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Transcript:
Larissa Ksar, Presenter
Awesome. So we’ll go ahead and get started. I am totally fine if you stop and ask questions at any time. I don’t anticipate that I’ll be talking for an hour. So totally open to answer any specific questions or resources that might be helpful throughout this presentation. So don’t hesitate to just jump in. A little bit about myself. I am an OT by trade. I work in Southern California, San Diego specifically in a school district part-time, and then the rest of my time is spent as a clinical manager for Invo, supervising and mentoring our therapists that we have across Southern California, which includes some of the people on our call today, and hopefully some more as well. So today we’re talking about organization. It’s kind of what I love. I live for organization. I’m not the expert, but happy to share things that have worked for me that I’ve created over the years and things that have worked for other people. And we can definitely kind of chat through different systems that might help what you are doing in the schools. So one of the things that I have built over the years for myself is basically just like a master caseload document with a bunch of different tabs. You can do this, whether you’re using it as a Google sheet or as an Excel spreadsheet, whatever works for your brain. And if it doesn’t work for your brain, then you can ignore this little section. But just thinking through, this is how I’ve tracked my caseload for the last whatever number of years. Breaking it down. So organizing it by schools. If I’m at multiple schools, having students’ names, their IDs, I can actually pull up the actual spreadsheet. Here in our district, we use student ID number. So what’s their ID number, their date of birth, grade, what is their primary diagnosis on their IEP? What are their hours? When was their last annual IEP? And kind of thinking through the timelines that we need. When is their next annual IEP due? When do they have an assessment due? Teacher’s names, room numbers? Who’s their case manager, especially if you have multiple case managers at your school site that you’re interacting with? And anything else that might be helpful to know about each student. So how do their hours break down? Are they push in hours? Are they pull out hours? Are they a mixture? And then mom and dad contact information instead of having to log into, you know, whatever IEP software you use and having to get that information every time you need to get a hold of somebody. Within that, I use a color coding system for myself to indicate when those IEPs are going to be due. Starting with red are the ones that are going to be due in those first two months of the school year. And I have a key for myself down here. But just so at a quick glance, okay, I know I have these many annuals or tries that are due in the very first part of the year, I need to get a hold of those first. Then orange is from they’re due between November and February. Okay, I have a little bit more time to plan for those and get data and prepare for those. And then those in blue are for those in the spring.
Larissa Ksar, Presenter
I really don’t have to think about those annuals for a while. But at least I have a quick glance of who’s due when. And so this is something that every time there’s an IEP event, I’ll update. So it’s no color. That means I just held their IEP. Obviously, these dates are from several years ago when I gave this training the first time. But just kind of thinking through different visual ways to break down and visually see what’s coming up on your caseload. Go back to this one for a little bit. So within this document, then I also then break it down for myself. Then taking those IEPs, putting them in date order of when they’re due. And then having a tracker of what’s needed for them. Is this an annual or a triennial? What grade are they in? their eligibility and then what are the things we need to do for that meeting. So if it’s a triennial, we’ll need to write a report. Obviously for annuals, we don’t, but for this triennial, I highlight them so that they stand out, they’re in bold and highlighted in a different color so that I can quickly check, okay, this month I have that one try and then everybody else is an annual, um, and then my key to myself as I get things done is I will put a slash when I have started either drafted or entered my information, say into their IEP or their treatment authorization, um, and then make it turn it into an X once it’s complete. The team has met, we’ve held the IEP and that part of it is done. So I don’t have to think about it. So it shows me the progress as far as where we’re at in that students would have been able to get done for that student. Um, and so that’s just a visual trick that I use for myself to not have to have notes everywhere, and this is one way to track that you use the same thing for assessments. Um, so for those of you that are doing assessments, you know, there’s a lot of things that you’re trying to track as you’re doing that and trying to keep it in one place is helpful. And so again, bringing in some of those demographics, just keeping that there, this is where I put all my tries at the beginning of the year. I’ll list all the students that I have, because I know when they’re due and then fill in any initials that come up throughout the year as they come up. Um, so keeping track of has the assessment plan been opened and or signed? And once it’s signed, here’s the dates, because we need to track, um, when we submit for a Medi-Cal billing, we need to have the date that the assessment plan was signed. I don’t know if anyone else does, but that’s just a piece of information we need to have, and it also helps us know when we can officially start testing. So being able to track that information when the IEP is due, when we’ve scheduled the meeting for, and then these are all the things that as an OT in San Diego Unified, I need to track to be able to know whether I’ve done them or not to complete my assessment.
