OTS 54: Back To School Plans During a Pandemic
- Jayson Davies
- Aug 2, 2020
- 37 min read
Updated: 4 days ago
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On this special event episode of the OT Schoolhouse Podcast, Jayson welcomes to the show occupational therapist, Olivia Martinez-Hauge, MFTA, OTR/L, and occupational therapy assistant, Cait Bowen, COTA. You may remember Cait from Episode 44 of the OT Schoolhouse Podcast. In this episode, Jayson, Cait, and Olivia discuss what the looming return to the 2020-21 school may look like in our districts and how we are planning for them. We discuss how evaluations, treatments, and IEP meetings will all be very different, even from how they were at the end of the 2020 school year.
Above, you can watch the full, unedited Facebook video or you can listen to the audio-only version on the OT Schoolhouse podcast using the player at the top of the page or where ever you listen to podcasts.
Links to Show References:
Follow Cait Bowen on Instagram: @Cait_the_COTA
Check out Olivia Martinez-Hauge's website at OliviaMArtinezHauge.com
Also referenced in this episode:
The WooTherapy Blog (Highly recommended)
Be sure to subscribe to the OT Schoolhouse email list & get access to our free downloads of Gray-Space paper and the Occupational Profile for school-based OTs.
Have any questions or comments regarding our podcast? Email Jayson at Jayson@otschoolhouse.com
Well,
Thanks for visiting the show notes for Episode 54! If you enjoyed this episode be sure to subscribe on Apple Podcasts, Google Podcast, Spotify, or wherever you listen to podcasts
Episode Transcript
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Jayson Davies
Hey everyone, and welcome to the OT school house podcast. I am so excited to be here with you today. My name is Jayson Davies, and today we have a very special, unique episode, actually, this past Saturday on August, 1 of 2020 I hosted an occupational therapy assistant as well as an occupational therapist, and we just went live on Facebook and talked all about getting back to school during this pandemic, what are our plans, and all of that crazy talk that could, that could go along with that. And so actually, that's what you're going to be hearing today is a recording from that Facebook Live event again on August 1 2020. Joining me on the show today will be Kate Bowen. You may have you may know her as Kate the coda on Instagram. She's just an amazing coda. Does a lot of good stuff, creates things, puts out a lot of awesome and helpful content on Instagram. And so if she's going to be here today to share about what they are doing in Michigan or how they're planning for the school year at least. We also are going to be joined by Olivia Martinez houge, and she's an occupational therapist here in Southern California, along with me, not too far away from me. But as you know, every district is a little bit different, so she's going to give her take on those districts or on her district. Sorry, all right, so that's what it is going to be, or that's who's going to be on. And like I said, we're talking about back to school during a pandemic. I just want to mention one last thing before we jump into the intro, and that is that my A to Z, school based. OT course is available once again, you can head on over to OT schoolhouse.com. Forward slash A to Z, or check out the show notes for ot school house podcast episode 54 this episode to learn more about that, but this is just something I'm so excited for. It is a go at your own pace course for a total of eight hours. But not only do you get the course, you get a ton of handouts that will help you get through your first, second, third, whatever year of a school based ot you are also with that. Not only do you get the sessions, but I'm also doing live student interactive Q and A sessions on our student Facebook interactive groups. So be sure to check that out at ot schoolhouse.com. Forward slash A to Z. All right, so I'm going to go ahead and Cue the intro, and when I come on back, we will get started with our interview. I hope you enjoy it. And once more, here is Cait Bowen and Olivia Martinez Hauge.
Amazing Narrator
Hello and welcome to the OT school house podcast. Your source for school based occupational therapy tips, interviews and professional development. Now to get the conversation started, here is your host, Jayson Davies class is officially in session.
Jayson Davies
I love my little intro. Thank you both for joining me. I'm so happy to have you on here. Welcome to this very, very special live edition of the OT school house podcast. I want to thank everyone joining us today, but especially Kate and Olivia today. We are very lucky. We have one OTR and one occupational therapy assistant on with us today, and I have purposefully tried to find occupational therapists that are in different parts of the country because all different states have different they're not even really regulations in place. They're just kind of guidelines as far as how schools are going to return and yeah, basically, some are going back to school. Others of us are not. It looks like Olivia has her coffee or tea with her. I have mine as well. Cheers, everybody. How are you doing today? Olivia?
Olivia Martinez-Hauge
I'm doing good. I'm it's, it's a, you know, it's a Saturday, so that's always, that's always good to make it to the weekend. But I'm excited. I think this is a great idea to have OTs come together, bring their minds together. I think we're a creative bunch, and I think what what other way to sort of challenge our skills here than to create sort of the ultimate treatment plan for the kids in in our country, absolutely.
Jayson Davies
And how about you, Cait, how are you doing?
Cait Bowen
Oh, good. I've already been up for a few hours, so my coffee is gone. I feel like I need another one now.
Jayson Davies
There you go. Yeah. Is it 1030 where you are?
Cait Bowen
1130 actually, 1130 Okay, lunch time.
