Speech therapists and college

amother

Seagreen

Tue, Jan 17 2023, 10:14 pm

amother Caramel wrote:

It's clearly not your fault but the reality is you aren't working full time. And when you work per hour, if you don't put in enough hours, your paycheck will reflect that.

If you really worked 35-40 hours a week, which is full time, at a rate of $65 per hour, you would be earning a decent amount.

Just because office people can work 40 hours a week, doesn't mean therapists can. Let me ask you, would you want your child getting therapy from a therapist who is doing 80 sessions a week?

One year we were not doing well financially, so I took on a ton of cases. I don't remember exactly but it was over 70 a week. I will admit that I was a terrible therapist that year. I was constantly doing sessions, in school, at home, evenings, Sundays. I was drained and burned out. I had no time to prepare. I couldn't keep up with the paperwork and was drowning and overwhelmed. I had no time to call parents.

Therapists should get high rates per session so that they are not forced to do a million sessions, because no one benefits from that. The kids actually lose out the most. You know why? Because my priority is to make a living for my family. Not to see your child make progress. So you're right, if I work 40 hours a week I'll make a lot of money. But my clients are not gonna make progress.

We are humans, not robots. Therapy requires a ton of energy. How much energy do you think I have if I'm doing 80 sessions a week? By telling therapists to work 40 hours a week, you are preventing the children who need therapy from getting good therapy. And that may mean your own child. Don't complain that your child's agency therapist isn't good (like I see on this site a lot). You told her to do 80 sessions a week, remember? So now deal with the consequences of a burnt out and overworked therapist.

$65 an hour is not ok in 2022. Maybe it was good 20 years ago. But it isn't anymore. Therapists are leaving the field in droves and there is a big shortage. One of my kids isn't getting therapy this year because the school couldn't find a therapist.

amother

Caramel

Tue, Jan 17 2023, 10:25 pm

amother Seagreen wrote:

This is a separate issue. Now you are saying therapists can't work full time because its too much work. Before you said you do work full time but don't get paid enough but in actually you aren't working full time because the schedule doesn't allow it.

Bottom line is a speech therapist can make a decent salary if they truly work full time. Whether or not they are getting paid as much as they should, or giving the best care are other issues.

amother

Blush

Wed, Jan 18 2023, 2:49 pm

amother Caramel wrote:

I would say that the word "full-time" is slightly arbitrary. Yes, there is a legal definition for certain things, but really different fields can have a different definition of full-time.

Imagine you felt underpaid at an office job and I told you that you're not underpaid because if you would only work 12 hours a day instead of 8 you can earn more. Being that industry standard for office work is 8 hour days, you would say I'm being ridiculous. Certain fields have different hours that are considered full time. If it isn't physically possible (and its really not) to work that many hours in that field, its rather irrelevant that if you would work more you would earn more. And in any case, most therapy fields take paperwork and prep hours into account with the hourly rate. So in essence you are suggesting that she work a 40 hour physical week so she can bill for 40 hours, but you are expecting her to actually work much more than that for what you are calling full time.

amother

Lilac

Wed, Jan 18 2023, 3:31 pm

amother Blush wrote:

How is that different than teaching? Especially if you are talking a full time teacher.

amother

Caramel

Wed, Jan 18 2023, 4:11 pm

amother Blush wrote:

She can work what she wants but as an hourly worker if you want to get paid more you need to work more hours. There are salary positions available for speech therapy but many ladies don't want it because the hours aren't flexible. So you can't have everything. You want to work part time but get paid as if you work a full time salary job?

amother

Blush

Wed, Jan 18 2023, 4:14 pm

amother Lilac wrote:

A full time therapist in a school works the same hours as a full time teacher. Arguably the same prep and paperwork. But nobody is arguing that it's too many for the teacher.

Well I would, so I guess everything is subjective. And people on this site make that argument about teachers all the time. That its ok that they don't make so much because they don't work in the summer so its not full time..... That was what was going on upthread. The therapist who does work in a school can be underpaid because she is on school schedule.

In any case, if a therapist, or teacher, or anyone else is working all the hours available to them, its a non-argument to say they would make more if they would work more. Not all fields have the same amount of available hours. And if you can't make enough by working the hours available, then its a moot point that if more hours would be available you would make more.

amother

Caramel

Wed, Jan 18 2023, 4:21 pm

amother Blush wrote:

True. But they are still not working full time. If playgroup is 9-12 the teacher doesn't work full time even though that's the available hours. And a therapist can always pick up extra hours somewhere else if she wants to. Same way a teacher can tutor.

amother

Seagreen

Wed, Jan 18 2023, 4:28 pm

I love how unless you work 40 hours a week you are considered part time. I could work 38 hours and still be called "part time." Like is there such a thing as "3/4 work?" Never mind that with the hours and hours of paperwork at home, I work waaaaaay more than full time.

Anyway, I want to repeat something I said before. It has nothing do with whether you work 2 hours a week or 10 or 40 or 60. 65 AN HOUR IN NYC IS UNACCEPTABLE IN 2022. It was nice 20-30 years ago. But rates, in ANY field, cannot remain stagnant forever. I think that is the crux of what most of us are upset about, not these petty discussions about part time/full time. The tuition rates of graduate programs have increased dramatically, but the sessions rates? Not one penny.