Larissa Ksar, Presenter
Um, so again, using that same slash versus X, um, tracking system of I’ve started this, but I haven’t finished it. This student is done with that testing. I, when I send forms either to the teacher or to family’s home, I’ll put the date that I sent those forms home. So I have a visual kind of reminder of when I sent that home of, oh no, it’s been two weeks, they still haven’t sent this back to me. Let me reach out to them and get that back from them. Um, or see if maybe it’s just been in the student’s backpack and I didn’t realize it was there, but it gives me that visual reminder of, oh, it’s been a while since I sent those forms home. Why don’t we check in on that? Um, so that’s just another tracker as part of that document. Um, and then thinking about tracking your services. I know every district has a little bit different requirement. Some districts have very detailed student logs that we need to fill out of where you’re really having to account for every minute of your day to your full billable hour, other districts, you just submit a time sheet and you’re tracking student services separately in San Diego. We just track our own student services hours. We don’t have to tie it to our billing. So I use a simple just time tracker as far as what, how many minutes I saw the student that day against what hours they are allocated for in their IEP. If your district is requiring a very specific student log, you’re going to use that obviously to track their hours and to submit your billing, but this is just another quick system to show how to track hours on a digital basis. Um, and then where for most of us, at least a month or two into the school year, um, and so hopefully we have a schedule set up, but for those that are still, you know, trying to finalize or work through a schedule, which is an ever evolving process all year long. Um, just different ways to set up, um, thinking through how are you setting up your schedule to maximize your time? Are you running groups? Are you seeing kids primarily individually? If you have kids that aren’t weekly, how are you maximizing the weeks that you don’t have to see those students? So thinking through that, um, especially for some of our newer therapists or newer grads of thinking of how to maximize that time. Um, and so thinking through. Like these two students right here, they both are only seen twice a month, right? So can they, oops, sorry, share a time slot? Hopefully it works for their class schedule, but can they share a time slot? So every other week you’re just popping into a different classroom or pulling a different student instead of having to allocate a different time slot for each of those kids. Same thing for these guys where one group is seen twice a month and one group is seen once a month. Can they share a time slot in order to maximize your schedule and not overrun yourself? Gosh, you guys, I’m sorry.
Larissa Ksar, Presenter
It is minimum day and it has been a crazy day and my mouse is going crazy. But also really thinking through and making sure you’re blocking off time for yourself. I know all of our districts have high standards of how many kids we’re seeing and who’s on our schedule, but trying to block off time for yourself to treatment plan and or document and trying to keep that sacred as much as you can. I know we need to be flexible for meeting students’ needs and meetings that come up and all of that, but can you block off 30 minutes at the beginning of the day before you get started to kind of get yourself ready for setting up for your students? We ended up going over this already, but just checking those IEPs, those annuals and those assessments, how to different ways to track that. We talked about that. What are some of the ways that you guys are tracking progress on goals? How are you collecting data?
Attendee
Um, in Corona Norco, we used to use SACE tracker, but this year we’re using a Google doc. Um, so we track time minutes and then, yeah, like a soap note type form. Um, and then it’s accessible to the OTs so they can look back, um, and access that when they have an, an IEP coming up, they need to, so I just try to keep, keep it short and simple and to the, to the point of the goal and so that they can read it easily. And yeah.
