Office Sweet Office

This time of year is definitely my least favorite time of the school year. Crunch time! The perfect storm

I've been fortunate to have fairly nice rooms for therapy.  The worst was the custodians supply closet which had no windows, heat or air and the best is my current situation with windows, a desk, a book shelf and plenty of storage.  I do feel the need to comment about what this says about our profession.  If we are a valuable part of the school's Special Ed team, then we deserve a space that is conducive to good therapy and overall professionalism.  I would encourage SLPs to advocate for a classroom setting that is appropriate and professional and to not settle for storage closets and kitchens.  We deserve better.

Like Valerie, I was granted the use of empty classrooms that were being used as storage rooms to house textbooks for grade levels 3-5, extra chairs and tables from all the various classrooms, stacks of boxes of reams of paper, and extra office furniture that was less than attractive or functional. The kicker here was that this type of frenzied and disorganized environment had an impact not only on my students, but also on anyone else who woule enter that room. I was readying my kidney shaped table with copies of the IEP for an annual review, and when the parents entered the room for the meeting, the student's father said kiddingly, "Well, who'd you piss off?"  

My first year, I worked in a supply closet which was visited frequently by teachers. I had only a student desk and chairs. My other school offered me space I the basement band room. No tables but music racks to display materials.

I most definitely need work space, storage, shelves, windows and private entrance and desk top pc and printer. I have my own cutter and laminator and storage boxes full of my own arts and craft supplies. I too worked in garden tool shed, home ec room, computer room, empty classroom, hall way, nurse's room shared spec ed room with a schedule so that we occupy it singly, but nothing beats this years class. I have all the above and then some. Good times!

Depends, if I'm traveling to Headstart buildings, my workspace is a teacher's lounge or office cubby. But my home school has ranged from just big enough for a 2/3 teacher desk and I turned around to face my circular table and had some storage to where I am now with a large room for two therapy work stations, desks for myself and my parapro, and a nice-sized storage closet. I've never had to do hallway therapy, thank goodness. That's a tough one.

I have a nice large room, but unfortunately my speech therapy materials hoarding habit, along w/ all the dead files I've accumulated and can't throw out has made it quite cluttered.

I have always had a desk with a locking filing cabinet, not considered a luxury where I work, but a necessity since we need to keep track of therapy attendance and also house confidential speech files.

Since this was in an office shared by all the speech and motor therapists and teachers for the building - up to 15 people, it was not expected that we would provide therapy services in that room. Instead, we were granted a portion of hallway, with double doors leading to the gym on one end and a large storage cabinet on the other end. The storage cabinet served not only to hold supplies, but also to allow for a modicum of privacy between our work space and the water fountain and door to the nurse's office. We had a small table and 4 chairs, often our adult-sized chair would go missing overnight.

I made the most of that space for many years of providing therapy services. Ah, the memories.