OTS 019: Exploring The Idea Of a School-Based OT Credential Feat. Jaime Spencer
- Jayson Davies
- Dec 3, 2018
- 32 min read
Updated: Apr 14
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Welcome to the show notes for Episode 19 of the OT Schoolhouse Podcast.
In episode 19 of the OT Schoolhouse Podcast, we are excited to host Jaime Spencer, OTR/L, of MissJaimeOT.com to talk about how we can advocate for ourselves as OTs at every level from the school site to nationally.
Jaime Spencer, like Jayson and Abby, is a proud school-based occupational therapist. BUT, she happens to live on the other side of the country from us, in New York City. Through her website, Jaime shares many tips and tricks for all pediatric OTs with an emphasis on helping school-based OTs, teachers, and parents.
Lately, she has taken on the calling (and the challenge) to advocate for higher pay wages for OTs in New York as well as fair working conditions, caseloads, and status.
If you think School-based OTs have a thing or two to advocate for, you have found the right episode to listen to!
"I support School-Based OTs looking for change! ...Do you?"
-Jaime Spencer, OTR/L
Check out the episode below by pressing play on the web player (not available on phones) or using the links to listen on your phone!
Links to Show References:
At the core of her website (MissJaimeOT.com), Jaime provides free resources for school-based OTs, parents, and teachers alike. In fact, her tagline as noted in the podcast is: "Helping you to help the children in your life!" Be sure to subscribe to one of her many email courses or her "Motor Monday" email list for a weekly email that you will be excited to receive!
Advocacy for School-Based OT!
Jaime is the right person to have on your side. She has already developed so many tools for us OTs to use in our advocacy efforts. Use the links below to learn more and join the Facebook Groups to "hook up" with other like-minded SBOTs in your state!
Facebook Groups (Click the link)
Does your state not have a page? Want to start one?
Join Your State & National Associations!
Join AOTA and your State's OT Association. Those funds help toward the advocacy efforts of like-minded OTs! Changes to state education codes occur at the state level! That's why it is also important to support your local association
See the letter AOTA sent to the Superintendent of each state on behalf of us in 2017!
Be sure to subscribe to the OT Schoolhouse email list & get access to our free downloads of Gray-Space paper and the Occupational Profile for school-based OTs.
Have any questions or comments about the podcast? Email Jayson at Jayson@otschoolhouse.com
Well,
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Episode Transcript
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Amazing Narrator
Hello and welcome to the OT school house podcast. Your source for the latest school based occupational therapy tips, interviews and research now to get the conversation started, here are your hosts, Jayson and Abby. Class is officially in session.
Jayson Davies
Hello and welcome everyone to OT school house. Episode number 19. I hope you all had a wonderful Thanksgiving break. I sure had some time to spend with the family and build some Ikea furniture and all those wonderful here at heart at the Davies house. So I hope you all had a great time, and I'm welcome to Well, I'm glad to have you all back. So with that, we are going to get started. I don't know if you can tell, but my voice is a little hoarse, but I'm just going to introduce our guest today. Her name is Jamie Spencer. Many of you probably know her as Miss Jamie ot of the Miss Jamie ot blog, she also produces many wonderful Facebook videos and sends out wonderful sensory motor emails on Monday. So be sure to check her out on her website again. That's Miss Jamie ot com, and sign up for her email list. And we're going to talk about some Facebook groups a little later today that you should also be sure to join if you're having any difficulty finding these Facebook groups or her email. Can't quite remember what it is, be sure to check out ot schoolhouse.com forward slash episode 19 for the show notes. We'll have plenty of links over there for all the resources that we talk about today. And so without further ado, please help me to welcome Miss. Jaime Spencer to the OT school house podcast. Hey, Jaime, welcome to the OT school house podcast. How are you doing this evening?
Jaime Spencer
I'm great. How are you?
Jayson Davies
I'm doing very well. Excited. Only one more day as of the day that we're recording this, until we get to have a nice, long week break. How about you guys?
Jaime Spencer
I'm excited too. Definitely looking forward to Thanksgiving.
Jayson Davies
Yes. How's the weather up there? I've seen on the news that it's a little crazy up there or about to get crazy.
Jaime Spencer
Yes, it actually, it took me two hours to get home today, and it usually only takes me about 40 minutes. Oh, wow. It was a really bad blizzard. Well, not a blizzard, but it was pretty stormy.
Jayson Davies
Yeah, I'll stay here in California for a bit. Well, Jamie, you are the blogger behind Miss Jamie ot.com and I'm so happy to have you here, but I want to give you a minute to introduce yourself, a little bit about who you are, what you do, and also about your blog?