Jayson Davies
Right time to go to Panera or something, right? All right. So you know what? Let's go ahead and actually dive right into it. I want to start off with the first question that I think everyone wants to know, and that is, Are schools returning to campus in your area? Kate. I'll let you go ahead and and talk about that first
Cait Bowen
the question of the hour. Yeah, right. I need to start off by saying that my district has not released an official plan yet. We will find out. I believe Tuesday will be the announcement. So I don't know for sure exactly what my fall is going to look like. Districts around me have started releasing their plans, and honestly, we kind of have a mix. Some people are going in person, some people are doing all online, some people are doing a mix of both. And I'm thinking that my district is going to be doing a mix of both, where parents will have an option they can do in person with social distancing and those kind of guidelines in place, or they can choose to go online. So I'm very curious to see how much of my caseload is going to be in school or choosing to stay home, because I think that the therapy that I provide is going to be a mix of both, which is such new territory for me, but we'll kind of learn as we go, I guess. Yeah. So I don't know exactly what I'll be doing yet, but it sounds like from an OT standpoint, we will be trying to push into classrooms as much as possible. I'll have to wear a mask all day. We're sanitizing everything after each session. If we can't sanitize things, we're trying not to share things. I think that our sensory rooms are going to be closed, which is a bummer, but it's just what we have to do right now.
Jayson Davies
Yeah, yeah. And when do you guys actually start school in California? We're starting in like a week or two. Okay,
Cait Bowen
I think we're set to start August 24 we've got a couple PD days there first, and then the students will come back, I think for like two, three day weeks before Labor Day.
Jayson Davies
Okay, yep, sounds about right? And Olivia, you are actually not too far from me. You're only about 20 minutes from me. But things can change from district to district. So what are, what is Jordan's plans?
Olivia Martinez-Hauge
Yeah, I'm curious. I hadn't even asked you that. So Jordy is and the district surrounding us are all 100% virtual, starting in the fall. There was this, the discussion of the hybrid, but we are in a hot zone, so that discussion got taken off the table kind of quickly, and so we're 100% online in the fall the same
Jayson Davies
it sounds like it we things have changed over summer a few times. Yeah, we originally, I think the district really wanted to get back into in person, and then it was going to be optional hybrid, versus all online, and the hybrid was going to look like two days on for half of the class and then two days on for the other half of the class, with like Wednesday being no school day, all planning teacher or teacher planning day type of thing. But now it looks like we are starting completely all online. And despite only being 20 minutes from you. I'm in a different county from you, and as you know, California is really kind of watching things county by county. And so you guys, you're Los Angeles County, I'm San Bernardino County. And right now, we're both on California's watch list. But if one of us were to go off the watch list for 14 days, or something like that, then our district would be able to have that option to go back if we'd like.
Olivia Martinez-Hauge
Sounds so criminal,
Jayson Davies
right? But as of right now, yes, we will be starting all online. And so my question to you, actually, Olivia, then, is for us, even though we are all online. It sounds like the district is going to be requiring teachers to go on campus and actually teach on campus. What about you? Are they saying that you need to come on school? Or can you work from?
Olivia Martinez-Hauge
home? The what I know at the moment, as of 839 on Saturday, is that our unions are in negotiations still about about hours and all of the things that you know they're discussing, I believe one of the things that they're discussing is being on Campus, or that sort of thing, I know for now, we don't need to be on campus. We can do things from home. So as of right now, what I understand is that the teachers can work from home, but I. When I spoke to one of our principals, she had mentioned the opportunity for for teachers to come back to their classroom to work if it's more comfortable for them, you know, or, you know, open open up certain areas for them to work, to work in.
Jayson Davies
Gotcha. So then Kate, I want to ask you, because you're sounding like you're not sure in districts, might have the option to go back in. You go to multiple sites, right?
Cait Bowen
I have six buildings that I typically go to.
Jayson Davies
And so that's where I'm trying to figure out. As far as you know, everyone's trying to create, like, a bubble at each school site, and.
Cait Bowen
I'm breaking the bubble.
Jayson Davies
Yeah? Exactly, exactly, yeah. So.
Cait Bowen
Within the course of a week, I am in six, usually six, different school buildings. So most days it's two buildings, but I think there's going to be a day or two where I'm just in one spot, but it sounds like we're going to be trying to push into classrooms as much as we can, but they've also talked about getting us, like, like a Plexiglas barrier to go on our table with, like an opening at the bottom for us to work through. But we'll, we'll see how that goes. I have some concerns about that working for some of my kids, I get Safety First 100% but I can just see that wall being pushed at me.
Jayson Davies
Yeah, absolutely, yeah. And then I mean, yeah. And kids are going, they're used to when they work with us, they're used to having a hands on connection. Yeah, that's gonna be tricky, you know what? Before we continue on, I actually meant to ask both of you, what is the population that you are working with? Do you have a wide verse population, or does it tend to be a certain population? Kate, we're already talking, so go ahead first.
Cait Bowen
Yeah. So most of my caseload is kindergarten through sixth grade. I see kids in gen ed, and then I also have, I would say, the bulk of my population is cognitively impaired. And then I also see emotionally impaired too.
Jayson Davies
Okay, and is that mostly in general education classrooms with, like, some pull out support for special education, or at least self contained Special Education self
Cait Bowen
contained. They do spend some time in the gen ed classroom, but for the most part, they're in their own room.
Jayson Davies
Gotcha All right. And what about you, Olivia?
Olivia Martinez-Hauge
so there's just the two of us in our district. Shout out to my work wife, Amanda, who I cannot live without, and we see everybody. So we're, doing assessments at two years, 10 months or so, all the way up to having the potential of having a 22 year old. So we see everybody and special ed, general ed, everybody in between. It's just the two of us,
Jayson Davies
so a very wide range of population, all right, oh yeah, that's good, you know? I think people just want to know that. So as we're speaking, they know. And for me, I'll go ahead and update. Mine changes every now and then, and I don't think I've talked about on the podcast recently, I am mostly in two schools with moderate to severe autism classrooms. So full day for the most part. Yes, the kids are trying to or they're getting out of the special day classroom to go to general education every now and then, but it is too moderate to severe special education classrooms for kids with autism. Yeah, all right, let's talk evaluations.
