Day in the Life of a Sidekick SLP

Hi! My name is Katelynn, and I live in Knoxville, Tennessee. I work in Cumberland County Schools, which is in Crossville, Tennessee. My day usually starts around 6:30 am when I get up and start getting ready. Here's the cool part of my job - I am a time traveler!!! I travel across the EST and CST line Monday through Friday. So that's why I can get up so "late" and still get to work on time. I usually leave my house between 7:15 to 7:30 am EST and get to work in Crossville between 7:15 to 7:30 am CST. It's a definite mind trip and requires some math, but I lose an hour driving to Crossville. I love the perk of being able to have a company car so that the miles I put on the car (roughly 120 miles each day round trip) don't go on my personal car. Having a company-paid gas card also helps!

Once I get to school, I put my things down in the therapy room and go to the front office to sign in. While there, I check our speech mail box and the other therapy mail boxes (OT and PT). If there is anything in the boxes, I take it with me and lay it on the respective tables in our room. The therapy room has 4 main tables/desks. There are two tables for OT therapists that are pushed together. Sometimes there are two OT-A's that come to do therapy with students on the same day. There is a desk for the PT and PT-A to share when they come. Then there is a desk for the SLP-A at my school and lastly, I also have a corner where I have a table. We aren't all usually in the room except for Thursdays. In our therapy room, we do our best to help each other out by letting each other borrow toys that we have.

After I have done the mail run and signed in, I settle down at my desk for about 5-10 minutes to check my profile page on Cue (that's Sidekick's in-house online platform we use to do all of our paperwork, billing, and session scheduling). I look to see if I have any alerts regarding upcoming evaluations, alerts about IEPs expiring, missing paperwork, and problem alerts. If I do, I try to comment with any actions taken, the scheduled date of the meetings, or when I plan to complete the evaluation. This also helps me to be aware of when to be on the lookout for paperwork (IEPs, etc). After that, I look at the visit counts on my profile page to see who is behind on visits (if any) and schedule any make up sessions or extra sessions on my schedule for the day or the week. If I have time left, I will check my emails and see if anything needs a response immediately.

I see my first student at 7:45 each day. My schedule typically has back to back sessions until about 11 am, when I take my lunch. Sometimes the time can vary a little bit on when I eat lunch depending on the day and the therapy sessions. I have some students that are only in school on certain days of the week so that can change my lunch schedule as I accommodate them into my schedule. Sometimes, I have absences or students that are out on field trips or doing special events at school. When this happens, I try to rearrange my schedule by moving up some visits or adding in extra or make up visits for other kids. You kind of have to think quick on your feet sometimes and know who is available to be pulled at certain times if another student is not available.

After lunch, I typically see students again back to back until about 1:15 or 1:30. Then I try to give myself some paperwork or case management time to complete any paperwork. During this time, I can work on an existing evaluation, talk to teachers, track paperwork down, or check emails. The time usually flies by quickly so I have found that setting myself a timer helps me to stay on track.

I have a few more sessions after that and then before you know it, it is time to go home. I usually leave between 2:30 and 3 pm. Sometimes I have to finish wrapping up session notes or tracking down someone for paperwork, so I end up leaving a little later. Once I wipe down my table with a Clorox wipe and put the trash cans outside our room for the janitor to grab, I gather my things and walk to my company car.

The drive home is a little longer than the drive to work. This is because as I drive home, I gain an hour. So even though I may leave at 3 pm CST, it is already 4 pm EST in Knoxville. So unfortunately, I get to Knoxville right around 5 pm, which is rush hour traffic. Once I get closer to Knoxville, I usually check traffic to see what my route home may be today. I have discovered MANY different back roads to getting home since driving this route and depending on where traffic starts to stop, I jump off the interstate and wind my way home through back roads. If the interstate seems to be moving, then I will stay on the interstate. So I usually get home between 5 to 5:30 pm EST.

Once I get home, I may check my emails again, especially if I was waiting for a reply to a specific email. Sometimes I may work on an evaluation after work. It is hard for me to do the analysis portion of the evaluation at work, especially when our therapy room is busy as it can be distracting. Therefore, I will save this piece for when I get home and can do it in a quiet, non-distracting environment. However, more often than not, I don't have to do any work when I get home, which is really nice.

Katelynn Gibson, M. S., CCC-SLP