OTS 173: Advocating for School-Based OTP Leadership
- Apr 7
- 42 min read
Updated: Apr 8
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Welcome to the show notes for Episode 173 of the OT Schoolhouse Podcast.
In this episode, Jayson has a compelling conversation with guests Jaime, Kim, and Serena. They discuss their research on the barriers and opportunities for OTP’s aspiring to leadership positions within the educational system.
Discover the historical and legislative challenges OTPs face, the vast impact on school communities, and the innovative ways states are beginning to address these issues. With engaging insights and passionate advocacy, this episode is a must-listen for anyone interested in transforming the role of OTs in schools and ensuring their potential is fully realized for the benefit of students and educators.
Listen now to learn the following objectives:
Learners will be able to explain how historical perceptions of OTs influence their current exclusion from leadership roles in education.
Learners will identify legislative and credentialing differences that affect OT administrative eligibility across the U.S.
Learners will identify the barriers that prevent OTs from being recognized as instructional staff in various states.
Guests Bio
Kim Wiggins, OTR/L is an experienced occupational therapist specializing in pediatrics who has worked extensively in public school settings, outpatient, and home-based services to children of all ages with a variety of diagnoses and special needs.
Kim is currently a full-time therapist at the Binghamton City School District and the owner of OTKimWiggins LLC, which primarily focuses on providing educational opportunities for parents and professionals. She is an experienced National program developer who has produced and presented training workshops and seminars on a variety of topics related to handwriting, vision, primitive reflexes, sensory techniques, and technology to therapists, teachers, administrators, and parents, She has presented to audiences nationwide since 2010. She is also the co-author of Just Right! A Sensory Modulation Curriculum for K-5.
Jaime Spencer, MEd, OTR/L is a school-based occupational therapist and passionate educational advocate. With a Master’s in Special Education and specialty certifications in Assistive Technology, Handwriting, and PuzzleArt, she works to elevate the role of OTs in school systems. Jaime is the founder of MissJaimeOT.com and author of several books, including The Handwriting Book and FUNctional Visual Perception. She also leads multiple grassroots advocacy groups across the U.S. focused on improving school-based OT services and expanding leadership pathways for practitioners.
Serena S. Zeidle, OTD, OTR/L has over 40 years of experience that includes clinical and school-based practice, and higher education. At the time of this research, Serena was a full-time assistant professor at Tauro University. NY. Serena is a passionate advocate for school-based occupational therapy practitioners and has presented locally and nationally on this topic
Quotes
"We are not allowed to be leaders because in most states, we're not considered educational or instructional." Jaime spencer, MEd, OTR/L
"We have a unique skill set and a different holistic viewpoint, and we have a very creative mindset, and we think outside the box, and we come up with unique alternatives that I think a lot of school administrators would not think of, because they don't have the background that we have."
-Jaime spencer, MEd, OTR/L
"Awareness of what people know of what they can and can’t do…only 34% of the people were completely aware that they were able to pursue it, so if you're not even aware of what you have to do to get to that spot, it's gonna be really difficult to move forward with that…bringing awareness to all OTs across the nation about what they have to do to advocate is a key factor."
- Kim Wiggins, OTR/L
“People don't even fully understand how hiring practices, pay equity, and health care benefits can all be impacted by the inability to earn a credential and become an administrator. The power of the unknown is very powerful.”
-Jayson Davies, M.A., OTR/L
“Going to your state association, talking to other OTs, maybe getting involved with a university in doing a study like we did. Our study focused on New York state, but it could be generalized to any of the other states.”
-Serena S Zeidler, OTD, OTR/L
Resources
👉Article Title: Perceptions of occupational therapy practitioners as leaders within the New York state education system
Episode Transcript
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Jayson Davies
Hello friend. Welcome to Episode 173 of the OT school house podcast. Thanks for being here. As you may know, I'm a huge advocate for ot practitioners having a route to leadership roles in the school setting is something that I once wanted to do even, and our ability to be leaders in a school department I believe is long overdue. Myself and many others have spent a ton of time and energy attempting to make this possible. Unfortunately, though, we have a lot of advocating still to do, and this often has to happen on a state by state basis, so there is still a lot of work that we have to do and make this possible. That's why, on the podcast today, I've invited three therapists who when challenged on the matter of OTs in leadership within their state, they stepped up and completed a research survey to help all of us demonstrate why we would make great leaders in our districts. I'm excited to welcome to the podcast Jamie Spencer Kim Wiggins and Serena Zeidler together. Kim Jamie and Serena conducted some much needed research into the perceptions of occupational therapy practitioners as leaders within the New York State Education System. Their findings and insights challenged the status quo and spark powerful conversations that we're going to have today about the roles that we can play and the impacts that we can have at an administrative level. Now I know you might be thinking to yourself, Jayson, I don't want to be an admin and sit in meetings all day. That is not why I got in to OT, and I get that, but I also know that there are some ot practitioners who would love to be administrators and have an impact on not just the OT department, but also maybe even your entire district as a whole. I mean, wouldn't it be awesome if we just could have an occupational therapy practitioner as the director of special education or pupil services, or maybe in some other amazing role that they could have a huge impact in. Well, to have this conversation and to better understand the research, let's go ahead and dive in with Jamie Serena and Kim to hear what they uncovered within their research and what the next steps are now that we have it.
Amazing Narrator
Hello and welcome to the OT school house podcast, your source for school based occupational therapy, tips, interviews and professional development. Now to get the conversation started, here is your host, Jason Davies class is officially in session.
Jayson Davies
Jamie Kim and Serena, welcome to the OT school house podcast. How are you all doing today?
Jamie Spencer
Great.
Kim Wiggins
Great.
Serena Zeidler
Great. Thanks. Yeah, thanks for your interest in our research.