Olivia Martinez-Hauge
Did not, can we not? We just ignore that completely.
Jayson Davies
We got we got it. We got to do it. We got to do it first. Let's talk about the past. March 13 was the day that we got told we are not coming back to school on March 16, or whatever it was. I don't know about for you guys, but have you were any evaluations completed in the months of April or May? No for Olivia. Kate, do you know I
Cait Bowen
don't do evaluations? Guys? Mary, you guys, listen to the podcast I did with Mary. She is like the best, so I'm not sure exactly what she did during those two months, but not sure she was doing evaluations. She's a rock star. She just, she just does her own thing. She's so great.
Jayson Davies
And for everyone out there, if you haven't listened to Episode 44 the OT school house podcast that was Kate and Mary coming on about talking about the OT ot a relationship, and how they collaborate, work together. Fantastic. Go back and listen to episode 44 but we'll, kind of Kate feel free to chime in at all through this conversation. We talk about evaluations a little bit for whatever, you know, but I'll kind of talk. To Olivia, then about that. So no evaluations. Olivia in March, April, May, Summer, nothing like that.
Olivia Martinez-Hauge
No, okay, yeah, everything paused.
Jayson Davies
Everything is, everything still paused, going forward.
Olivia Martinez-Hauge
So, okay, so, like the plans, yeah, I mean, you caught me at the like, wrong time, so yesterday, actually, it was, I think I spent a total of about three hours, three and a half hours in the assessment, like mindset. We had a webinar with an attorney group that was going to share with us, um, sort of what the newest, latest and, and, you know, I thought was was going to give us some good direction. Um, it really caused more questions than it did give us answers. What I what I think I know, is that, um, timelines have to restart again once school starts back up in the fall. And that, I guess, the bottom line is that we have to be creative in doing assessments virtually. Current sort of guideline from the state is that there should be no one on one instruction because of safety. But the lawyers then took that and said, well, they never said one to one assessment was not, you know, okay, there's that kind of open vagueness to potentially do assessments one to one, but our district at the moment is is still holding kind of strong and and wants our safety, you know, foremost. So I think that as a as a department, we're still coming together and trying to figure out the answers, what I, what I what was kind of sort of definitively said, is that standardized assessments are not standardized for telehealth or teletherapy or online, nor are they standardized during worldwide pandemic. And I think that for us, for where I am struggling in terms of my assessment protocol and my thinking when I go into assessments, my assessments are very strong in or very rich in looking at regulation and, and, And then also my question is, what is the educational environment and and what am I supporting? And so those are still questions that I'm having some difficulty with. So even if I did like a sensory profile at, you know, sent that home, I kind of have to write at the top sensory profile during worldwide pandemic. So I think it's going to take a lot of creativity on our part, a lot of discussion with the parents, which we already do so well in terms of gaining information. And I think at the end of the day, our assessments will be our best guess at what is going on and always with that filter of this occurred during COVID, and when you return back to school, I'll get my hand on you and see you in that school setting.
Jayson Davies
Yeah, and I don't want to talk to any one specific assessment in general, but I've been kind of with the mindset that, you know, if we feel that we can do the assessment over the computer, whatever that might look like, you know, sending the bot protocol in the mail to the parent, and then doing it over the over whatever zoom or whatever platform we're using, I feel Like I could do that and write in my report, you know, just like you would write, if a kid was outside of the age testing limits, you just say, Hey, I understand this wasn't standardized for teletherapy, but I felt that I could get scores that could actually somewhat reflect the child. And so I did it. It was done via teletherapy, so all the scores need to be taken with a grain of salt. But here's what it is, right? And doing any potential assessment that I can that way, I mean, are going to be like the Peabody I can imagine being very difficult to do that with, because typically you're doing that with a younger student, and so now you're going to have to instruct the parent on how to present the tools to the child versus the bot, might be a little bit easier, because you just need a red pencil.
Olivia Martinez-Hauge
Right? right, right, yeah, yeah, I Yeah. I think it's going to take some just creativity on our part and flexibility where I think, you know, some of us older Fauci. Get a little rigid in our thinking and things need to be done a certain way, or whatever. We just have to be sort of flexible and and think of things a different way. And just you recognize that this assessment took place during this time, the the the some of the more of the questions I have are like, if a tri annual comes up, and I know this child really, really well, and you know, maybe they aren't having the regulation issues that I see in the classroom, because they're at home and they're well regulated, and maybe parents create a very calming atmosphere or something, and then I don't see the same concerns. You know, am I going to dismiss this child based on on that? Those are some questions that I have in terms of, you know, yeah,
Jayson Davies
difficult for any occupational therapist to dismiss a child right now, just because there's so many changes going on, if anything. I mean, I might go to more of a consult model and try and do more of a coaching model or something like that with the parent, but I think it's going to be hard to convince any parent that now is the time to,
Olivia Martinez-Hauge
Oh, for sure. But you know, if you if you're taking sort of the letter of the law in terms of providing services or whatever, where's the area of weakness and what goal do I write or whatever? Yeah, I think it's just, you know, we'll write, and I agree. I don't think I wouldn't be dismissing anybody during this time, but, but, you know, those are some of the questions that have come up in our discussions? Yeah,
Jayson Davies
so I'm looking at the questions, and there's a few questions about Kate. I know you're not quite sure what's going on with the district. Olivia looks going completely digital. Has there been any talk, or are you just hearing whispers at all about something looking slightly different for students with special education because of their high need for education needs, their high need for the services. Have you guys heard anything about even though maybe they're on distance learning, bringing them into campus or onto campus for services or even special education, despite the rest of the population learning from home? I don't know if either of you have any, I have not
Olivia Martinez-Hauge
heard anything. No nothing. It's just, I just heard sort of rumors, whispers of the potential of having certain students come on campus a few days a week or whatever. But I haven't heard anything beyond that.