Jaime Spencer
Great. So my name is Jaime Spencer. I've been a school based occupational therapist for about 18 years now. I work in the public schools in Nassau County, Long Island, New York, and my majority of my caseload is from kindergarten to fifth grade. But I happen to be the only district employed occupational therapist in my district, so we have 10 buildings, and I kind of run around from building to building. Do a lot of you know, I wear a lot of hats. I do all the assistive technology for my district, and I do push ins for the general education kindergartens and first grades. And I'm actually doing a research project right now about handwriting. So I kind of have my hands in a lot of areas, which I really like. It makes the weeks go by, and it's interesting and fun. And I love working with the kids. So I also have a blog, a pediatric occupational therapy blog. It's called Miss Jamie ot.com which I really love because it allows me to share information and resources and ideas and activities with parents and teachers and therapists. I have two books so far, the handwriting book and the scissor skills book, which I co authored with a bunch of other pediatric occupational therapists and physical therapist that was really fun. And my big passion right now is that I'm an advocate for occupational therapy and school based OTs in general. So I'm interested in telling you a little bit more about that as we go on, because it's a hot topic for me. But I also have a Facebook page with a lot of Facebook Live videos. I do something called Motor Monday. And every Monday, almost, I try to share some tips or tricks or a cool new product I found to share with parents or teachers about just things they can do to help the children in their lives. My tagline is helping you to help the children in your lives. So I hope to you know just be a good resource for adults who have children with needs?
Jayson Davies
Yeah, I love that tagline. I mean, I often tell people within the schools, teachers, admins, you know, it's I can sometimes help one kid in 30 minutes, or I can help a teacher who can help 30 kids sometimes, I mean, those simple little tricks and tips that can help an entire class versus one kid go so far.
Jaime Spencer
Absolutely, yeah. And it's fine when you share one with the teacher and they're like, you're a genius, exactly. I love those moments. And you're like, Oh, this one's an old one.
Jayson Davies
Right? I think one day, I just brought a box into a classroom, and I just put it underneath the kid's desk so he could actually reach the box, because he was just kind of floating in the air. And the teacher's. Like, Oh, and actually, the parent, that kid's parent, happened to be in the classroom that day too, and so she was like, Oh my God, you're the best ot ever. You actually did something for this kid that will make him able to work, right? Yeah? So yeah, it's the simple things in life that go, go a long way. So.
Jaime Spencer
I love OT.
Jayson Davies
Yeah, Miss Jaime, ot has been an inspiration for us over at the OT school house. So we thank you so much for everything that you're doing there. And I had no idea at first how much you were doing for the advocacy going on right now. So let's jump into that a little bit. You mentioned it. You know, you're just kind of on this high of school based ot advocacy. I saw your shirt recently at the New York State Association that you had that was like all glammed out for school based OTs. What is it exactly that you're advocating for?
Jaime Spencer
Exactly, okay, so, yes, I had right obnoxiously yellow neon shirts made up, and on the front they said, I support school based OTs looking for change. And on the back they said, Do you so it was the perfect forum to wear them to the New York State Occupational Therapy Association. So basically, myself and many other OTs, I'm, you know, it's not just me. There's five admins of our group. We are advocating for what we call educational credentialing. So you might say, you know what's educational credentialing? Basically, what it means is, if you look into the state regs, and it's different for every single state, but it's very similar across the USA. In New York, exactly when you look at the New York State Education Department regulations, and you look at who is considered a pupil personnel service, so teachers get teaching certificates, and then there's pupil personnel, so they're not exactly teachers, but they're considered teachers under the umbrella of Pupil personnel. So though that includes guidance counselors, speech and language pathologists, includes social workers, school psychologists. It includes a lot of other related service providers who our role in the school is, you know, so similar, if not almost identical. Of course, we're OTs and they're working on other goals, but we all work directly with children. We all have master's level degrees or higher. We're all, you know, advocating for children and working on their IEPs. We have very similar roles. And occupational and physical therapy in New York State are left out of this umbrella, and it really impacts us tremendously. It impacts us in terms of how we're employed, in terms of how we're able to treat what unions were put in, our rate of pay, our pension, our retirement, the amount of paperwork we have. I mean, it just, it goes on and on and on, and it's just one of those crazy laws. And this is how I how I've been explaining it. There's also the law about children needed to be severely in a deficit range in order to get any special education services. So the parents really fought about that, and now we have RTI response to intervention. So we're putting measures into place before a child foils like way, way behind. We're trying to catch them up earlier on. And that's a great law. The old law is crazy. Why were we doing it that way? And in my mind, this law right now, the fact that OTs and PTs are not considered equal to, you know, teachers and speech therapist and guidance counselors and psychologists, it's just crazy. I completely agree. It impacts us, and it really impacts the children, and that's, you know, the most important thing.