Jayson Davies
Absolutely, I am excited. Your research actually just dropped about a year ago. We're right at the one year anniversary, I believe, from the published state. And the name of that article is perceptions of occupational therapy practitioners as leaders within the New York State education system. And yes, while it does have New York State education system in the title of the article, as well as I know you all know, and everyone else should know that this is about much more than just the state of New York. So let's go ahead and dive right into that discussion and to get things started right at the top here, let's just dive into the problem. Jamie, what do you see as the main reason, or the collection of reason that we are here, where we are today, where so many ot practitioners are not allowed to be leaders within a school system?
Jamie Spencer
Okay, well, there are a lot of answers, but first, we are not allowed to be leaders, because in most states, we're not considered educational or instructional. And the reason we're not considered educational or instructional is because when the education laws came about that required schools to provide occupational therapy for students who need it, for students with special needs. All of the OTs at that point were medical, and the schools were kind of tasked with hurry. We need to hire OTs to service these students right away, because the law says we do. And so where did they get those occupational therapists from the medical setting? So the OTs came over and they were using their medical know how, and they were widely considered to be medical professionals, and that's how they practice for a very long time. But since then, the education laws have updated dramatically, and our role has changed significantly. So we really are educational, but most states have not updated their legislation to categorize us as So.
Jayson Davies
Absolutely. and I think all of us here, and we talked about on the podcast before with ESSA, especially in 2015 that really kind of ingrained us into. To the educational world, as opposed to an outsider medical professional coming in and and I think we're going to talk more about that a little bit, but Kim Serena, or even Jamie again. Would you like to add on your thoughts as to, you know, why ot practitioners, you know, in today's day and age, aren't really looked as being, I guess, qualified for a leadership position?
Serena Zeidler
Yes. So when we did our research, John sauvignate Kirsch from Connecticut, her research indicated which states have educational credentialing for OTs. And then we our research was a few years later, and there were a few changes, and what we found was that the states of Colorado, New Jersey, Ohio, Washington and Massachusetts, which sort of has a back door way of educational credentialing, are now the five states that, To the best of our knowledge, OTs have the opportunity, if they choose, to take the coursework to obtain an educational administrative certificate. So in New York State, in order to take the coursework to become an administrator, you have to have be educationally credentialed, which we are not in New York. So I think there's and different states call this different things, like in New York, it's educational credentialing. I mean, in other states, they call it different things, but it all really comes down to not having that recognition
Jayson Davies
Absolutely. And that's similar to here in California. We've had this discussion before with Jamie and others on this podcast, that in California, we're having the same problem, and we're trying to overcome that hurdle, and we're having to be persistent about it. We're having to be creative about it, and I'm sure we'll dive more into that in a bit. One of the things that you really pointed out in your answer, though, Serena, was that there are states that do only a handful, but that also means that there are states that don't. This is not necessarily a country wide issue. It sounds like it's more of a state by state issue. Does that seem correct in what I'm saying based upon your findings, or do we feel like this is a larger or maybe it's not, but it should be a larger federal issue that needs to be kind of handled at a more broader issue? Does that make sense?
Jaime Spencer
Well, it's definitely a national issue, and there are a few states that allow occupational therapists to become leaders and really infuse their flavor and their holistic mindset into the school community. But it is also a state by state issue, because each state's legislation, and Serena said it perfectly, is a little bit different. So if I wanted to tell everybody, the big problem is that, for the most part, we're not considered educators. We're not considered instructional, but in each state, that might be worded differently, and the solution to the problem might be a different pathway, depending on the way the state has it set up.
Jayson Davies
Gotcha, okay, so, yeah, I mean, we're all gonna have to tackle this. It sounds like state by state. It's not like one mass legislation is gonna go through in Washington, DC, and make this problem all go away. It sounds like we're going to have to work at this state by state. Correct?
Jaime Spencer
Yes, but we're hoping that we can start an avalanche where one state will pass the law and the other one will also pass the law, and then little by little by little, and that we can all help each other to do that with, you know, educating each other on what we've tried and what key stakeholders we worked with, and what wording we used, and all of that.