Jayson Davies
Yeah, yeah, I agree. I've heard about ideas floating that students with in special education classrooms, the SDC classes tend to be smaller, and therefore maybe social distancing will work. But you also have to keep in mind the social and cognitive disabilities and how that might be less, there might be less social distancing, despite having more space.
Olivia Martinez-Hauge
Yeah, more adults, yeah. And I don't know if I mean, you know, you can, we can go back and forth about about everything, I think, and, but one of my concerns about that is, is right? What is the potential harm that we're doing when we bring the kids back in. But, you know, we're so preoccupied with keeping them separate, are we then sort of, you know, dysregulating them, instead of regulating them by having them, having, you know, strict rules around that and you know, and then will there be behavioral modifications presented to these kids when, you know, just because for poor social, you know, I think there's a lot. And then you had mentioned Jayson earlier, early on, about how we usually have a connection with our kids, and what will be the social implication when we aren't allowed to touch our kids, and what message is that going to send to them? Connection is what we're known for, right?
Jayson Davies
So I want to talk about dive more into the treatment side. But first, Have either of you had a good win or good successes with technology? Are you guys using zoom, Google meets, Microsoft, teams and and or anything else, and what are you finding that's working for you guys?
Cait Bowen
I have to be honest, I have not done any teletherapy really. So if we go to that, I'm gonna need all the tips, because I don't know anything. It's like, totally foreign to me. I did a couple like zoom. I don't even know it wasn't a treatment, it was just more of like a Hangout with some of my students. Same kind of like talked, but there was no ot treatment happening, but that was over. Zoom, were
Jayson Davies
you, were you sending things home in the mail, or were parents coming to pick stuff up? Or what did it look like in April and May for you? Then, Kate, we
Olivia Martinez-Hauge
were emailing once a week. We were emailing parents like a list of activities that they could do. Everything was optional, so it was just more of like, if you want to do this, you may, if this is too much, it's okay. And then we just made ourselves available for parent questions and emailing back and forth, yeah, no.
Jayson Davies
I mean, we're, did you have good feedback from that?
Cait Bowen
It was hit or miss. I have some parents that I know did them, and some that I am pretty sure never opened anything, and that's just, that's just how it goes, and that was to be expected. I mean, everybody was just in survival mode for those first couple of months. And we didn't want to add another stress on top of that.
Jayson Davies
Yeah, no, I understand. And what about you, Olivia, how did March and April May kind of turn out for you technology wise? Or what were you doing?
Olivia Martinez-Hauge
Um So in our district, we're sort of, uh, mandated, or, you know, strongly suggested, to use Google. So everything's in the Google is about, called a Google Suite. I'm still learning what Google can do, but we, you know, there was a learning curve, because I had not used it before. So, so, you know, it was, it was touch and go with learning how to how to set up a Google Classroom. But since then, we've learned Google Classroom. We've learned Google Forms, which we then created, like little, little surveys or things that our kids can check off, and then it gets sent right to us. So, so we're using the Google platform and Google meet, and I, I personally have more success with Zoom, in terms of a conferencing, whatever I felt like Google meets, there's more hiccups, or it's a little bit more clunky, but unfortunately, we have to use that moving forward for meeting with parents.
Jayson Davies
Yeah, I'm kind of in the same situation. I primarily used zoom in the spring, and we just got an email the other day saying that there's going to be two trainings, one for Microsoft Teams and one for Google meets, and that we're going to have to be using those from now on. And I tried Google, the Google platform, Google meets, and I was not a big fan of it. There's a lot more limitations than there are for zoom. Yes, ever the HIPAA compliant version of zoom is $250 per person, at least, that's what they advertise. And most districts already have a contract and a business agreement with Google. And so that's probably going to be the way that it goes. And or Microsoft, yeah.
Olivia Martinez-Hauge
So if anyone from Google is listening, can you improve that platform for us, teachers and therapists?
Jayson Davies
Cait just said that teams, Microsoft, teams, is great, and that's what I'm hearing. Unfortunately, because I work in elementary schools, it sounds like elementary schools are going to be using Google and high schools are going to be using teams, which I'm like, Okay, well, now the one that I actually think is more like zoom I'm not even going to be able to use anyways, because I work with younger kids. Yeah, yeah, it'll, it'll be interesting.
Olivia Martinez-Hauge
And if may, if maybe people can share, you know, little Google tips with with whatever the Google platform. You know, I love zoom, because I feel like the screen sharing is so much easier with Google zoom, and I'm able to bring up stuff for parents to look at. You know, simultaneously. I know Google meets can do that too, but I just, yeah, it's just a little bit, all right,
Jayson Davies
let's talk a little bit about how we are getting back into treatment. So we just talked about what we've done in the past. Did anyone do summer school? E, S, Y, no, no, Kate, Olivia, did. I did too. Is basically the same thing. Olivia, I'm assuming yours was very similar with some treatments online, right? Very similar. Yeah, yeah. And I use Google Forms too as well to get feedback from parents. So once I did send them an email or something, I would have them or I tried to have them complete a Google Form to let me know how it went again, only a small handful of parents reply. To that. But let's go ahead and talk about how we are planning moving forward. Olivia, you kind of sound like you talked with the district attorneys, lawyers, people who are going to tell you exactly what to do without any experience. What do they want you? What do they want your treatments to look like?