Jayson Davies
Yeah, definitely. Because, I mean, it's amazing, because some of the simple things that we can't do with the without that credential is we can't have more than a few kids in a classroom at a time with us, like we're kind of on the same level as a classroom aide in that sense, in the sense that we have to have a teacher to be in the classroom in order for us to be, like, with a group of kids, and so that limits the ability that we're or that limits the amount of RTI that we can provide, like, something like you're talking about, you're doing handwriting research. I'd love to hear more about that, because at this point, it's kind of my understanding that I couldn't say, Hey, first grade teachers, do you each have like, three kids that are having some difficulty with handwriting? Because I can help those kids in a classroom. You classroom, but I can't do that because I have to completely assess them all if I want to work with that child. And so that prevents me from doing a simple RTI, MTSS, whatever you want to call it, group with those kids to help them in a few weeks, versus now, you know, we'll just wait until they fall behind, and then they're going to need an IEP, okay, now they can have OT, right? I know. And so you're right. I think we really have to express, because it's absolutely true, how much we can benefit the kids.
Jaime Spencer
Through that and the teachers too. And I think that because administration, they just really don't, they're not. Aware of our value, and we need to show them. And I don't think that they're unopen to it. We just haven't really, you know, thinking about it, I don't, I've never heard about OTs advocating, you know, really going crazy advocating about this before. So maybe now's the time. Maybe administrators just didn't know, or they don't know what exactly we can do. Yeah, another, another really big, I'm sorry, another really big limitation for the fact that we don't have credentialing is that we can't try to further our careers by pursuing administrative degrees. So that's huge. I mean, you can graduate when you're 24 with your ot degree, and that's it. You can't become, you know, a higher level. You can't get another degree under the school law, and that's just a shame, because think of how your job would change if you had an OT as your administrator, you know. I mean, I don't think that children would be getting recess skipped. I think maybe the art and the art room and the cafeterias wouldn't have adult sized furniture. I mean, little things I don't think OTs would be working in the locker rooms or the hallways. It just wouldn't happen, because an administrator who had that background of OT would get it. And these are little things that are really important to the kids.
Jayson Davies
Yeah, as you're talking, so many things are going through my mind. I know in hospitals, there's kind of a push in some places for OTs to start being case carriers on a acute patients rehab team, because we do have that holistic approach. We see the medical side. We see the side that is the patient going home and having to go up and down stairs. We see all that and so in the same sense, when it comes to school, I mean having an admin that that's an occupational therapist, like they kind of see that whole picture. They're not focused on just the numbers that the SAT scores are putting out or whatever. And I'm not saying that all admin are, but we do kind of have that just right amount of education in several different areas. It's like we're not a specialist in any one thing, but we have so much information about everything. It sometimes seems like, obviously we do have a very specialized education. But actually, I just met an OT and I won't say her name on here, just because, you know, hopefully one day she'll come on the podcast, but she is actually a special education director at a district in the Southern California area. I just met her at the OT conference, and I basically told her she's my hero, because she went back and got her psychology credential so that she could become a principal, and now she is the special ed director. And so it took her, she was telling me, like, 10 years from having her ot degree, in order to get to the place where she could be an administrator. And so that's just amazing. And, like, I've been contemplating with that for like, two years now, because I kind of have similar aspirations, I guess you could say, but it's just like you said, it's, it's impossible for us right now, basically. And so I'm happy to hear what you're doing, and I know California is kind of on the same page and working towards something like this. And so yeah, so we talked a little bit about how we can benefit, but we, I guess we kind of talked about this, but I want to dive into it a little bit more, how the teachers are and the students will benefit from us having this credential. What do you see at the top things?
Jaime Spencer
I think one of the, one of the main drawbacks to us not having the credentials is that we're not always employed equally, and this can impact our schedule. It can can impact our caseload. Which impacts the kids, you know, we're spread between however many buildings, and we don't have a prep period to, you know, write our notes or call parents, or do all those other things that other school professionals have time to do it impacts the quality of our care, and unfortunately, I really want to know, Do parents know this? No, they just think their ot isn't in touch, or that their ot isn't available, and it's, yeah, they're not available because they ate lunch in their car, and, you know, they didn't use the bathroom all day today, like they are running, running, running. And it's just unfortunately, because they don't have this credentialing that it impacts, you know, it just impacts so much. And it also, like I said, about the holistic view, if an OT was in the administration, the whole school would have a different feel. I mean, we know about mental health, we know about behavior, we know about, you know, physical strength, we know about so many different things, just like you said, and it would just add a very different positive point of view to the school community.