Kim Wiggins
I think the other important piece too is that once that happens, then all of the OT schools need to start adding the coursework to their to their curriculum, and move towards that. Because I think that's something that we found in our research too, is that some of the states actually have that coursework included, so then they get kind of like a credential, like a certificate, just like the school counselors do and the psychologists. So it's, it's something that there's lots of steps to that we have to really consider,
Serena Zeidler
yes, that's, I think that's really a really important point to make in our research, we did interview an OT from the state of Washington who basically explained the process to us, and then she referred us to another ot who kindly let us interview her, who went through the process of becoming an administrator, she was eligible to take the coursework and so basically to just piggyback off what Kim said, there are two, she talked about, two schools in the state of Washington. One has that coursework. That Kim talked about, and the other one doesn't. So students graduate from the program that has that coursework, they're, I'm sorry, they're automatically considered educational staff associate, along with other related service providers, like school psychologists, school social workers. So any related service provider in the state of Washington needs to have that educational staff associate credential. Now let's say Jayson, you decide to move to the state of Washington and want to work in the schools, you would then have to take a coursework. And this administrator, it kind of indicated short course. She thought that you can do it online, but anybody that is a related service provider that wants to work in the schools needs to be in the state of Washington and educational staff associate, I hope I have this right, yeah, yes, so and this OT, who took the administrative coursework became a school director, director of special education and secondary program, so it worked out very well for her. But I think it is different in every state. In New York, we have, we're licensed through the office of the professions, but there is also the New York State Education Department, Office of the Teach of teaching initiatives, Office of Teaching initiatives. Ot i and they issue certificates in three categories, to administrators, to teachers and to pupil personnel services or service providers, school psychologists, school social workers, even I believe, master's level nurses, guidance counselors, but we're not in there. Neither is PT, and that's considered an educational credential. And you have to have an educational credential in order to be able to take the coursework to become a school administrator. So that's what we're looking to do. We kind of feel like we would like to follow the path of school social workers, you know, that are educationally credentialed and hold that certificate through the Office of Teaching initiatives. Does that make sense? Yeah,
Jayson Davies
absolutely. I mean, New York and California, sometimes we tend to be similar. And it sounds like it. In this case, it's relatively similar. You know, we're licensed by the state of California as an OT practitioner, but the whole educational side of things is kind of disconnected from the regular licensure, because they have certifications, right or credentials, sorry, not licenses. And same type of thing here. Speech Therapists, you know, they get their C's, and they can be administrators. School psychologists can be administrators, but PTs and OTs can't, because we are licensed on the other side of the government. If you want to kind of segment it that way, I sometimes tell people that if I was able to get a school administrative credential, the OT school house may not exist, because that was my initial long term strategy was to try to figure out how to become an administrator. And I found out that I would have had to go back to school for like five years, get a credential, work for five years, then, because you have to have an experience in order to apply to the admin credential. So it would have taken me like eight years or something like that, to go back and start from scratch, which is just insane, but yeah, here we are. So from what I've heard you all say exact same experience. Jayson, right? It's, it's very unfortunate. So it's great to hear that in five states, you know, they've got this figured out, but it sounds like, from what we've started with here today, there's a few primary problems, Jamie kind of started us off with. We weren't at the table at the right time, when all this was being discussed. We weren't at the table. Kim and Serena, you both brought up the education aspects that you know, we're not necessarily educated as educators. We're educated as medical professionals, and so there's a little bit of that. Then we also talked about the government side of things, where it's just education. Is often its own part of each state's education, right? Each state has a Department of Education, and OTs are not in that department really, like we're not ingrained into that department yet. I think I kind of summarize what we talked about so far in those three but are there any other key areas that we want to talk about as a problem before we move
Jamie Spencer
on. I think you can't not think of the effect. So that's a pro. Those are the main problems, but the trickle down effects of occupational therapists not being allowed to be leaders is just tremendous in terms of everything, in terms of who it affects, how it affects the school community, how it affects the profession, how it affects the stakeholders, the community. I mean you, you name it, and it's just limitless,
Jayson Davies
perfect. And that's exactly where I wanted to go to go next. Because obviously, when we think about this, ot practitioners, we are so unselfish. But at the same time here like it almost feels a little. Little selfish to be advocating for ourselves to be administrators, right? Like we want to be an administrator, that's like we need to be administrators. But it's not just about us. It is about the other stakeholders. So Jamie Kim, maybe one of you want to go a little bit deep into the stakeholders, who are the stakeholders that we might not always think about.
Kim Wiggins
Well, I think that so for I just wanted to also point out, like I actually don't have an interest in being an administrator, but I want, I want to have the opportunity for my colleagues to be administrators, right? And I think that that's super important. So the other stakeholders that are really impacted by all of this is the teachers, right, the NYSED or the education departments. We have all of our advocacy organizations for all of our states, you know, like so in New York, like nysoda, Nyssa, and then obviously the parents and the school community, like everybody involved really is impacted by the OTs not being having the leadership roles in the education system,
Jayson Davies
okay? And so to kind of go a little bit further deeper into that, in what way, like what way would as us being into the administration community, whether it's a assistant principal, a principal or a director or superintendent. What are some of those barriers that we're hoping to overcome so that we can have have an impact on all of those stakeholders?
Jaime Spencer
Well, I think you know when you work, when you work for a school and you're a member of the school community for a little while, you wish to establish a rapport with your colleagues, and you learn from each other, and you learn what a teacher does and how a teacher runs her room, and they learn what you bring to the table. The same would happen if OTs were at the administrative table. We have a unique skill set and a different holistic viewpoint, and we have a very, very creative mindset, and we think outside the box, and we come up with unique alternatives that I think a lot of school administrators would not think of because they don't have the background that we have, and because we're not at that table, we're not at the pro we're not A part of the problem solving teams. We can't show how great our profession is, and that, you know, because of that, administrators don't know exactly what we do, and it just goes on and on. So they don't include the OT and the flexible seating committee, or they don't include the OT in the social emotional learning curriculum development, because they don't think that they don't really know what we do.
Jayson Davies
And serene, if I come back to you, it sounds like you had the opportunity to kind of at least learn about someone who has been in this role and in that case, and this could be a for all of you as well. But from the people that have been in that role, what have they been able to accomplish as an administrator that maybe others weren't able to do like Jamie was talking about, because they aren't in that administrative position?
Serena Zeidler
Well, the administrator that we had interviewed had indicated that she wasn't so much interested in being a school principal, because she wasn't had that hadn't had the experience being a classroom teacher, but she was interested in being a director of special ed, which is, which is what she did. And I think if you know, for even us OTs like you know Kim, that maybe are not interested in securing a leadership position, you know, in the schools, we still may really value having a highly qualified ot in an administrative role, you know, because we want to be recognized and valued and utilized for our full scope of practice, including areas that we saw in our survey. You know, in the results that OTs are not fully, you know, utilizing like MTSS and mental health and health promotion, but if an OT was is there as an administrator, they would, they would be more likely, in our opinion, to recognize our value and utilize us for our full scope of practice.