Olivia Martinez-Hauge
So true. Um, you know, luckily we, we have a good attorney team, and they're, they're really open to listening and that sort of thing. The way that we're moving forward is based on all of the information that we received during survival mode in spring and and a little bit of summer. And so we're moving forward given the feedback from from parents, our experiences, the feedback from other providers. So, you know, I'll just tell you, like, kind of what is solid and boots on the ground, kind of stuff. So we are so what we found is that parents were in one of two camps. In in the spring, in the summer, they either wanted face to face interaction virtually, which is means that we're we're meeting with the parent virtually once a week, or once every other week, or whatever, and and we're either talking with the parent or seeing the student. So that's like one camp the other camp of parents were, I have no time, nor do I want to get on face to face with you. Send me the material, and we will do it in when we are available. So given, given those two main camps of parents, we are sending out a survey, hopefully by Monday, a survey that is asking parents to choose from option A which is face to face scheduled sessions, just like we would do in school. And those special sessions will happen as the therapist and parent determine that's Option A, and Option B is individualized resources. And, you know, individualized videos or or printables, or whatever provided for that family that the family can access when they are available during the day. So that's where we're starting, just so we can get that information, because we did our struggle this last these last few months, have been parents, maybe wanting the just the resources, but sort of afraid to tell us, like, we don't want to meet with you face to face. So there's just a lot of like, miscommunications and, you know, all of that stuff. So we're hoping with the survey, we get good, solid information, then we can plan and have materials and face to face activities and that sort of thing all planned and ready to go. By the beginning of fall, we're putting together small little packages of not expensive things, clothes pins, rubber bands, popsicle sticks, paper plates, straws, that sort of material packages that we can give to our parents. And then also, oh, and then I think we'll the plan now is to roll out a Facebook page just for our parents so that we can dump some material onto there. I mean, we're really attempting to provide as many opportunities for them to access us as possible at the same time. You know, we both have our own children, our own families that we're needing to teach as well. And so, no, we're just trying to get short everything up before the fall. But, you know, we're going to treat this much like we do a treatment session. You know, we come in with our bag of goodies and our treatment ideas, and then our kids are like, No, we don't want to do that. We're going to be ready to pivot and change and flexible. So that's sort of the plan as of now.
Jayson Davies
Yeah, So Kate, how are you expecting things to be different? I know you're very creative. Kate, Dakota has all the creative fun stuff. How are you thinking that things will be different from last term to this coming term? As far as treatments go.
Cait Bowen
I feel like. Our key words for this year are just going to be like creativity, flexibility and patience, because this is just a huge learning curve. I really have no idea what to expect if it does turn out that parents can choose between in person and online. That adds a whole nother layer to the scheduling. I feel like it was tricky to schedule before six schools, around specials, around other therapies, around core content, and now I'm adding in whether or not they're even in person or they're at home. So it's just gonna be it's gonna be wild. I think when we're in person, I'm just going to try and bring things that I can easily wipe down and a little plug if I can. Megan from woo therapy is releasing a series of blog posts where six therapists, myself included, are coming up with a list of like, 15 easily accessible, simple, cheap objects that parents could have at home or that we can have at school, that can be used in a variety of different ways. So I think I'm going to go back and look through that series and see what other people have come up with, and maybe just try and come up with, like, a small kit that each of my students can have, and then just turn on that creative part of your brain and just come up with as many ways to use those objects as you can. And I do think that's a great thing about OT is we are creative, and you can give us simple household objects, and we'll turn it into therapy. And I just think that's something that we're really good at. So it will definitely be a test of my creativity this year, and I think it will push me in ways that I've never been pushed before, but we'll just kind of figure it out as we go. I think.
Jayson Davies
Yeah, I love Megan. I was actually on the phone with her yesterday on the other side of the hill from me, so she's really not far either, sometime, but she'll appreciate the shout out. We'll definitely put a link to her to her pages. Did either of you do? Kate, it sounds like you were sending things home. Olivia, did you do any asynchronous videos where you were creating, like an activity video and sending it out to parents?
Olivia Martinez-Hauge
Yeah, during the spring, we did a lot of that we and we had parents use household items, things that were found in the house or that they would have. And then we then we would give them options like, Oh, if you don't have a straw, use a chopstick, or, you know, that sort of thing. And then, and then we created a video that would go correspond with that. And we got a lot of good feedback with parents saying, I love this. We could do it whenever it's there, it's accessible, it's on there. And then, and then, what was cute is we would get some videos back of our students, you know, doing it or trying it, or whatever. And you know, what we're always stressing is that, and I think you said this, you know, I the last thing I want to do is create more stress in the home. I want, if it's causing dysregulation, not just stop, you know, and our parents shouldn't have to be the therapist or the teacher. And so we want everything to be within that playful mindset, and, you know, just the creating connection, rather than, you know, sort of this teaching moment where you have to sit down and we've got to do but rather like, you know, here's this activity I'm suggesting it to you. If it happens in the bathtub, more power to you.