Jayson Davies
Yeah. So one of the things that I know is a hot topic when talking about the credentialing, whatever you want to call it, educational credentials. Credential is the education, the education that we do or do not have, and the education that we may or may not have to get in order to earn this credential. And so in my opinion, I mean, I remember, you know, six, seven years ago, whatever it was being a new school based OT, straight out of grad school. I mean, I didn't understand education. I didn't understand common core. I didn't know what, what the actual third graders are actually working toward. That's not something we necessarily learn in occupational therapy school. I mean, I know my program, it was pediatric based, in a way, but it was mostly clinic pediatric base. We did not have a lot of school based resources to really learn about. And so I think we are limited in the sense that we don't get the best. I mean, I don't know we get a great education, but not necessarily geared towards school based therapy. And so I don't know what education may or may not be in the works if we're to do that, but I do actually think that it would be beneficial for us to learn a little bit about education and how that system works.
Jaime Spencer
Well, I agree with you, and I think it really depends state to state, because it depends what school you went to. How did you know what is the correct of course, but also you know, if you think of any new speech therapist or school psychologist or guidance counselor, do they know the curriculum? Do they know what the third graders are working towards? No, they go into the building and they learn as a hands on person under the mentorship of a skilled school professional. That's true. OTs don't have that. We don't have a mentorship, you know? I mean, I shouldn't say everywhere, because things are different in every single state, but as a whole, so many OTs that I've spoken to. I mean, I know myself. When I graduated, I literally went into my school based ot position as a contract therapist with no one, no help. I had a hard enough time making my schedule must last, looking through my textbook, trying to come up with activities I was I was a newbie, and I really could have used someone to teach me and show me. So again, it's different in every single state, but in New York, our school social workers have to graduate from their program and then work within a school for two years under the mentorship of a licensed social worker within a school, so and then they're able to apply for their certificate. So why couldn't we do something like that? I don't know. There's a giant shortage of school based therapists, and a lot of it is because of this. It in, you know, again, it impacts our pay, it impacts our job satisfaction. So people are choosing to go elsewhere. If we were to put extra demands for more education, or that we have to take classes in order to get this, I think it would only limit people from pursuing it even more. So I think, personally, I'm New York. I know the conversations that I've had with other New York OTs is that we're hoping to follow in the pathway that social workers set up for themselves. But again, it would be different from state to state, which is why, you know, each state needs to really figure out what will work for them.
Jayson Davies
Definitely. So yeah, no speech therapist. In order to earn their C's, I think they have to have one year of supervision and so exactly similar type of system. I know they also have to pass a few similar tests that teachers have to pass. It's called, I think, the rica out here, and another one, but yeah, so I like your idea of the mentorship. That makes a lot of sense. All right, so now that we know a little bit about what we're advocating for let's talk about how we actually get to that. How do we advocate at different levels? Obviously, like you've been saying, every state is different. We all have our different licensure boards. We all have different educational systems, educational codes. So how are you advocating for yourself at the district level?
Jaime Spencer
So in terms of my full time job at the district, I'm advocating for myself by really putting my voice out there when there, when it comes to school wide initiatives that I know that I could be a part of, I make sure to let my administrator know. And that's again, another another job on me, because I am spread pretty thin. I don't know any ot that isn't but so are teachers and so are other I don't mean you know that I'm more spread thin than anyone else, but you know, I've been speaking up and saying, You know what I heard, that we are, you know, looking to increase movement in the elementary schools. I'd love to talk to you about hiring occupational therapists to implement, you know, RTI groups in the kindergartens to really work on the motor skills. As I said, I'm doing a handwriting research project in the kindergarten and first grades, and I've screened 22 classes of children, and I it's just so alarming the. Level of their motor skills and their grasping patterns. And it's just, it's upsetting. The kids are coming to us delayed in their motor skills, but we're expecting advanced, you know, academic work from them, and it's not fair to the children. And there's such an easy fix. You know, have an RTI program with motor skills in place, we can slip right into that reading block and incorporate motor skills with literacy. It doesn't need to be, you know, jumping jacks in the middle of the classroom. It can be very conspicuous and just an extra interventionist in the classroom. And you know that would you know you have to speak up at your job and let them know what you can do and what your knowledge and expertise is most administrators do not know that we know more than fine motor, handwriting and sensory they're not aware. They're not aware that we can run social skills groups or anti bullying initiatives or RTI programs. They don't. They just don't know what we can do. We need to let them know.
Jayson Davies
Yeah, and I try to weave in a little bit of that, especially like the social skills group, you know, I like to chime in during the IEPs a little bit and kind of speak up and just say, Oh, that's a concern that you're having. You know what? That's something that we can work on during our OT sessions a little bit. And just so it just kind of implants that seed in the administrators minds, oh, Jason, can do that with the kid. Okay, all right. We'll see what happens. And then the next time you mention it now, you know, they're they're open to it. So, right, right. So that's at the district level, maybe even the individual school level. What about at the state level? I know we already talked about your glamorous outfit at the soda. So what's going on at the state level? How are you helping out?