You can say that the care we provide is a separate topic from rates, but it is not. It is so so intertwined. We are completely taken advantage of and it affects our work.

And don't give me some stupid response how I can switch fields. It would benefit EVERYONE-parents, therapists, students, if therapists would be compensated well.

This reminds me of the recent strike in NYC by nurses. They were largely supported by basically everyone. Because we ALL realize that nurses who are paid well and have a reasonable number of patients benefits EVERYONE. Same logic applies to speech therapists. Stop making it an us vs. them. Be on our team. Maybe your kids don't get therapy so you don't care. But many parents are frustrated that the agency therapists don't go a good job, or that their child doesn't get therapy at all. Increasing our rates would go a long way in fixing this.

amother

Caramel

Wed, Jan 18 2023, 4:35 pm

amother Seagreen wrote:

I agree. The rates haven't changed in years. It's horrible but unless all therapists join together and take action I am unsure how it will change.

amother

Seagreen

Wed, Jan 18 2023, 4:36 pm

amother Lilac wrote:

A full time therapist in a school works the same hours as a full time teacher. Arguably the same prep and paperwork. But nobody is arguing that it's too many for the teacher.

Therapists work much harder than teachers. I'll list you some of the reasons:

1. Teachers have one lesson plan for the entire class. Therapists are planning separate mini lessons for every student. So if I do 12 sessions, that's 12 separate plans.
2. Teachers can keep curriculums and materials from year to year. With therapy, there is a always a new disorder, or variation of a disorder, that I haven't encountered before and need to spend time planning.
3. Therapist have to write session notes for every single session. Teachers don't have to write "lesson notes" after the lesson.
4. Teachers do report cards 3 times a year. Therapists have to write 4 a year (3 quarterly reports plus 1 annual report).
5. Therapists are requires to call every single parent every other month. Teachers are definitely not required to do that. I rarely hear from my kids teachers. And parents get upset at me that I'm not in touch with them often enough, but they would be more understanding of a teacher. When I explain to parents that I have 25 students, they are often shocked to hear that.
6. Therapists have to pay for all supplies, materials, and prizes on their own.
7. Teachers get paid for every single off day.
8. Because I get paid through the government, there is a lot of silly invoicing paperwork that I need to do

Ill think of more...

amother

Blush

Wed, Jan 18 2023, 4:56 pm

amother Caramel wrote:

I'm not sure if you are missing my point or disagreeing. Besides for your definition of full time being rather arbitrary, its not really relevant. Yes, if playgroups all over the city only go from 9-12 then someone working those hours has maxed out what she can earn in that field, irrelevant of how many hours it is. True, she can choose to additionally go into another field and make more money but that doesn't make the fact that playgroup morahs can't make more than a certain amount.

According to your logic, therapists are paid well because they can also get another job?

amother

Lilac

Wed, Jan 18 2023, 5:05 pm

amother Seagreen wrote:

I'm a full time elem teacher and that just isn't the case in any school I've worked in.

Curriculum and programs are constantly changing. We rarely get fully trained and are expected to master it quickly and be proficient right away.
Right now the expected teaching method is 3 differentiated instructional groups within each class. So, that's 4 lessons actually to prepare for each instructional lesson, whole group and each small group, not to mention the activities for rest of the kids to do during independent work time while rotating (so actually maybe 5). So, if you are talking ELA and math, that's the equivalent of 10 lessons, already plus throw on science or social studies.
Report cards are actually just a small part of the data collection and analysis we are expected to do. We have data meetings monthly and have to be able to report on students current reading level plus their progress on the online math and reading resource program we use (as well as monitor those regularly in order to teach mini lessons on remedial skills as needed if students score low in a specific area), not to mention gather and report data for our SLOs for our yearly evaluations. That's in addition to reports for SSTs and IEP meetings, we fill those out, too. We need to document all the strategies we implemented for a struggling student before we can even recommend a student for an SST meeting, in any case.

We need to keep a log of every time we reached out to parents, including phone calls and in person conferences to turn in at the end of the year. The expectation is to reach out to parents personally once a semester, so that's 25 kids if you aren't departmentalized, 50 if you are (depends on your grade, I've done both).

BTW, almost every teacher I know spends their own money on supplies, TpT resources, as well as prizes. We get maybe $100 reimbursed from the PTA which does not at all cover it.

We are also not even discussing classroom management which is a whole different story when you are talking 25 kids at once, vs a small group or one on one.

I'm not writing this to complain. Just to give you some perspective in that your workload is not necessarily heavier than a teacher's, and nobody is arguing a teacher shouldn't work a full school day, they are just expected to do it and to do it well.

amother

Seagreen

Wed, Jan 18 2023, 5:16 pm

amother Lilac wrote:

Lol in the school I work in the teachers don't do the majority of this. They wouldn't even know what you're talking about. Like what is differentiated instruction etc. So compared to them I work much much harder.