How do I move toward a workload approach?

School districts and other educational agencies can quantify the scheduling and time demands of workload duties by surveying the SLP staff and creating a Time Study of a typical work week for each area allowed in paragraph 3301-51-09 (I) (1) (a-d) of the Ohio Operating Standards. Guidance from the Workload Time Survey method from ASHA (2002b) has been used to assist SLPs in the time study.

1.      The SLPs are asked to keep a detailed log for five consecutive work days of everything they do. Logs and worksheets can be found by following this link http://www.asha.org/slp/schools/examples. As a department or individually, SLPs can brainstorm a list of all the workload activities they perform (or should perform) using the Workload Activity Cluster (http://www.asha.org/slp/schools/examples).

2.      The SLP staff records the activity and the exact time that is spent performing the functions from Table 1. It is important to note that this log includes all direct and indirect speech language services and interventions. Additionally, if there is work left over that has to be done before the SLPs contract starts, after work time, or on the weekend that immediately follows the five day Time Study, then this time would be counted and logged into an overflow schedule (Appendix A).

3.      A monthly log of activities and duties that the SLP has performed is also kept, and the time needed to complete those duties is recorded (Appendix B). This would be kept for those things that occur in the month that the Time Study is conducted. So, if the five day time study occurs for the week of September 22, 2008, the Monthly Log is completed for the entire month of September. This initially sounds like an overwhelming process, but this log would only need to include those typical things that were not documented in the five day time study (e.g., services, interventions, etc.). Many times, duties or events occur that do not normally fall into the typical work week. For example, if the SLP has to attend four IEP meetings in the beginning of September and a staff meeting on September 23rd, and then program an augmentative communication device at home on September 30th, then the SLP should get credit for her/his time. SLPs need to especially document everything they do whenever speech-language pathology services are cancelled in order to fit everything into the workday. SLPs should think about documenting things like IEP, MFE, and intervention assistance team meetings, parent/teacher conferences, testing, screenings, due process hearings, AAC or FM duties, kindergarten screenings, referrals to outside agencies, manifestation determinations, creation of adapted materials, training staff members, and time to schedule meetings. The list can go on and on.

4.      Once the monthly log is completed, the time for each duty is divided into fourths and that time is added to the five day Time Study schedule. To say it a different way, if a SLP was a member of the building RTI team and needed to be present once a month for a 60 minute meeting, the weekly time study approach would capture this time after an easy calculation is made. Instead of losing credit for this time, the SLP would instead divided the 60 minutes by four (i.e., four weeks in the month) and then include 15 minutes for the RTI meeting into the schedule for the weekly Time Study. Table 2 illustrates one such Time Study that a school district in Ohio completed. This Time Study is by no means an exhaustive list. As school districts and SLPs attempt to complete times studies, teams could also reference the Workload Activity Cluster (http://www.asha.org/slp/schools/examples) for additional workload duties.

Table 2.

Time Study for Workload Approach

5.      After the five day time study is completed and the monthly log is finalized (i.e., by dividing the time up into fourths and placing it on the five day schedule), the SLP creates the weeks Workload Schedule that follows the SLPs contracted start and end times. First, the SLP includes his/her lunch and planning time on the schedule as allowed by the districts contract. Next, the SLP puts in all the students therapy and interventions times into the schedule. This does not have to be perfectly scheduled. The intention is to fit all the direct and indirect service and intervention times into the schedule in order to determine how much time is left over for those other workload duties. Remember to only put the therapy and intervention times into time slots that correspond to when the students are available for instruction since SLPs do not typically provide services or interventions before or after school. Additionally, SLPs are encouraged to put either their students names or initials into each time slot so that the administration knows that time is reserved for direct or indirect services per the IEP or intervention plan. These times are not negotiable since the IEP or intervention plan spells out precisely how much time the student is entitled to receive. Last, those remaining time slots are filled in using the average times for each duties and activities from the time study (Table 2). Whenever the duties or activities exceed the contractual workday, those times are placed into an Overflow Schedule. Some SLPs represent those overflow days as Saturday and Sunday. See Appendix B for an example of a five day schedule and the overflow schedule.

6.      After each SLP represents his/her workload duties on the schedules, discussions with the administration ensue about what is an appropriate caseload ratio. The maximum number will vary across settings and be a function of the needs of the specific students on the caseload, the activities in each cluster determined necessary to meet student needs, the time required to implement those activities, local logistic constraints (e.g. limitations on time teachers are free to collaborate and plan), and the amount of time available (ASHA, 2002b, p. 9).