Jaime Spencer
So at the state level, for myself, personally, you know, it's really important to belong to your state organization and see what they're doing to advocate for school based OTs. If you're not speaking up, they're not speaking up for you. So they are paying attention to their members, and their members are asking for A, B and C. That's what they're going to put their efforts into. So if you're not a member, and you're not speaking up about your concerns, you know, then you're just not there. You're not at the party. And you know, you need to go there. You need to say, here's what I'm seeing, here's what's happening. So from for me, as as terms of New York, I've been kind of grouping together lots of New York OTs, and we've been writing letters to our state education department. I don't know if you're aware of this, but the American Occupational Therapy Association wrote a letter to every single state education department in the United States two years ago, two summers ago, advocating for school based OTs and the benefits that we could provide to a school district as leaders, and asking for a response from the education department as to, would you consider us to be leaders? Would you allow us educational credentialing so that we can further our careers? Because we have a lot of great qualities. And the letter was, you know, very articulate, and it went on to list all of the qualities that OTs have, as well as our educational background, etc. And as far as I know, not one single state education department has answered the American Occupational Therapy Association. So isn't that telling, you know, like they're not even answering a state an American organization, I mean, a ot A represents 1000s and 1000s of people and 1000s of school based OTs our state ed departments can't even answer with a letter.
Jayson Davies
Yeah. And that's tough because, I mean, I, I get it from the administrator point of view, you know, like, there's only what, there's one ot for every three, 410, schools and so like we are not on their radar at all, like we're just not and until we start to stand up, like you were talking about at that district, that individual school level, then what reason are we giving them to answer that letter? And so they need to know what we can do to help them to I mean, let's be honest. Here. It comes down for the higher ups in the district. It comes down to money, and we have to show just like that. Recent research showed, you know, that OTs are kind of the, one of the few people that can actually save hospitals money. You know what? We need to kind of show the district that we're there to help them, not just the kids and so, for anyone out there looking for a doctorate project.
Jaime Spencer
Well, also the disconnect between what we actually can do and what we're being almost permitted or encouraged to do. So there is a giant disconnect. So I am actually with my New York State admin group for school based OTs, looking for change. We're in the midst of putting together a bunch of surveys, and we are really trying to gather data within New York State about what administrators really know about what occupational therapy can do and what their perceptions are, as well as what do parents think about OTs. We want to know you know, how many OTs have you had this year? What. There a lot of turnover. Have you had a shortage of OTs that impacted your child? We're really trying to gather information so that we can put the whole picture together with data and research for administration and for the New York State Education Department. Look at this. Our survey shows that OTs have a poor job satisfaction, high burnout, poor pay. You know, high turnover. They're looking for other positions. Parents are complaining because they can't find an OT. Guess why they're not there, right? You know, why? Why would I, you know, and it's like, I, personally, I love working with children, and I'm not saying, but you could see where a therapist would choose to go another route, if they need to support their family or they want to, you know, rate, you know, rise up in their profession and advance professionally to a higher level. And there, this opportunity is not there for school based therapists.
Jayson Davies
No, definitely. So I think advocating at the national level is very similar to the state level. You know, you talked about that letter that a ot a sent out to the state's education system, and you know, nothing really came back. But is there anything in particular? I know you have your Facebook group. We'll get into that in a minute. But are you writing at all to a ot a and letting them know the concerns, or are you urging other OTs to do that?
Jaime Spencer
Yes, in my New York State Group, as well as in the USA school based OTs looking for Change Group. I number one, I urged OTs to write a letter to their state education department, attaching the A ot a letter and saying, what's the response? Obviously, much longer and more articulate. But you know, OTs would make great leaders. This, you know, impacts me personally. How what is your response to this? So we started a letter writing campaign in New York. We've sent, you know, I don't know exactly how many letters, but people were interacting and saying, I sent mine. I sent mine. I know, personally, I've sent a bunch. I sent a couple of emails and a couple of letters and nothing, you know. So we did do that, you know, Avenue. But on top of that, in terms of a ot a, yes, we had a bunch of our OTs write to their a ot a RAs, that's the representative assembly. So each state has a few representatives for a ot A, and those representatives are supposed to represent the people of that region, and let a OT, I know, what their, you know, constituents are feeling and thinking. So I did have a bunch of my New York members write to our New York RAs and say, Hey, school based OTs are struggling here. We there's a shortage, there's high burnout. We're stressed, we're overworked. We haven't gotten raises in 20 years. It's bad. And we really need help from the National Association, and we are on their radar. Yeah, I don't know if, I don't know if you saw the advocacy webinars for membership Appreciation Week, but they did wonderful. I mean, a wonderful webinar is almost one a day about advocating for your professionals, other stuff, but it really didn't touch on school based therapy, there really was almost nothing for school based therapists to kind of grab onto and be inspired by. So we we wrote in. We said, well, what about school What about school agencies? Is a ot I have any plan to help schools, school based therapists. It's not all about skilled nursing facilities and not, I'm not, you know, saying that they're not important. Of course they are. But we need help too, and we've been on the back burner for too long.