Larissa Ksar, Presenter
There’s obviously a bunch of different ways that we can track data, and it depends on the type of goal that the student is working on and the discipline that we’re meeting with in. You can obviously use a data sheet like this if you’re having just something very specific and you’re trying to track trials. And so you can quickly collect that kind of thing. For OT, I find this isn’t usually what we’re tracking. It’s not that simple. And so I have kind of just put all of my students’ goals into a tracker where I can just kind of write some really quick data in a session because I can’t sit and take mounds of data while trying to chase the kindergartner around my room. But I can write two out of four trials or they use this grasp, they did this, how many times, what level of support they needed, and then use that to write my note at the end of the day. But to have their goals in front of me definitely helps keep me more grounded into quickly glancing at what we need to focus on for that student and helps then treatment plan for that next session as well. Then thinking of other ways, non-digital ways of supporting our caseloads. I’m a bullet journaler. I know not everybody is. Maybe some people have never heard of it. But it’s a very manual calendar paper planner. Everyone has their own style. But as you can kind of see, I bring in my same tracking here. This is a sample of a monthly view that I used a couple years ago. I’ve really just tracking high level, the meetings that I had for that month, and then tracking open IEPs that we’re gonna be due that month as well as assessments that are due for the next month or two of kind of keeping an idea of have I started their testing? Have I started their report? Have I entered it in our IEP software, which at the time is power school, and have I submitted their treatment authorization? So those are the things I needed to track for assessments versus for annual IEPs. Have I entered their information in the IEP software? Have I submitted their treatment authorization? Have I updated my caseload tracker for the district? So that’s a manual way of doing it. This was my paper calendar. So I’m a blended user. I have everything digital, and then I have to write it down so that I can encode it in my own brain. And so this is just me, these are my treatments. Their triangle is that’s what it’s scheduled. I fill it in when I’ve completed it. The box is if I wrote their note. So these are just my little kind of trackers for throughout the day. Highlighting different things. So purple at the time was IEPs. Red was testing or observations that I had schedules for the students. And then other colors were either meetings or personal things that were going on as well. So just kind of using a really quick at a glance view of what that looks like.
Larissa Ksar, Presenter
And then for those that like to blend digital and paper, but don’t want to be drawing into, this is very blurry. I realized that this morning when I took the screenshot, so you’re not gonna be able to read anything, but use it as an example of, this is actually from a district I’ve worked at in the past, they used a kind of calendar system taught by the together teacher, which I don’t even know if that’s still a thing, but it might be helpful just to look up if you want to look up anything, but they use this digital kind of weekly spreadsheet and then literally took a screenshot of their Google calendar and would copy and paste that in and then walk around with that as their paper planner for the week. So still relying on digital, but having a way to quickly copy and paste that into a paper format to then walk around with and have notes, sorry. Oh, I need to stop using the mouse. I’m gonna make you guys dizzy of doing that. So again, at the time, the color coding was different things on that schedule. Red was testing, green was treatment sessions. I don’t remember what gray was. I think it was transitioning between school sites, yellow was meetings, and blue was IEPs. So really just, again, trying to use different systems. And then the bottom of this one had to do, so at the time I was at five schools, and so what did I need to remember to physically bring to that school site the next time I was there? So if I’m thinking ahead to treatment planning for the next week, do I need to bring this specific toy or this specific manipulative to help with them? Anything that I needed track for Medi-Cal billing, assessments, and then just general things to think about for that next week. And this was one way to blend digital and paper. This is another person’s version of that exact same worksheet. This was our SPED director at the time, and so hers was a lot less as far as treatment planning, but again, kind of using this weekly at a glance, what’s due and other things to do. And so blending that kind of digital and paper and walking around with this and being able to cross out things as they happened. And then know that there are plenty of resources that provide paid or not ways to do this if you want to just print these out and be able to fill things in manually, or some of these are edible. These are all examples from Tools to Grow, which is more than just an OT website at this point. It does have resources for both PT and SLPs. But there’s attendance trackers, there’s those months that have used to know when IEPs are and what to-dos you have, a weekly view, and then an IEP tracker there on the side so that again, you can break it down by month of what’s due each month. Here are some other resources. These are some of their older resources, but again, same thing, being able to track your caseload, just a scheduled template to build out your schedule for the day, and then a bigger version of that IEP tracker by month.
