special ed. evaluation and assessment?

pecan

Sun, Aug 19 2012, 4:15 pm

Hi,
Sara Schneirer college is advertising postgraduate courses. I have my master's in special education and I am interested in courses on evaluation and assessment. Does anyone here evaluate children? Has anyone done the program? Do you know the cost of the program? Is it a difficult field to get into? What is the salary? Is it more supplementary or can you get a full time job evaluating children?
Thanks.

sbs

Sun, Aug 19 2012, 9:21 pm

I also have a masters in special ed and looked into this course

it seems in ny state you don't need to have a special degree or course for evaluations,
a masters is enough
and of course you have to be familiar with the tests and you gotta be able to start doing evaluations somewhere

it's possible the course will help cuz you'll learn how to do the evaluations and you'll have something else on your resume, but it's not a must have

as far as salary, there are lots of people who do evaluations privately, like when a parent is told by a school to take their kid for an evaluation, but you have to have a name cuz the schools recommend people they are familiar with,
the good thing about being new is you'd be cheaper, and lots of people would go for that cuz it can be very costly

a job evaluating would be working for an agency, but I'm not sure the details on that...

seeker

Mon, Aug 20 2012, 11:56 am

Yes, the usual address for private evaluations for learning or developmental problems would be a psychologist. But early intervention agencies do also hire special ed teachers to do evaluations in various contexts. A special ed degree even with advanced training in evaluation won't qualify you to give diagnoses, but you could still try for a private practice in things like strengths assessments, people might be interested in that if they already have a diagnosis but don't know what to do with it or if they don't want to go through the whole diagnostic procedure but want action recommendations, though with the DOE offering free evaluations I would assume most people just go for that first.

mha3484

Mon, Aug 20 2012, 12:50 pm

I know quite a few people with masters degrees only who have built quite a business in this area. These women are booked solid. It takes a long time to build a reputation and you have to branch out of the frum community where there are people with disposable income.

pecan

Mon, Sep 24 2012, 3:23 pm

Op here. Someone told me that there is a lot of paperwork involved. She told me it takes her a few hours so it doesn't really make more than just doing SEIT.
You can basically work for an agency and in my community people would just get evaluated by the board of ed if they were older, so private practice probably wouldn't work.
Someone else told me Sara Scneirer sounds expensive and that you can probably take courses geared to specific tests for much cheaper. I have not continued researching.

seeker

Mon, Sep 24 2012, 5:54 pm

I keep seeing the ads for the course and getting intrigued... I think I just miss school, believe it or not, but I'd love to know more. I just don't want to actually call Sara Schenirer to ask for details because frankly I don't have time right now to go pursue more qualifications. Maybe next time I need continuing ed credits.

amother

Thu, Jul 31 2014, 10:43 am

Octopus, perhaps that is true at the EI level. However, with CPSE, children are still being evaluated by special ed. teachers. I'm actually a special education evaluator for CPSE.

runninglate

Thu, Jul 31 2014, 11:32 am

amother wrote:

Octopus, perhaps that is true at the EI level. However, with CPSE, children are still being evaluated by special ed. teachers. I'm actually a special education evaluator for CPSE.

Amother, can you please pm me? Thanks so much. I am looking for info on this field. If you're not comfortable, can you post details on this thread? What qualifications do you need? How much do the agencies pay? Is there lot of work available etc.

amother

Fri, Aug 01 2014, 10:00 am

Are you bilingual certified? If yes, there's more of a demand. I do monolingual educational evaluations for a DOE contracted agency for preschoolers ages 3-5. I get $150 an eval. However, I believe they pay $175 for a bilingual eval. I have a master's in special ed. I contact the parents to hear their concerns and schedule the eval. I then go down to the school, observe the child for approximately 20-30 minutes, and administer the testing, which could take up to approximately 45 minutes. I find that it takes me a really long time to score the child, write up a good report, and share my findings with the parents. After all is done, I'm really not making that much per hour. However, some of my colleagues do evals much faster, and are able to do approximately 10 evals per week (or more). Most evaluators do evals as a side job, as it's not a steady income...

runninglate

Fri, Aug 01 2014, 10:09 am

Thanks for the response! So approximately how many hours would you say you spend on an eval? I am bilingual, have a masters etc.... and have good writing skills. My main question is what formal training, if any, do you have? Who taught you the basics of what to do etc. How did you get your position?

amother

Fri, Aug 01 2014, 10:35 am

The amount of time spent on an eval really varies- it depends on how concerned I am about the child. A child who scores well usually doesn't require that much explanation etc. whereas a very delayed child requires that much more writing...so that he/she could get the services.. If a child needs services, I also need to include IEP goals. It also depends on the parents and teachers, and how much time they want from you. Oh, and I forgot to mention that in addition to the classroom observation, I also need to include a teacher interview, so that the teacher's concerns (if any) are noted as well. I did not get any formal training to do evals. I just had lots of classroom and SEIT experience. I also observed several evaluations before I actually did my first eval. If you feel that this is something you'd be good at, send your resume to the local agencies. I'm assuming you live in NYC. Correct? Try sending your resume and a sample eval (just do one on any child you know, to show them that you write well etc.) to Yeled, Omni, Evalcare etc.

miami85

Fri, Aug 01 2014, 10:46 am

While I was told that I could do CPSE evals--and have done one, I find for a monolingual evaluator it's real slim-pickins'. If you speak Spanish or Yiddish or something Indian/Chinese you may have a better shot.

I'm not sure if it was Sara Schneirer, or TTI that advertised a similar degree of an education assessment something-or-other, (b/c I'm a Sp Ed teacher and almost finished with a degree in School Psych and had never heard of that position) but when I called and asked what it was they told me it was something only accepted in New Jersey, so just double check that it's a position valid in NY--if that's where you want to work.