Jayson Davies
Definitely, we're just not being heard.
Jaime Spencer
We're also not speaking up enough.
Jayson Davies
Yes, yes. But also, as far as a ot A goes, like you said, a lot of this is state dependent, and a ot a can send a letter to each individual state, but until the states really fight for it, that's who's going to make that difference. You know, every state has their own educational code, and it's typically that education code that points out who can get a credential and who cannot get a credential, and what the requirements are and what that person with a credential can and cannot do. And so, you know, in California, we are fighting it. You know, we had a setback this previous year. It didn't go through, A, b2, 386, I believe it was and it didn't go through but the OT Occupational Therapy Association of California, you know, they're determined, and they've already told us, You know what, we're gonna continue with this. We're not giving up. You know what? We may have to change the route a little bit, but they know that here in California, you know we are, it's the big agenda item right now. You know what? We got something passed this previous year, but this one didn't. And so now it's kind of time for this one to go through. So if you're in California, be sure to speak up continuously, because you know what this actually leads right into our next topic is misconceptions. There's some OTs out here that have some misconceptions about what this credentialing initiative may actually entail and how it might benefit us. And we actually there's some people that are speaking out against against this initiative. And so what are some of the in talking to people? What are some of the misconceptions you've come. Across.
Jaime Spencer
So I've heard some things about, you know, are we going to have to take additional courses? I don't want to go back to school. Am I going to have to take additional courses in order to continue doing what I do? And you know, that shouldn't be the case again. It's going to be state to state. If we look at the snowball effect, it could be that maybe there'll be some changes to occupational therapy program curriculum, but that's for new students. Yeah, for ot for us, there shouldn't be any giant upset or upheaval. And again, it hasn't happened yet, so I can't guarantee but I mean that hasn't happened for other professions that changed their pathway, and it shouldn't happen for us. We should really just be grandfathered in. And you know, then I've also heard people who said, Well, if we become educationally credentialed, you know, I might get observed. And I don't want to get observed. Okay, well, do you want to make another $40,000 a year? If so, then you need to be observed once a year. And why wouldn't you want to be observed? Show them how awesome you are, show them the cool, fun things that you do, while incorporating curriculum and everything that that child needs to know. Like, I have been working for my school district for 18 years, and I have never been observed, and honestly, I'm insulted. Yeah, I want to be, and that's my take on it, and I understand that other people are not looking that way, and that's fine. We all have our different point of views, but when it comes down to it, we deserve parity with teachers, and if we're asking for equal pay and equal career opportunities, then we might have to deal with equal supervision or equal, you know, obligations that we're not dealing with right now. Personally, if I had to do bus duty and it gave me another $40,000 a year, I would do, you know, like is what it is. But every again, every state and every state and every school is different, but it's just that kind of negative attitude. I don't want to do anything more. Maybe if you had this credentialing, you'd be in a proper union, and you would have a prep period and time to eat your lunch. Maybe it wouldn't be so overworked and stressed that you would feel that you couldn't take on one more thing because school based OTs, unfortunately, have a very high rate of burnout. And this is why, and we have to look at it the positive, like last half full. If we were, if we got this credentialing, we would be much more equal. So not only Yes, would we be observed, but we would also have similar schedules and similar pay or retirement pension, all that great stuff. We'd be invited to the team collaboration meetings. We could use our voice. We'd be part of the, you know, in my in my district, we call it the IST the Instructional Support Team. Basically, it's like when we have concerns about a child, we go to we go to a meeting about it. I don't get invited to that meeting. There's no time for me. I'm busy running around like a crazy person, but I would love to be at that meeting to give input and suggestions and pre referral strategies. And I think that it's a valuable voice that's missing.
Jayson Davies
And that's so and that's interesting, because it just shows the difference between some of the things that you said. Shows the difference just between two states. You know, in California, we have people that are concerned about taking a pay cut if we get credentialed, because here OTs tend to make a higher starting salary than teachers do, and the end salary, depending on the district, might be the similar, or might be similar, but typically there's about anywhere from 15 to 20 steps for a teacher. You know, every year they get a pay raise for 15 to 20 years. Versus OTs, we max out after seven years. And so we start high, but we don't have much to go. Versus teachers, start low and then eventually surpass us, typically, right and and then again, what you're talking about the union. You know, in California, no one knows what union they're in, like, literally, they did a survey and people said, I don't know what union I'm in, and I'm not in a union. I'm considered classified management. I know other OTs that are considered certificated. Other OTs are just classified. And these are all, in a way, meaningless names that don't mean a whole lot, other than how much you make, what your pension is, and whether or not you have a credential, and.
