” recently in this student. No word from what transpired at the doctor’s yet (and parents do claim they took him), but when I called him into my office the following week, he had zero difficulty crossing his midline. He told the translator his dad had helped him practice the movement….Huh? Suggestions, anyone? Needless to say…still an open case.