Jamie Spencer
In Ohio, I actually presented last summer with Kim at the school based conference, and my presentation was about how in Ohio you have these opportunities, so you should take them, because in so many other you know, states, they don't have those opportunities. And I highlighted the success stories of a couple of wonderful occupational therapy leaders that did make a big difference as leaders. So one of them was Kareem Robbins, and she pitched the idea to her district that she should be the coordinator of all the related services. Services, and she wrote it out like a business plan, that we need this position, like, let's create this position. And she got it, and she moved up, and she said that one of the key benefits of her being a leader was that she was able to link the state licensure board to the educational law, and that this was a crucial point, because a teacher who became the special ed director could not do that as well as a related service provider. So it was very cool to hear the success stories of occupational therapy practitioners who did achieve wonderful things as a leader.
Jayson Davies
I think that's a really good point that I've never really thought about Jamie, because we often see school based ot practitioners that get a little conflicted by what the licensure of their state ot license says and what they're being asked upon within the schools. You know, schools might be asking them to document one way or not document because they're trying to save time and the licensing board says you need to document every service you need to do this and that for documentation. Same thing when it comes to evaluations, right? The schools might be trying to cut corners by decrease the expectation of an evaluation when the licensure board says a full evaluation looks like this and you need to do all those pieces. And I could go on and on, but I never really thought about it from that perspective. So that's a really
Jamie Spencer
good point. Yeah, I also interviewed Cheryl van hoose, and she's actually a PT, so shout out to the PTS who also don't have leadership opportunities. But in Ohio, she ended up advancing and advancing and became the liaison between the Ohio Physical Therapy Association and the Ohio Department of Education. So that's huge.
Jayson Davies
Yeah, yeah, a lot of.
Jamie Spencer
one of the key quotes that she said was that OTs and PTs have the foundational knowledge that can help kids learn. And I just loved that quote from her.
Jayson Davies
Yeah, and it opens up a lot of opportunities. And like I know, a lot of OTs would really appreciate ot practitioners. OTs included, of course, would love if their boss was just an OT and understood their job. And we don't have that fortunate aspect in most of our jobs. Whether or not we are a direct hire in the school district or if we're a contracted therapist. We might have someone, we might have someone who guides us from the contracting position agency, but they're not a direct employee of the school, and therefore they don't know our exact needs, our expectations, you know, our ambitions, and how we can support all the kids. So definitely having someone above us that actually knows what we do right would be really nice.
Kim Wiggins
I was just going to say that actually, I think in 25 years as an OT in various different positions and and schools, I've never had an administrator that was a related service provider. And you can and either have my colleagues and so when we have our our related service staff meetings that are being run and organized by whatever their backgrounds are, if they're teachers, typically, most of them have been teachers that have moved up to it being administrators. It's really hard. It's almost like we're educating them about what OT is first in order for them to be able to help us make decisions that we already have, you know, we think that we have really good answers to or solutions to, but we have to do all this educating and all this extra work before we can get any impact, you know. And so I think that that is a huge it would be a huge benefit to have related service providers as administrators, and I have been in situations where I know my speech pathologist friends have moved up to be administrators, and we're always like, cheering them on, and that's awesome, but it's really a matter of like, you're the people. Are people, and everybody has different qualities and strengths that they can use to be an administrator. So being an OT or a PT or a speech therapist or a teacher, becoming an administrator, I think it, I think it really just depends on the person you know, and why don't we have that chance? It just gives it. We need to have that chance and that option.
Jayson Davies
I'm gonna bring up one more thing that we've seen, at least here in California, in terms of why people are concerned about us looking toward an administrator credential. And I don't know if you can speak to this or not, but I'm going to throw it out there, because we've had people being very and I completely understand why, but we've had people very interested in what is going to happen to either a their status in or not inside of a union as part of an administrative credentialing being changed. That process being changed, and also their retirement. They're worried that they might be reclassified from non credential to credential or in other way, and that could impact the retirement. Right? Obviously, at least in California, I'll say it's not obviously, obvious everywhere, but in California, if you are in the school system, it's your pretty good retirement. Like, they're known for having good retirements in the public school system here, I don't know if that's everywhere, but people are worried about that, right? Like, don't mess with people's retirement, right? From your experience, have you heard anything about that? Is that come up with others or from yourself? Like, is that a perspective that you've looked at?
Kim Wiggins
I think that it's been I've noticed that it's pretty inconsistent. Like, I only can speak for New York, and even within New York, there are OTs that are in the teachers union, and have, they're obviously not in the Teacher's Retirement, but they're in the state retirement, which is very similar. And then there's OTs in New York that are not in the Union, and they, they're just, it just seems to be very, very inconsistent. And that just seems wrong, you know, like it just doesn't make sense to me. Like Jamie, you can speak to your personal experience too
Jamie Spencer
Well, to answer your question. Jayson, I do think that there are occupational therapists who are very concerned about that, and rightly so. But it wouldn't just be like a chop, chop. This is what we're doing. You know, there would have to be a whole transition plan and a process, and it's certainly, you know, we're looking to have equity. We're not looking to harm the profession or the professionals. We want to create opportunities for them so that they have equal opportunities to the rest of the educational staff. So the state or the United you know, the teachers associations, who have all the key stakeholders, would really need to put a smooth transition plan in place so that it wouldn't be harmful, but it's, you know, of course, everyone's going to have concerns. But what I always say, and like Kim said, in New York, things are very varied, from upstate to downstate to the city. We all have a different story, but we all have. A lot of us have similar problems, but different stories, but it doesn't really matter, because if this law changes, I can't tell you what's going to happen to Susie Jones in district two in Building C, with her principal, Mr. Smith, like I don't know, and I just hope that it works out, and there's going to be glitches and there's going to be bumps in the road, but for the profession as a whole, it's just not best practice the way things are right now, and we need to not be scared of change, because change can be a wonderful thing.