Jaime Spencer
Who's representing you if you get in trouble?
Jayson Davies
No one, right? No, I'm representing myself.
Jaime Spencer
Yeah, in New York, we don't have those terms at all. Everything that you just said, I've never heard of okay, we are either in the teachers union or we're in the civil service union. Do you know what that is?
Jayson Davies
Is that like the non teachers union? Um, I guess yes, that would be our classified.
Jaime Spencer
Okay, so the civil service union for us is anyone who works in a school that's not considered a school. Professional. So it's school, it's bus drivers, custodians, the secretaries, the lunch ladies, the one to one aides, all of them, and then OT and it just makes no sense, because we're the only people in that union with an a master's degree or higher, and we are the only people in those unions that are actually working directly on a child's education. So it just, it's like, what are we doing there? It makes no sense. And it's not, you know, oh, we're better than anyone or anything like that. I actually had a few administrators like, shame me into like, because I was saying, this is inappropriate. I should not be in this union. I have a master's degree. Everyone in this union doesn't. And they were like, well, and they made me really, like, ashamed. I was young when that happened, but they really did, and it was smart of them, you know, because I didn't feel like I had the strength to be assertive enough to stick up for myself. But it's not appropriate. And I'm still in that union, and it's not appropriate, and I'm on, literally, the head custodians pay scale, and I've been working in my district for 18 years, and new teachers, who've been there for six, seven years, are probably making exactly what I make. Yeah, and it's just not right. You know, it's just, it's just not right.
Jayson Davies
So actually, right now in California, the CSEA California School Employees Association, which I think is kind of on par with what you're talking about. It's those employees that aren't teachers, basically. So all the custodians, all the bus drivers, anyone who's not credentialed, and it basically isn't teaching. So not the psychologist. They're actually the ones that kind of gave us the biggest fight on AB, 2386, and the best we can figure is that OTs do tend to be in that union, and so they're kind of, they're believing that they're sticking up for their union members. In actuality, well, I mean, it's obviously every ot has a different feeling, but a lot of OTs aren't even in that association, but they have this, you know, idea, that every OT is a CSEA member, and so we need to stick up for them, but they spoke up big time against this. We had we had support from the California Teachers Association, we had support from the administrators. We obviously had support from a ot a but that CSEA, they really kind of spoke up and yeah, so unfortunately, it didn't happen. But we're not going to be turned away, not yet, still working on it. Yep, that's half full, right, exactly. So let's continue on. We talked about pay, we talked about some of the education. Yes, I agree with you on the fact that we and from what I have understood, is that that grandfather in effect, that should be in most states that I've heard that's kind of in play. That grandfather in effect, for if you're already working in the schools, you won't really need any more education. I meant to ask you earlier, do you know of any states where this is actually already occurring.
Jaime Spencer
And you know what I'm ashamed to say, there are four states within the USA that have it, and people always ask me, what for
Jayson Davies
I know one's Washington. Oh, man, Washington.
Jaime Spencer
I think New Mexico, if I'm not mistaken, I think I heard that one. I want to say Idaho. I'm not sure about them. And I think New Jersey, but I can't, I don't want to be quoted on it, because I say these four, oh, and I look it up constantly, and I'm always like, Oh, wait, which ones? There's one that's gonna be wrong, right? Just Can't Wait to Add New York to the list. Yeah, no, I
Jayson Davies
definitely agree. And we'll have to get someone else on the podcast from one of those states and ask how they're doing it, because we got to learn from somewhere, right? So.
Jaime Spencer
Definitely now, I mean, that's great.
Jayson Davies
Yeah, all right, well, we've been going strong for almost 40 minutes now. Let's kind of wrap this up. What can OTs do now in order to join the advocacy effort, if this is something that they're interested in, they want to know more about this, what can they do?
Jaime Spencer
So the number one thing they can do is join our face group, USA school based OTs looking for change. You can just put that right in the search bar of Facebook. And no matter where you are in the United States, you can find us and join our group. I just want to warn you that it is a closed group, so if your profile does not state that you're an occupational therapist, we are not allowing new random people, basically, like, we don't want, you know, Educational Administrators in there lurking. We want OTs, and we want to have real, honest conversations with occupational therapists about what we can do to advocate. So that's the national group. And then we have a bunch of state groups. We have California, North Carolina, South Carolina, Illinois, Connecticut, New York, Florida. So those are the, those are the individual state groups. Most of them are really small and just starting up at this point. And you know. My goal is on the New York one, and we have a lot happening here, and as we start to progress, I'm very eager to take everything we've done and state by state, help you guys take over your states as well. We're, you know, everything that we're doing, we want to hand to you and say, Okay, now adapt it to California, or adapt it to Connecticut. And you know, why are we reinventing the wheel? The thing that we have on our side, the huge, amazing benefit that we have on our side, is social media. 20 years ago, there was no social media, and now here we are. Jayson, I feel like I know you forever. You've never even met. You're in California and New York, and because of social media, we know each other professionally and can help each other out. And, you know, it's a different situation, it's a different life, and we can make our advocacy efforts spread so much faster and so much, you know, just in mass as opposed to in trickles, finding out, oh yeah, I know someone who cares about that.