Larissa Ksar, Presenter
And then, like we’ve been talking about a little bit of thinking ahead of trying to plan treatments either just for the next day, or if you need to the next week out, can you sit down at the end of the day on Mondays and kind of forward think of what do I, I just finished these kids’ sessions today, what can we build upon and plan for next week now so that I can, one, either think about if I’m not at this school every day, what I need to bring, or two, what resource do I need to prep on another day that I might have time so that I’m not rushing around and trying to prep five minutes before their session. So this is a really, really dirty, simple, what’s the kid’s name, what’s the plan for them that day, and really, it makes sense in my brain. What I treatment planted here probably won’t make sense for half of you, but using that as just a quick get some ideas now that I finished their session today, how can we build upon this for next week and plan ahead. So thinking, idea storming here, what strategies are you guys using to optimize your schedule? I know I talked about a couple things earlier. Any other strategies that you guys are using?
Attendee
Um, just like you said, if, if there are two times a month, there’s, you know, or every other week, I kind of put them in the team time slot and I just alternate them each week. I don’t have many groups. A lot of most of our kids are individuals. So they kind of have their own time slot. Um, which is always kind of changing. Um, but for the most part, I just kind of try to keep the two times a month there’s together. And then everybody else who’s once a week in their own spot.
Attendee
Perfect.
Larissa Ksar, Presenter
And then another thing I put on here, if you have a larger campus that it takes a while to get between classes, thinking about, can you group kids that are in nearby classrooms at similar time slots so that you’re not always going across campus between different time slots? Especially if they have push-in hours, right? Can you bop into this building and then two classrooms down and kind of build your schedule with that in mind? Another thing that I have had to think of the last couple of years is our district has had so many Monday holidays that the kids that you schedule on Mondays are really hard if they are weekly kids. And so can you try and make your schedule so that any of your kids that are not weekly are on a Monday so that you’re not having to miss their services for the holidays and will try and find times to make them up at a later time. So thinking through things like that.
Attendee
Yeah. A lot of our sessions are mostly written like three times a month or 25 times a year. So averages three times a month. So you kind of have that wiggle room for those Monday holidays. You still have another week to get that third session in or, you know, that sort of thing. If I can plan ahead, I’ll do four sessions in a month to cover the next month holiday, that sort of thing.
Larissa Ksar, Presenter
I’m just curious because every district has different guidelines, San Diego Unified writes hours annually. You obviously are writing them so many times per month or sessions per year. What are you guys in other districts doing?
Attendee
I so I we just have to do a treatment plan review every six months. So I’m actually mental health therapy. So we just do the treatment plan review every six months. So yeah.
Larissa Ksar, Presenter
Every district is just slightly different in what they are, how they write their services. So then thinking about organizing, maybe not so much your caseload, but your actual materials, your space, everything that we need to then be able to do our jobs. Thinking through labeling bins of materials. Do you have themed resource binders or associated themed materials in one spot? I’m thinking of where to find these materials when you don’t want to spend all of your life savings on materials for your students. Thinking through the dollar store or whatever equivalent type of dollar store you have in your area, craft store, sales bins, local by nothing groups. I don’t know if you’ve heard of by nothing groups, but they are phenomenal for people giving, in a way, kids old toys. And if you can grab something like that from a family who no longer needs those resources, happy to accept those donations for my therapy pile. So again, Tools to Grow has some of these organizing pictures for bins. And so these are not mine. This is an example of theirs, but I have some examples of things that I use as well. But this has just been easier to, at a glance, quickly see here’s all my materials of a certain kind and organize them in the cabinet. I wish I had this much space. Organizing any manipulatives that you might have by theme and putting those together. These are my messy binders in my office right now. But what has been really helpful is printing out worksheets for these themes from whatever resources we’re using. And then just make five or 10 copies of it right away, throw it into a sheet protector, and you’re not having to go search for that material every time. And you can just, in that treatment planning, 30 minutes, 10 minutes in the morning, whatever you have, be able to go through and pull out what you need for each different student, what they’re working on, and have that much more handy and able to kind of make that treatment planning a little bit easier. And then thinking through your treatment space, I have been at districts all over the state, and the size of my space has varied greatly, as I’m sure is true for most of you as well. I am currently in a bungalow shared with APE and PT, but I have been in closets, hallways, auditoriums, or a desk in the hallway, or maybe sitting in the hallway on the floor. So if you have a dedicated space, how can you optimize that for yourself? Thinking through how you use your space, like I like to say, how you use your kitchen. What needs to be within reach? What is most used? What can be a little further away? And where are you putting back up planned materials? Because we all know plan A isn’t always what happens in our session. So this was an OT office I was a guest of a couple of years ago. I think this was shared between either two different OTs or an OT and a speech therapist, but they had several different work areas for students. They had their desks. They were lucky enough to have a digital Promethean board, but just thinking through how to organize their materials and how to share a space if you have to share it.