Jayson Davies
Yeah, yeah. And, and I've heard as well that a lot of those decisions on what union you're in and what retirement you're classified are really more done at the even local or area than just the state. And like Kim was saying, right, it's very different. Some people are in the teachers union. Some are not. That's the same thing here in California, and it sounds like that's more related to how the district, the individual district, has decided to classify OTs, as opposed to the state classified OTs in a way that would be impacted by an administrative credential or educational credential. So yeah, kind of kind of similar. I know we're talking about two states here, but I hope this resonates with with more than just the two states, and it sounds like it does.
Jamie Spencer
I think what we're talking about with the advocacy at the local level, it really charges occupational therapy practitioners that they need to be knowledgeable about what's happening, and they need to get involved. Because if you're not going to join the negotiating committee, or if you're not going to say anything to anyone, then you're not having a voice at the table. You need to take your seat, you know, like they say, if you don't have a seat at the table, bring your folding chair. But if you don't educate the decision makers about your role and the fact that you should be equal, that's going to limit the change even more. So we really need people to advocate for themselves and their profession.
Jayson Davies
Yeah, all right, I want to dive into your actual research a little bit here and ask you. A, who did you reach out to? What was the goal for reaching out to people, and what did that end up looking like? And B, what kind of questions did you ask them? What were you trying to trying to get out of these people?
Serena Zeidler
I can tell you a little bit about the the respondents. So we were looking to hear from school based OTs and OT occupational therapists and occupational therapy assistants in New York that have practiced, currently practicing or formally practicing in the schools, working in the in the New York State schools, and we were very fortunate that we had the support from nysoda, New York State Occupational Therapy Association. They posted our survey on their website. Jamie and Kim have a big social media presence, and we really able to get. The survey out there, and we're really fortunate. We had good numbers. We were used able to use the data from 714 occupational therapy practitioners. So of those, 714 600 were currently working in the New York State schools, and 114 were formally working. And we had 92% were occupational therapists, and 8% were occupational therapy assistants. And we had representation from throughout the state, although I think there was greater concentration in New York City and maybe Long Island, but there were respondents from from all the different districts. And, you know, Jamie and I had gone to Albany. Jamie, I don't know if you want to talk a little bit about that. You know, it was on the agenda of the nysoda of the OT board to discuss school based practice. And we were able to go to Albany and speak to the board about our concerns. This is, I think, in 2019 and they said, Well, you know, that's interesting, but with your data, does do occupational therapy practitioners? Are they aware what's there? Are they even aware that they're not eligible, and if they were eligible, would they even consider taking the coursework? Would they, you know, do they think they should advocate for these changes? So that's what you know prompted us to move forward with this research so that we would have the data to present to the OT board.
Jayson Davies
Okay, and so you were trying to figure out, a, do people know that they are not able to become administrators? B, do they want to become administrators if they had that opportunity? And then some other relevant information to kind of better understand the perceptions of the NY, New York ot practitioners.
Jamie Spencer
I think we can add a C and say, how does it impact the profession and the children that we aren't leaders like, what's, what are the current trends? And Can we somehow link it back to the fact that we're not allowed to be leaders. All right. I also want to add that we did go to that board meeting in 2019 and they they did say, well, we need the data, and that was what prompted us, like, okay, I guess we're going to have to be researchers, and we'd better become adjunct faculty at a college and learn how to do like it was, however, Serena and I had been advocated. I personally went to nysoda and drove to Albany in 2006 to complain about this and to ask for help and to advocate, but it never occurred to me that we needed to like, what were the steps to get change? And this was something solid that was given to us. Well, give us numbers. Okay.
Jayson Davies
We'll get numbers right.
Serena Zeidler
And I think also, just to clarify that we were, we were interested in finding out about about pursuing educational, administrative coursework required for administrative positions, not necessarily becoming an administrator, but having the option to pursue the coursework. So we wanted to know the respondents level of agreement that they that we should be able to pursue the coursework. You know, do they strongly agree, somewhat agree? You know, do they feel neutral about it? You know, disagree this, you know, strongly disagree. And, oh, the overwhelming majority. I mean, the numbers were pretty high. Almost 95% agreed that we should be able to pursue educational, administrative coursework required for administrative positions. And also, the same thing with being a, should we, should the profession advocate for for policies, you know, so that, so that we would have the opportunity to pursue administrative coursework. And then we, you know, we, you also asked, Should, well, they would you consider, you know, how many would consider pursuing the coursework required for an administrative, educational, administrative position, if the opportunity was available to us, and we had pretty high numbers in that as well. And we we broke the data down for currently working and formally working. And you know of the respondents, of course, the choices were, would consider, would not consider and not sure the you know. So a good amount, almost 40% would consider of the currently working, and almost 46% of the formally working, you know, which led us to we also had questions about barriers to work satisfaction. And have you ever considered leaving? And for those that did consider leaving? The main reasons we presented like 20 different possible choices and the rack of opportunity for a leadership leadership position were within the top three reasons why respondents considered leaving. Yeah,
Jayson Davies
it's a lot. I totally believe it. I mean, that that's one of my top three reasons for for eventually leaving. I mean, it's hard again. This varies from district to district, obviously, state to state, but, you know, over here, you kind of max out. And it's not just maxing out on the pay scale, but you kind of see the end of a pay scale as also being kind of like the maxing out in your career. Like, where do you go from here? And for me, I think at one district there was five steps to maxing out. At another district there were seven steps to maxing out. I know some districts follow a teacher scale, which tends to be a little bit larger 2025 steps. So in that case, you're constantly moving up in air quotes. But yeah, yeah, and I don't know for me, I've had three jobs, three school based ot jobs that I primarily worked at. One was a contract position. I was there for very short term, but as soon as I got into a district like when you only see that there's five steps and no opportunity to really move outside of being an OT practitioner. And again, for nine I don't know for it sounds like 60% of people that's what they want. They want to go in. They want to be a practitioner. They're not really interested about the academic work, but for the 40% of school based ot practitioners, it sounds like you found like that's a barrier to them, and they might potentially go somewhere else, where they can.
