School Assessments: Advocating to Support Your Learner
We’re continuing our series exploring services that get your learner on a path to school success! Today, we’re wrapping up our deep-dive into world of school assessments and psychological reports. Let’s recap:
We summarized some obstacles that are encountered when hardworking school professionals attempt to juggle competing demands within overburdened systems.
We’ve discussed ways GPS Education Consulting helps clients and schools:
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Up next - Obstacles 4 and 5:
“Opportunities to collaborate…felt less thoughtful & less supportive.”
When school professionals are struggling to schedule an excess of meetings within a limited number of slots, it’s highly likely that they: have fewer chances to thoughtfully collaborate and review records in advance and may experience compassion fatigue.
Possible implications: Conversations about your learner feel rushed/hurried, and/or seem narrow in scope.
Specifically, they might focus on outcomes related to specific decisions, rather than focusing more largely on identifying and specific obstacles and empowering you/ staff/your learner to overcome these barriers to success. Afterward, you may feel like your learner’s needs were discussed, but no solutions or plans to support them were identified.
Some good news…Many of the services we’ve already discussed are also useful for today’s obstacles. So, let’s explore further how GPS Education Consulting helps to restore thoughtful and supportive collaboration across home and school.
When you are represented by a passionate, trained and experienced non-attorney advocate, folks tend to spend additional time preparing for the meeting. As a bonus, when you choose GPS Education Consulting, you’re also gaining the valuable qualifications, reputation, and expertise of a seasoned school psychologist.
School psychologists are often the “go-to” person for:
- Guiding school teams through important educational decisions (e.g., eligibility for services, interpreting assessments, etc.), and
- Identifying and connecting students/families with needed services and resources.
You can easily see how a school psychologist serving as your learner’s advocate often leads to school teams spending extra time to make sure they’ve thought about their evaluations and next steps.
Additionally, our outsider’s perspective and input related to interpreting important data can help the team see things from new perspectives while making important decisions about your learner’s education.
To be clear: GPS Education Consulting is not in the business of attacking and shaming the folks working so hard to support kids. However, we are adamant about:
- supporting the learner’s team to develop and implement necessary actions for the learner, and then
- holding the right people accountable for meeting learners’ needs. This often leads to thoughtful selection of, and expedited access to, support.
Our approach means that you will have a savvy and informed team member seeking:
To improve relationships with the school, while also
Asking the difficult questions,
Listening for what’s unsaid, and
Advocating for the answers and actions your learner is entitled to.
It’s a nuanced path to walk…but, chat with us and you’ll see that our personality, experiences, and training make us uniquely qualified to effectively navigate these narrow paths to support.
One of our guiding principles while working with students, families, and staff is: Put needed supports in place as soon as possible. Subsequently, you can expect conversations and decisions to be primarily grounded in the idea of “what supports are needed?” followed by determining how to go about quickly and efficiently establishing and documenting them.
Finally, when you hire GPS Education Consulting, we will support you and your learner from day one. You’ll take comfort in knowing that you have an empathetic, encouraging, reliable, and supportive guide along your learner’s journey to school success.
Best,
Evan Gallena, Ed.S., NCSP
Founder & Lead-Consultant: GPS Education Consulting L.L.C.
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Together, as one… Navigating the path to school success!