Jayson Davies
And I think you know, you announced that we have a California school based OTs looking for change Facebook groups. So I guess I should kind of just say this is going to be the official kickoff event right now. Right now, there's only three people in that group, but after this podcast, I hope to have many more in there. So come join us right now. It's Jamie myself and one other OT, it's gene, right? Gene. And so this is the official kickoff. And so we'll put links to all of these different pages right there in the show notes at ot schoolhouse.com, forward slash episode 19. This will be so be sure to check that out. Get involved. We'd love to have you come help us. The other thing that Jamie mentioned earlier is make sure you're part of your state organization. They need to know what you are looking for. And as much as they like to hear you, they also need your support financially too, because they have to pay for people. They have to pay for lawyers and or it's fundraising, fundraising, yes, and all those people that lobby for us up at the state capitol, so be sure to pay it. It is worth it. Go to your state conferences. I know some of them are small, but that is where you meet people that are interested in the same thing that you are. And that's where these little, you know, grassroot things start. So with that. Do you have anything else you want to say?
Jaime Spencer
No, I think you covered it. If you know, if you care about your career and you'd like to continue to progress and have opportunities and pathways, then it's important for you to really look at this and be a part and don't be a lurker. You know, I was thinking about it. Yes, you know, the other day, every once in a while, I get frustrated because I have all these great ideas, and people are saying, I'll help, I'll help, and then they don't really do anything. And I, you know, I don't take it personally. I think they're just not sure how to get started or what they can do to help. But it's kind of like if you go to someone's house and they are making you this big, fabulous dinner, and you just watching and then you can't wait to eat it all up, but you didn't do anything to help. Like, guess what? It's the littlest thing that you can do. And if you're wondering how you can help, reach out to the person who's running your state group and just say, is there anything I can do? I mean, for me personally, I have 1000 things you can do. I'll just give you one. But I'm so grateful to the people who have reached out to me and in New York, you know, have really been supportive and allowed us to make a small, you know, a small spark into almost like an explosion. We really have gained a lot of power, because there are so many of us, and everyone's willing to help a little bit, which is all we need. You know, we're all busy, we're all stressed, but guess what? It impacts us, and it's important.
Jayson Davies
Well, they say, you know, if you need something done, give it to the most busy person, right? Yeah. So Miss Jamie, you are that busy person. So all right. Well, thank you so much for coming on. People can reach you at Miss Jamie OT, Is there anywhere else they can reach you?
Jaime Spencer
Yes, my website is Miss Jamie ot.com Jamie is spelled J, a, i, m, e, everybody spells it wrong, so I always correct that. I also have a Facebook page. I do tons of Facebook Live videos for OTs teachers, parents, and that's Facebook slash Miss Jamie OT and or they can just email me at Miss Jamie ot@gmail.com and it's J, a, i, m, a, and that's it. I'd love to hear from anyone, especially if you're interested in helping us advocate. Yeah, I'm really always looking for new friends who can partner up with us and make things happen.
Jayson Davies
I know we have some new york listeners to the podcast, so hopefully you'll get some extra help from that. And we also have California out there. So I hope to hear from you guys as well reach out to us. We will definitely have all these links on the show notes again at ot schoolhouse.com forward slash episode 19, we look forward to seeing you on all of our blogs. Miss Jaime OT, ot schoolhouse.com as well as the Facebook pages. So with that, we bid you a good evening, good morning, whatever time you're listening to this podcast. Have a good one, and thank you again, Jaime, we appreciate it.
Jaime Spencer
Thank you.
Jayson Davies
All right, take care.
Jaime Spencer
Great. Talking.
Jayson Davies
Bye, bye.
Jaime Spencer
Okay, bye.
Jayson Davies
All right. Well, that was Jamie Spencer of Miss Jamie ot.com be sure to check out her page as well as the show notes@otschoolhouse.com forward slash episode 19 for several links to all the topics that we discussed today. And also be sure to join Jamie on her Facebook groups, like she said, she has United States school based OTs looking for change as a Facebook group, but she also has New York, Connecticut, Indiana, North Carolina, Michigan, South Carolina, Illinois, and as we said earlier, we're now welcoming in the California School Based OTs looking for change Facebook group, so head on over there, join us, and we'll see you next time bye, bye.
Amazing Narrator
Thank you for listening to the OT school house podcast for more ways to help you and your students succeed right now, head on over to OT schoolhouse.com. Until next time class is dismissed.
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