Jayson Davies
Yeah. And so, actually, I had kids who were on live, or who I was meeting with live, and some of them actually transitioned like you were talking about earlier. They're afraid to say they didn't want to do the live. And I had a few actually, that did reach out eventually, after a few missed Sessions, who said, Hey, can you just send us the activity? And so the asynchronous model became more popular as time went on. And so what I was doing is on Monday, or whatever day it would be, I was sending out an email with the materials that they would need to complete an activity, and then I created a 10, maybe 15 minute video that kind of showed what the parents could do. And I have a document camera that I borrowed from my principal, and I just basically, it was just my hands, for
Olivia Martinez-Hauge
the most part. Great idea.
Jayson Davies
So I would start the video with my face. It'd be like this right now, and I'd say, Hey, today we are going to, I don't know what's one activity I did, like pipe cleaner bracelets or something like that. I. And then I would switch over to the document camera and show them how to do it, and I would show different ways to grade it too. So I would have, like, a paper that had different colors. So that's one way that you can grade it. You can have different sizes of beads or whatnot. Someone on the comments asked about what I use Google Forms for. And if either of you want to chime in on this too, go for it. I use Google Forms a to try and ask parents what materials they had around the house. And so I would send out a Google form with just like, hey, do you have glue? Do you have this? Do you have that? And that way I knew to base my treatments around those types of materials. I also use Google Forms to then ask follow up questions about, how did this work? Do you feel like the student was able to do this, or were they not? How much support did they need? Which then does help, potentially with your progress, monitoring your progress reports. You may not be able to write specifically to the goals, but at least you can have some feedback that you know that the parents are doing the work with the students, that they're doing something with the students, so I don't know. Do either of you have any experiences with Google Forms or Microsoft forms or anything like that?
Cait Bowen
Yeah, so I'm writing down all these ideas,
Olivia Martinez-Hauge
And then Cait is gonna surpass us on, you know, yeah, look at these new Google Forms. They're dancing around.
Jayson Davies
It's gonna have templates for Google Forms, yeah,
Olivia Martinez-Hauge
um, so we use so um, one of the Google forms that was popular with our students in the spring, because we're really into social, emotional and regulation zones of regulation. So we were having our kids check in with us, tell us how they're feeling. So, you know, we used a, it's a, it's a nice, easy way for them to just click boxes. You can put pictures in there. So we had, What's that movie Inside Out pictures there for them to describe their feelings, or whatever the survey that we're sending out to parents is on Google form. And what's good about Google form, and this will be my first time, is that it generates a spreadsheet, or generate something so that it compiles the answers for you. So from there, we can just take that information and really use it in like an Excel kind of a way to organize our information.
Jayson Davies
Yeah, someone on here was asking if I had good response to Google Forms. I don't know about you, but my Google Forms responses were not great. I'm saying probably a caseload of 55 I probably had 10 to 15 a week at the most, and it kind of tapered off. Yeah.
Olivia Martinez-Hauge
I mean, it's just based on participation, and I think that, you know, parents are, I mean, for me in particular, it's, it's a struggle and a balance, to balance everything that's that's going that's going on. So it's hard. And I think What's hard is that, you know what, I'm hearing words like rigor and robust for the fall, first, for our students and for our school districts and that sort of thing, nothing has really changed from the spring. And so I'm concerned for our students that come back to this bigger and robust, you know, whatever that looks like, you know, I don't know. I think we'll be doing a lot of social, emotional now and in the future. Yeah,
Jayson Davies
Kate, I think you started to mention what some PPE personal protective equipment might look like in the school districts. What are you guys hearing you? I think you talked about Plexiglas. Have you heard about face shields, or is the district going to be requiring this? Or what are you hearing?
Cait Bowen
As far as I know right now and again, official word has not been sent out yet, but I think that staff will be wearing masks all day. So I stocked up. I got some great masks from Old Navy, 12 or something. So I just have a bunch of them. I don't know. I didn't want to wait to see if the district was going to provide them, so I just got them myself. So we'll be wearing those all day. Students will not be wearing them in the classroom, from what I understand, but once they leave the classroom, they're supposed to wear them. I'm not totally sure that'll be interesting.
Jayson Davies
I'm interested.
Olivia Martinez-Hauge
Johnny's gonna be wearing Sally's mask. Oh, yeah, yep, yep,
Cait Bowen
yeah. They're gonna be chewing on them, they're gonna be washing them. They're gonna be swapping them. Yeah, it's
Olivia Martinez-Hauge
yeah. There's gonna be, this isn't my mask. It for a half hour.
Jayson Davies
Yeah, and I mean that kind of also, things are obviously changing and so, and this goes for both of you. I know Kate, you don't sit in as many IEPs, but I mean, just how are goals going to change based upon this? I mean, priorities are changing, granted, you know, yes, academics are still important, but right now, that's not exactly what everyone's thinking about. And so I think we're gonna see a lot of different types of IEP goals and like goals. You know, we always talk about the infamous shoe Tyne goal. Is it a school based occupation, or is it not? Well, what about mask wearing? Like, is that gonna be a goal for several of our kids? Now,
Olivia Martinez-Hauge
who would have thought that we would even be talking
Cait Bowen
about wearing a mask as an IEP goal.
Olivia Martinez-Hauge
Jayson, I mean to answer your question with a question like, What is the educational environment? So is it? Is it that now my goal is for the student to make a peanut butter and jelly sandwich, because that's the, that's sort of what, yeah, that's what he needs to do at home, you know, in his educational environment. So, yeah, I don't that those are questions that I don't know the answers to.