Jamie Spencer
Which impact the children, because we're limiting carryover. We're limiting their relationship and rapport with the staff.
Jayson Davies
Yeah, and we, I don't know. I don't have the data on hand. I don't know if any of you do, but turnover in public schools is really high, not just for ot practitioners, but for especially in special education, but also general education.
Jamie Spencer
Yeah, was one of the questions that we asked. Like, you know, how long have you been at your current job? And the answers were scattered. But one of the key points that we found in this research was that 96% of the people we interviewed, or I should say, surveyed, they felt strongly that we should advocate for change in legislative policy. So that was an amazing number that we could then bring to our state association, as well as other key stakeholders in our state, like the New York State Education Department and, you know, legislators and people who we can speak to and say, everyone wants this. It was a strong percentage.
Kim Wiggins
I thought, actually, one of the things that I was actually surprised about, and I think is, is key, is a key factor is just the awareness of what people know about what they can and can't do. So, for example, we asked a question like they were asked their level of awareness that people that are considered under the people personnel services like school counselors and psychologists and social workers, are they eligible to pursue the coursework required for administrative positions, and only 34% of the people were completely aware that they were able to pursue it, where 34% were somewhat aware and 31% were not at all aware. So if you're not even aware of what you know you have to do to get to that spot, you know, it's going to be really difficult to move forward with that. So I think just bringing awareness to all OTs across the nation about what they have to do to advocate, or even knowing what they you know, what their particular state allows them to do or not allows them to do, I think is a key factor, too.
Jamie Spencer
And we also thought then, if the practitioners who are working in the field aren't aware we know that the students aren't being educated about it either.
Jayson Davies
Yeah, yeah. I was just looking at your your article, and something that really stood out to me was that people don't even fully understand how hiring practices, pay equity and healthcare benefits can all be impacted by the inability to earn a credential and become an administrator. So, yeah, the power of unknown is very powerful.
Kim Wiggins
What I really liked, I think one of I like a lot of things about our research. But one of the things that I little biased there, but one of the things that I really liked is that just completing or filling out our questionnaire, I think, actually brought awareness to people, because we were asking questions that actually, like, triggered thought, like, oh, I actually don't know about that. Or, of course, I want to advocate for this, or, you know, things, you know, they're just different questions that actually just brought more awareness in general. So I think, you know, doing the research, and I have, you know, in all 25 years, only in the last probably 15 years that I've been a presenter have I really had the time, or not even at the time, but looked into research and appreciated research because it is, it's a lot, but the more of us that are doing things like this really make a difference and bring advocacy to our to our profession.
Jaime Spencer
Absolutely, absolutely go ahead. Serena.
Serena Zeidler
I was just thinking about our statistician, and we were really fortunate that we had some funding for this research through the Torah University's Dean's Research Award, and we use some of that funding to consult with a research expert. But we also had access to a statistician because we we had students, the BSMS students, who are involved in our research, and we were really careful to reduce bias as much as we could by asking questions. You know, we wanted to know that, you know, the level of agreement that we should be able to pursue educational, administrative coursework, but we had to be careful how we sequenced the questions, so that it wasn't presented in a way that, you know, that somebody would want something once they learned they didn't have didn't have it, you know, so, but I think we did a pretty good job with that.
Kim Wiggins
Yeah, yes. We were very, very careful of that, because it's it is hard, you know, like not to infuse your opinions in there, right?
Jayson Davies
Yeah, yeah, absolutely. I mean, research is not easy, that is for sure. So kudos to you, to the three of you, for taking this on and getting published within a pretty prominent journal within the school based ot realm, for sure, the Journal of Occupational therapy schools and early intervention. I want to talk about what has happened in the year since you published, and maybe in the two years or so since you probably completed this study and before it was published. But the last question I want to ask before we do that is you made sure to include a, OT, a and Essa within this published article, you mentioned, I believe it was the vision 2025 from a OTA. And you talk a little bit about making sure that you kind of connect ot with ESSA. And I just want to give you the the opportunity to share the importance of that and why you did that.
Jamie Spencer
Well, one of the questions was regarding, did they feel that ot has in New York has met the centennial vision, and the centennial vision spoke about leadership. I don't know it off the top of my head, but we asked, you know, do you think that ot in New York has met this and there was mixed responses, but I feel that we have not met it. And so I wanted to put it out there that, you know, Vision 25 vision 2025 says that we are going to be leaders and that we are going to eliminate barriers in the community and like all these wonderful things. But how can we do that if we're not technically allowed to be real leaders. And I listen, I know maybe I could get promoted to like lead OT or something like that, but that doesn't require a certificate. That's not a formal leadership position within the education department. So it's different, and we need the same opportunities as everyone else. We also wanted to highlight the the disconnect between the federal law ESSA, which says that we are important members of the school community and that we are equal with other s, i, s, p, s, which are social workers, psychologists, speech language pathologists, librarians, and then the state law, which has us classified as non instructional, and when we look at who is classified non instructional, it's people who do not work directly with students on their education. It's people in the transportation department and the clerical department and the sanitation department. It's completely different, and we are instructional. The state just hasn't recognized it yet. So we really wanted to point that out, in addition to going to the key stakeholders and aligning the disconnect with their mission statements. So nice and mission statement is about equity, and, you know, advancing people to leadership opportunities and equal opportunities for women, you. At our profession, which is, you know, the majority women were all limited from these opportunities, so we wanted to highlight that as well.