Larissa Ksar, Presenter
This is my current space. Again, I’m sharing with APE and PT, and we’re not overlapping a ton other than writing reports, but having a table that’s lower for the, I’m in elementary school. So for the younger students, a taller table for the upper elementary students. For me, I have games in here, and then all my extra materials are in a cabinet over here. So things that I really need to maybe just jump and grab something extra in the middle of a session, keeping those closer. Any suggestions or ideas from any of you of what space organization works for you guys?
Attendee
it just looks a lot like ours. Good access to storage, a couple of my schools and others, we just have a shelf, you know, and just kind of keeping it neat and organized. And we rotate, so I’m not necessarily at the site the same day as my OTs. But when we are, we just kind of like put things away, you know, like when we’re done using it, try to keep it tidy for the next, you or whatever they’re working on. But yeah, this looks a lot like what we have too.
Attendee
My space is smaller, so I am thankful to have an office. But I just got one of those cube organizer storage things. So just throw all my games in, which has been really helpful.
Larissa Ksar, Presenter
Yeah. That and also just like the plastic three drawer or however many drawer, rubber made, whatever brand they are, stair light containers, throwing the wheels on them if they come on wheels, but you can roll it around a room if necessary. Because yeah, not all of our spaces that we are given at our school sites have actual shelving or bookcases or anything. And so what’s the way to kind of build upon that and store materials that we need easily. And having some of those plastic containers on wheels are also just a good idea to kind of move things around easily. So that’s really, this is organizational ideas, we’ve reached the end of my official presentation, with just some links to, you know, some common resources that are helpful. My emails on here, this recording will be sent out via email in the coming weeks, and posted on our website as well. So this is something that you can come back if you care to reference again. But the other thing I didn’t write it down, but thinking through even the data sheets and data tracking earlier too, should have put in a trial that I did this year, we’ve had a whole chat GPT and AI training, which is a whole different thing than when I gave this presentation two years ago. That was not a thing. But being able to use a resource like that to create a data tracking tool for specific goals can actually be really powerful. And so, again, being very mindful of how you’re using AI of not putting in identifying information about a student, but you can put in a goal like one of these, leaving the student’s name out and saying, hey, this is a second grade student, this is their goal, can you create a data tracking sheet for me? And it will spit that out for you. So if you would like to have a more specific data tracking sheet for goals that are on your caseload, know that that is definitely a resource that can be used mindfully, and can be a very powerful resource for a lot of the things that we’re doing on a day-to-day basis as well. Has anyone used chat GPT for their caseload? Any aspect of their caseload yet?
Attendee
Nope. I’ve kind of forgotten about it. But now I’m like, oh, what can we do now? Thank you.
Larissa Ksar, Presenter
Yeah, it’s definitely, this is off topic, we’re not talking about organization anymore, but chat should be as far as, you know, treatment ideas, as far as being able to think through a simple social story for those of us that use social stories for our students. It can be a powerful resource, but we’re definitely off topic from our organizational strategies here. But definitely wanted to throw that in as far as data trackers, it is a powerful tool to use for that. Well, like I said, we’ve made it to the end of my official presentation. I’m happy to sit and answer any questions or go through anything chat through resources that might be helpful for any of you that are here.