Jayson Davies
Yeah, that would be interesting, man. I am excited to hear like, I one of Kate's like, Facebook or, sorry, not Facebook, Instagram lives in a month and a half after she's gone back live, because we're not going back live, and I don't know what that's gonna what that's gonna look like.
Cait Bowen
Wish me luck. You guys. Yeah.
Jayson Davies
All right, so we talked about a little bit of PPE. It sounds like we're not exactly sure. I think my district is going to be providing mass but they're they want you to bring your own, but they'll have them there for you. My wife's district, she is in Rowland, Rowland Heights, and they will be providing them three washable masks, and they are required to wash them. They can wear their own as well, but they're providing her with three masks, I guess. Granted, she's on optional. She doesn't have to go in, but she can go in to teach online in her classroom if she wanted to. The last thing I wanted to really talk about, and maybe I'll ask a few questions after that from the comments, is, Olivia, do you have do you have do you work with occupational therapy assistants in your district right now? Or no? No, we don't know, right? All right. So, Kate, how has the pandemic made the collaboration between you and Mary? Has it changed at all? Has it become even more important? How has that been?
Cait Bowen
I mean, you guys, know, if you listen to the podcast, I have an amazing relationship with Mary. Everybody needs a Mary in their life. She's so great. I love working with her, and honestly, I don't think how we've communicated has changed really. We've always been really open with each other and quick to email, quick to text, quick to call if something comes up and I just see that continuing into this next school year. I feel like we've just got a we call ourselves, like the dream team, the dynamic duo, plus Jody. We love you too, Jody, and we've just got a really good thing going. And I just think that that will be a real asset in this next school year.
Jayson Davies
Yeah, definitely. And it's nice to have someone just to communicate with on a regular basis. I know a lot of us occupational therapists. We might work on our own, even if there are other other occupational therapists in the district, sometimes we don't get to talk to them as much as we like. So keep up. Keep up the collaboration that always makes things a little bit easier. All right, I'm going to go ahead and bring up a question for both of you to answer. Oh, it came up and then it disappeared. It is, how are you planning schedules to work around cleaning between students. So if you are going back to live, or, let's even talk about this, I'll add to it for Olivia, who's not going back. How are you planning to schedule when kids are going to be on a zoom call with their teacher for most of the day? So for Kate, how are you planning to work around the cleaning? And then for Olivia, how are you working around kids being in a zoom classroom all day long?
Cait Bowen
So before it was just kind of like a revolving door. I would drop off a kid, pick up a kid, drop off a kid, pick up a kid. But now I think I'm gonna have to drop off a student, go back to my room, sanitize, give it a second, and then before I go and get my next student, or if I'm pushing into a classroom. I'm not exactly sure it depends on the classroom. If I'm like, going into one of my categorical rooms, I'm just going to have to wipe everything down and give myself a few minutes between students. I'm just going to have to build in that buffer time, I guess. And thankfully, we have that flexibility. Um. Okay, and we'll just have to make it our new normal.
Jayson Davies
sorry, what was that, Cait,
Cait Bowen
I think all the Clorox wipes. Yes, send them to me.
Jayson Davies
All right, so, Olivia, I'm going to ask you the question one more time, because it's because Kate answered her question, and we are trying to figure this out as well, because kids are going to be expected now to be in zoom a majority of the day with our teacher. And parents are saying that it's too hard to go from a zoom with the teacher over to a zoom with the therapist and then back into the zoom with the teacher. Are you hearing any of that? And what are your plans? Yeah,
Olivia Martinez-Hauge
so, um, Okay, a few things. So that is one of the reasons why we want parents to feel the give them the permission to say we just can't do that. And here's how we can do it, and then work with them in terms of, you know, resources and Easter ace, I can't even say that word asynchronous sessions or whatever, so, so that's one of the reasons give parents that option. The other thing that we are sort of toying around with is dropping into the classroom session or classroom platform or whatever, and then I believe, I haven't done it, but I believe there are breakout rooms where, then you can take the kid virtually into the breakout room. Is that not?
Jayson Davies
That's zoom, and I don't know, maybe teams too, but I don't think you can do that with Google. As far as I know. Maybe if some someone could correct me, I haven't used Google very much, but breakout rooms is something that is common with Zoom. I've used it there.
Olivia Martinez-Hauge
Sworn. I could have sworn our AP e provider did that. And I want to say that it happened during Google, but I don't know, but, but that is, if that is a Google thing, then that is something that we can toy Okay.
Jayson Davies
Linda, saying, Google meets does have breakout rooms.
Olivia Martinez-Hauge
Thank you, Linda. Um, yes, so, um, so yeah. I mean, that is an option, but yeah, I mean, we're gonna have to work around that those schedules
Jayson Davies
and then so follow up to both of those questions is, how will that impact your ability to see the same amount of students in a day? Well, Kate, it sounded like you said you kind of have a little bit of a buffer, a little bit.
Cait Bowen
I don't think it will affect too much. How many kids I can see in a day. We kind of have a built in buffer. Anyway, I give each of my students like a 30 minute block, but the IEPs are written usually like 20 to 30 minutes. So I could go more towards the 20 minute side, give myself time to clean before going on to the next student while still meeting their IEP requirements.
Jayson Davies
And what about you? Olivia?