Jayson Davies
Yeah, and I can't remember who it was, but one of you mentioned earlier that, in order to really have schools understand our ability to participate in school wide, district wide initiatives under MTSS, we really have to have OTs in place that understand our potential there and be in the administrative role to, you know, point out to an assistant supervisor that, hey, the OT might be the perfect person to help with this social curriculum or or whatnot like that. So, yeah, definitely. Well, let's go ahead, I want to talk a little bit about what's happened since you got this research out into the world published, and also the future implications from here on out. So what has happened in the last year plus, since this was published, and kind of you collected all this data?
Jamie Spencer
a lot. I'm so excited to say that, because if you would ask me a couple of months ago, I would be like, not much has happened, but just recently, a lot of things have actually come to fruition, which is so amazing and wonderful. We presented the information to our state association, and we also presented it to the New York State United Teachers, and they're huge stakeholders in New York State. They have a lot of power. We sent the information over social media. We've really spread the word as to what we found and why this is important. And just recently, nysoda put forth their priorities for the year for school based occupational therapy and getting us categorized under pupil personnel was on there, and they've always been supportive, but they just recently actually put forth legislation to categorize occupational therapy as pupil personnel, also to ask the commissioner of the education department To put forth a guidance document recognizing what occupational therapists in the schools can do, including early intervening, MTSS mental health, all those things, they kind of all tackle the problem. So we're very, very excited about that. And there was another bill that was introduced by Assemblyman Ari Brown, which actually asked for equal pay and career ladder opportunities for occupational physical therapists. So there's been some chatter on social media like, Is this because we're worried about Trump, you know, blowing up the Federal Department of Education, and then the states are going to be scrambling, and who knows why it's happening. We're just so grateful that it is happening. And then some things on the local level as well. There are districts around here in Long Island that have been hiring occupational therapists directly rather than contracting, and they're putting forth ra like putting forth proposals to their representative assemblies, asking for us to be included in the tenure laws and not even realizing, well, we can't be in the tenure law because we're not considered educators. So, you know, there's all this kind of the ripple effect of knowledge.
Jayson Davies
Yeah, that's why do you think that you're seeing districts start to hire directly, as opposed to contract positions?
Jamie Spencer
I think they're recognizing the value of occupational therapy more, and also recognizing the cons of contract therapists, how they don't have the time to collaborate as much with the staff, and, you know, really be a part of the school community, and there is high turnover, because a lot of contract therapists aren't they don't love that, or they are just put in a different building the following year, and they're just not included in everything, including professional development opportunities and districts who understand what we do are making changes.
Kim Wiggins
I actually think one of the biggest issues is MTSS, I think that when we have contracted therapists in the schools, they really can participate in MTSS as well, because it's not a billable service, and that's often how they're getting paid. And also, you know, you can't just, you know, a therapist like as a district, I was gonna say, district owned. That's not the right word. A district employee, you can just walk into a first grade classroom and provide tier one interventions or suggestions or ideas, and the same with tier two interventions, but as a contract therapist, you just can't. And so I think that, you know, administrators and school districts are noticing that, wow, maybe we could nip more things in the bud as far as, like, helping as many kids as possible. If these OTs or PTS are participating in MTSS tier one and tier two. But when they're a contract, they just can't do that. They're just not able to do it as much there. I'm sure there's cases where they They do, yeah, you know, whatever? Contract they've come up with, but it's, it's rare it's not, and I don't think that's just New York. I think that's across, I think that's across the United States. Yeah,
Jayson Davies
I mean, I think it's, I've seen in some districts where the contract at OT is almost, basically an in house OT, and that's just the way that the contract with the agency works. But I think in more cases than not, than not, it's more like what you talked about Kim, where you know they're they're getting paid by the half hour session, and that's got to be a billable session, otherwise no one's getting paid. And in that case, right? You want to, you're going to optimize your time toward billable sessions, right?
Kim Wiggins
And more, and there's more instances of pull out and less inclusion and and, you know, you don't have the chance to, like, talk to the teacher and figure out when is the best time for me to push into the classroom. I can come to, like, contract therapist. I can come to this school on Mondays and Wednesdays from 10 to 12, you know. And so you can't always push into the most, the best, particular spot in the school you can't push into art, you know, because art is, it might be changing every single day, or what's the time. So, yeah, I think, I think that's a huge piece of it, too. And I, I am and happy with the states and the districts that are starting to hire therapists, because it really does help with our professionals. Definitely.
Jayson Davies
So now that you did this research, what else would you like to know? Like, I don't know. Maybe you're already working on some further research. I don't know that yet, but what would you like to know? What did you not learn in this research that you're like, Darn, we should have asked this question. Or, I guess, what's that next step for you in terms of information that you wish you had, or maybe you're looking for already.
Jamie Spencer
So we actually did another we did this identical study. We had to change some of the questions a little bit regarding physical therapy. We didn't have as many respondents, but we had, I think, I think it was over 100 maybe 109 is sticking out my head. And we had similar results. We didn't write it up, and I did present the information at the A ot children and youth conference last year. But we're not finding that. We're not finding physical therapists like us who are passionately fighting about it. So I would love for PT to get on board with this fight. We also had thought about possibly surveying school administrators about their knowledge about occupational therapists and what we can do, but we actually did put that survey out there, and we had hardly any respondents. So it wasn't, it just wasn't Yeah, can I just anything you could grab on to?
