It’s back-to-school season and time to start thinking about your caseload for the upcoming year [maybe while on the beach…?]. If you’re anything like me, your caseload may seem a bit overwhelming. School-based OTs have a lot on their plates [check out A Day in the Life of a School-Based OT]. Whether you have 30 students or 100, making sure that all your kiddos get the support they need can be quite the challenge. Doing some preparation before the school is essential to starting the year off on the right foot.
There are 5 things I do to prepare for back-to-school with a large caseload:
- Prepare my physical space
- Send welcome letters
- Make a caseload organization binder [including data sheets]
- Schedule my direct service students
- Create a plan for in-direct students/consultations
Preparing Your Space
I know it can be extremely rare to have your own space as a school-based OT. In my current position, I am blessed to have a sensory room in each of my four schools that is shared with another physical and occupational therapist. In years past, I have also shared this space with non-district employee therapists. Being organized becomes even more important when you have a lot of people sharing a room! As OTs, we know that the environment really impacts student performance. In my opinion, it also really helps with my own mindset/attitude/mood. The building that houses the above therapy room has two autistic support classrooms as well. All of these students access the room daily in addition to students who have sensory diets set up by our therapy team. It’s a busy place, so we try to keep things as organized as possible. This year, we added labels to most of our bins/shelves to help keep shared materials in predictable locations. This has taken us YEARS to do, so don’t worry if you (a) don’t have a ton of materials accumulated or (b) don’t have them organized.
Room Decor
With all of my classrooms comes quite a few bulletin board areas. I try to create [and laminate!] generic bulletin boards that can be reused frequently. I try to use fabric or other sturdy wall paper like this brick [affiliate link] shown below so that I am not redoing the boards each year! If you are looking for some DIY bulletin board ideas for OTs, check out my blog! This can be a really fun way to flex those OT creativity muscles! You can also use bulletin boards in therapy [have the kids help!] and/or rely on them for things like back to school night displays!
Our organization goals for the future include keeping a spreadsheet that tracks where all of our materials are throughout the year. For example, if we give our wobble stools or Bouncy Bands [affiliate link] to a teacher or student, we want to make sure we get them back! We have those materials labeled with “OT/PT department”, but are not currently tracking who has each item and where. This type of structure will help keep us even more organized in the future!
Welcome Letters
Once I have my caseload, I try to connect with families as soon as possible. Just as the classroom teachers are likely sending summer letters, I think it’s nice to get something from the OT! This year, I have very few new students. My caseload has not shifted much, so many of my students/families have had me as their OT for several years. I am likely going to email my letter this year rather than mail one. However, it is fun for students to get stuff in the mail! Simply Special Ed has a great FREE welcome letter template that is easy to edit and use! Check out my blog on what I included in an OT welcome letter for some ideas! I include some great ideas for interactive welcome letters for students!
Organization & Data Collection
This can be one of the most challenging portions of back to school season, but I think it can also be the most satisfying when it is done! I create binders with all the paperwork I might need for each student. This involves reviewing all of my students IEPs [which can be time-consuming], and thinking ahead for what I might need documentation-wise for each one. This typically includes creating:
- Caseload lists
- Name, grade, school, service time, billing status, IEP or 504, and other notes [case management meetings, consultation, special program classroom, etc.]
- Compliance dates list
- I write a list of paperwork that is due each month [IEPs and Reevaluations] and put it in chronological order so I have a “sneak peak” for paperwork each month
- Mileage Tracker
- I travel between buildings, so I need to submit mileage reimbursement forms monthly
- Therapy Minute Tracker
- With a caseload of 80, it can be challenging to keep track of make up minutes owed. I have shifted my strategy over the years, but plan to keep an auto-calculating spreadsheet this year to tally my monthly minutes for each student to ensure I am in compliance.
- Data Sheets
- This can be the most time-consuming part of back to school prep, however, it is SO WORTH IT. I look at each student’s goals, think about how I would measure it, and then create everything I would need to collect and track that data! See my blog on OT Data Collection for more detail! Be prepared for some trial and error in both goal writing and data collection. It is challenging!
Scheduling
If data collection isn’t the most challenging part of school-based OT for you, then scheduling probably is! I like to think of it as a jigsaw puzzle. When everything works together, it can be great, but it takes a while to get there! I like to start scheduling as early as possible so that I can share my tentative schedule with other service providers in the building. It’s like getting “first dibs” on time-slots rather than having to look at the master schedule, the intervention schedule, the speech schedule, the ESL schedule, etc. all at once when attempting to make your session times.
I start with the students who have the most additional support. When are they actually available? I sometimes ask teachers and case managers when the “ideal” time would be for this student. Is there a time they don’t have a support staff with them, and could benefit from the 1:1? After scheduling my “busy kids”, I typically schedule students with whom I want to “push in” to general education classes. Ideal times for this are typically also limited. My “last to schedule” students are those in self-contained classrooms as they are typically more available or can be “interchangeable” with one another if needed. I like to schedule a “block” of time to be in one self-contained classroom. This allows for consultation and collaboration, groups, flexibility, etc.
Here are some other tips/tricks/things to consider when scheduling:
- Cut down on travel by trying to fit students in the same building on the same day
- Make your groups of students first so that you can find mutually available times
- Consider getting students during a transition time [when they come back from lunch, recess, specials] so minimize the time they’re out of class
- Consider if older students can become responsible for coming to you rather than you going to get them to cut down on transition time between students
Consultation
Collaboration and consultation is a huge part of being a school-based OT! However, it is easy for these “in-directly” serviced kiddos to fall through the cracks with out busy schedules. They may have very few minutes [if any listed at all] on their IEPs and/or low frequency. I am striving to make it a habit to check in with my consult students and their teams in a more efficient, consistent and easily-documented way. Part of my back to school preparation now includes making consultation forms! I use Google Forms.
Having these prepped prior to the start of school makes it easy to send them out on a weekly, monthly or quarterly basis! You might even want to consider using the “schedule send” feature on your email account to pre-set dates each marking period that these emails will be sent out and to whom. I love this format especially for my older students who have full teams of teachers with whom I need to consult! All of their feedback is housed in the same digital location for the entire year [and, if you’d like, beyond!]. It is easy to find, compare and interpret!
I hope this blog has given you some actionable steps to take to set your year up for success! Are you looking for more OT-specific suggestions for this back to school season? Check out my blogs on Parent Teacher Conferences & Back to School Night as a related service provider. I hope you are able to make this the best year yet!