Olivia Martinez-Hauge
Well, so and Jayson, I'm curious if this is the case for you too. We're kind of talking to the district and the attorneys and that sort of thing about COVID time where, maybe in the in the IEP, it says 60 minutes a week. That is not realistic to have a child, you know, on Zoom for 60 minutes. So what is the agreed upon like sort of COVID time that we can agree to that will address the concerns, address the needs within that time. So, so, yeah, I think that given that scenario and everything, I think we can see the same amount of kids or, you know, work with, with it being either face to face or or creating individualized sort of material. I think, I think, well, my time will be stretched, but well spent.
Jayson Davies
Well for me, I found that in the spring it was easier for me. I basically made every student once a week in the spring, it was too difficult to try and figure out how to plan for consults, versus how to plan for twice a month, versus how to plan for a week, and so I just made everyone weekly. And I was able to kind of do that because a lot of them wanted that asynchronous model, and so I made, I made four different videos using a document camera, and I kind of put my kids into groups. And so if a kid was in a certain group, they had these types of skills and these types of goals. They got video a, these students got video B, C. And D and so that helped, and I just sent it out weekly, because it would have been more difficult for me to figure out who to send it to this week versus who to send it to next week and all that. And so I just made everyone weekly, but with everything changing now, and I think parents are getting a little more antsy with and rightfully so that, hey, we thought this was going to be a two month thing, and now it's a six to 12 month thing. Come on now, what do you what do you want us to what do you want us to wait for? And so I don't know if that's going to have to change this fall. I want to ask you a question. Kate, about small groups have do you do small groups typically? And if so, are you planning to?
Cait Bowen
Not usually, I usually see my kids one on one, which is great. That's how I prefer to do it. But yeah, I think that will stay the same just because of social distancing. I don't think we're gonna go anywhere near small groups.
Jayson Davies
I agree with that. I was, yeah, I if we were going back to school next week, whenever we start, it would have to be all individual, in my opinion, or like you saying, pushing into the classroom, but then, as we talked about earlier, if you're pushing into the classroom, then you're exposing yourself to, let's just round and say, 20 people, and then you push yourself into another classroom at another school.
Cait Bowen
You're making me feel like a real germ spreader. I'm sorry, Kate. I'll wash my hands. I'll wear my mask.
Olivia Martinez-Hauge
We're gonna put Cait on the watch list,
Jayson Davies
but it, I mean, it's just the things that we have to worry about. I mean, hopefully, you know, everything goes well, and it's going to be interesting to see. I mean, you have a lot of the country going back, and you have a lot of the country not going back, and I'm sure there's going to be a lot of people in the government watching doing studies to try and figure out which way is the best way, and how do you calculate which way is the best way? And so it's going to be interesting. All right, let's see here. Did your asynchronous Christy is asking a question, did your asynchronous videos count toward the IEP minutes? I think that kind of goes back to what Olivia was talking about. What are IEP minutes right now? And yes, we documented it. I documented that for each asynchronous video. I kind of documented 15 minutes for emailing and whatnot. But I think I we were instructed to put it as consult. So if a student had direct minutes, then technically, no, I was not seeing that student directly. I think Heather is recommending maybe that you use a bubble suit. Cait,
Cait Bowen
there you go, just a full half mat suit,
Jayson Davies
right? So are you, for both of you, because this can happen on Zoom, or this will be our last question. Can happen on Zoom or in the classroom? Will you be doing co teaching in in a zoom classroom, in a Google meets, or in a classroom? Is that something that you think you'll continue on?
Olivia Martinez-Hauge
I think that we did not do that in the spring or summer, simply because we're just we really put off all of our sort of juices flowing with the fall. But I think that we, we are willing to try anything. I think that will be, I think for some of our students, that will be the only way for us to see them, capture them, check in on them, and that sort of thing. So, yeah, I'm and we're all we in our district, we're always, sort of, we hate being alone. So we were always, we're always co teaching, or, you know, working with our other providers. We love, we love collaborating.
Cait Bowen
Yeah, I would say possible. Really, I used to do monthly groups with the speech therapist and with the physical therapist. So I don't think that we'll be doing those anymore, which is a bummer, but we'll pick them back up when we can.
Jayson Davies
Yeah, all right, well, things are definitely going to be a little different than they ever have been before. And so I want to thank both of you. Olivia, Kate, thank you so much for coming on and doing this. I know that you don't have all the answers. I wasn't expecting you to have all the answers, and I hope no one else was. But I appreciate you guys coming on, sharing what you know, sharing about how you guys are just kind of planning for things. Really appreciate that. Please, everyone out there, please give them. A heart a thumbs up for showing them that they are here. Really appreciate that. The last thing I want to mention before we go is actually for everyone listening. This is the first of at least two back to school plans during a pandemic that we're going to be doing. So look out for another Facebook invite email about doing this again with two more therapists in different regions of the country. It's going to be great. Probably be similar questions, but who knows? Because a lot can change in a week, as we know, a lot of information changes. So thank you all for being a part of this and really appreciate it. We will see you all next time, take care. Bye. All right. I just want to thank all of you so much for having a listen to this episode number 54 with Kate Bowen and Olivia Martinez. How G really appreciate you sticking this out with us. If you would like to see the show notes, you can catch those over at ot schoolhouse.com, forward slash episode 54 I will also have a completely unedited version of the original Facebook video that this was recorded from over there. If you'd like to watch that again. Thank you so much for visiting. I really appreciate you being here with me today. Take care. Have a great whatever day this is week, and we'll see you next time on the podcast. All right, take care. Bye, bye.
Amazing Narrator
Thank you for listening to the OT school house podcast for more ways to help you and your students succeed right now, head on over to otschoolhouse.com Until next time class is dismissed.
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