Jayson Davies
Yeah, I that's one that I've been very interested in and in on. And I did find one article a while ago, but it was a little dated, and they also had trouble, you know, getting a hold of School Administrators. I think one that I saw, they actually did a focus group with school administrators, which was very eye opening, yes,
Jamie Spencer
and they interviewed them, right? Yeah, yes, I read that article,
Jayson Davies
but yeah, no, I think it's going to be key if we want to convince administrators and education, you know, experts, that we belong in the similar world as them in the educational world, we're going to need to have their input on it, because, you know, I could see you, all three of you, driving down to Albany and them saying, great, cool, you have ot data now. Where's the data that says teachers want you to be part of the team? Where's the data the school administrators want you to be part of the team. And I think that's going to be important for for us to have. And I know there's some are, there are some articles out there about it, and everyone that I've read it's been very positive in relationship to teachers wanting support from OTs and admin wanting support from OTs. It's just a matter of making it happen. Yes, agreed. So any other next steps that you're hoping for? Are you? Are you heading to helping you to share these results with them? Or have you shared it with the New York Education Board, or anything like that yet? Or is that the plan? Or, well,
Jamie Spencer
I'm on the New York State Education Department occupational therapy board, and I did share the information with them and bring it up as a as an issue in the profession. It's a difficult situation, because when you're on the board, you're not necessarily supposed to be promoting changes to legislation and all the things like that. You're supposed to be there to advise the board. But my my take on that was, well, I want to advise the board that there's a major issue in the profession, and it's, you know, we keep trying to talk to the Education Department, and nysoda has reached out and even had a meeting with ot a to meet with the education department about the state of the profession, and this was years ago, and they wouldn't even really entertain it. They wouldn't even take meetings with us or anything like that. So I. I do feel right now, New York State has a new executive director of the occupational therapy board of the Education Department of New York, and it's such a long term but yeah, it's not, it's not the professional association, it's the OT board of the State Education Department. We have a new executive director, and she's very knowledgeable about occupational therapy, she's been very open to listening, and I feel that we're being heard, and it's the whole board. We're all in agreement that this is a topic that's coming up again and again, and that it's impacting the children, and it's impacting the profession and our ability to influence our unique skill set to help the children.
Jayson Davies
Yeah, yeah. And I think my, my final wrap up question here is really going to be like related to everyone listening here, and they've got this research potentially in front of them. I know, I know not everyone has access to the Journal of Occupational therapy schools and early intervention, but if you have access to a school that does have access to it, be sure to get this, download it, save it to your computer, keep it or at least go get the abstract. But yeah, what? What is your hope that someone an occupational therapy practitioner you know, or maybe even an administrator or a teacher that's reading this article? What is your hope that they'll do with this information?
Serena Zeidler
Well, I think reading the article is going to open their eyes. They not may not even be aware that this is an issue, that this is a problem. And I think that's helpful in and of itself, you know, to understand that we're not eligible to pursue educational administrative coursework. We're not educationally credentialed. Of course, our research focused on New York, but to me, the first step is to become part of the Office of Teaching initiatives and the category pupil personnel, similar to school social workers and school psychologists. And you know, if somebody's reading this article, maybe would kind of open up their eyes to this issue. And in the article, we talk about how it impacts the students, it impacts the whole school community. And maybe if somebody's reading it, they'll realize, you know, what this is impacting my school as well. And, you know, talk to your state association. I think that's always a good start. I mean, we had, we had done this years ago, back in 2009 we had written Jamie and I and two other OTs wrote to the State Education Department, the Commissioner, we wanted to find out about, how do we become pupil personnel. And, you know, we basically were told we're not instructional, we're not pedagogical. And then we went to nysoda. Nysoda folks at that point in time were totally, you know, different professional, different OTs than they are now. And you know it, it's just been a really long process, but I think, you know, going to your state association, talking to OT other OTs, maybe getting involved with a university, and, you know, doing this, getting involved in doing a study, like we did. I mean, this, our study focused on New York State, but it could be generalized to any of the other states as as well.
Jamie Spencer
And I know I think people who are who are completely unaware, or who are not involved in the advocacy, like I've had a lot of OTs say to me like, oh, good for you, that you advocate. I'm not. I'm so out of the loop. And they're not. Those are not going to be the people that are then going to go contact their state association because they don't feel like they know it well enough to speak to it. But even just telling your ot bestie, did you read this article? Did you see what it says and the things that we're talking about, we've we've cited the research behind that. We've cited that OT is historically misunderstood. We've cited that the mission statement of the education department is A, B and C. So at least to give them talking points, you can't advocate without being knowledgeable. So at least this can provide a foundation of the problem and possible solutions.
Jayson Davies
Yeah. And you also never know when you'll be at a holiday party with the principal or superintendent or, yeah, or,
Jamie Spencer
you know, somebody even more important.
Jayson Davies
Yeah, yeah. I would love, by the way, you all shared a few stories about administrators that you know. I would love for those administrators to put out their stories OTs practitioners that have become an administrator. I would love for them to share their stories in the OT practice or in the Asia, somehow or anywhere that they can publish anything. I think that would be really powerful for others to see what that has looked like, what they've been able to do as a result of becoming an administrator. Sure,
Jamie Spencer
good point.
Kim Wiggins
That's a great that's a great idea.
Jamie Spencer
There. Actually, there is an article in OT practice a few years back, Jan Hollenback wrote it with a couple of other occupational therapy practitioners, and it did describe their pathway to become leaders. But each one was unique, and it was just a few people, but still, yeah,
Jayson Davies
yeah. I would love to see like one published every year. I don't know that's that may not be realistic, but it would be awesome. All right, Kim, we'll end off with you. What's one thing that you're hoping you know that an OT practitioner reads this article and takes away and maybe they take an action, maybe they don't, but what do you hope that they get from this?
Kim Wiggins
I think my biggest thing, and I've mentioned it a couple times today already, is just awareness. Like Serena said, like, I really believe that the more aware we are as therapists and in the school setting, the better it's going to be, the easier it's going to be for us to advocate. So if, like, I think that number that I shared earlier that people just weren't even aware that it wasn't that it was an issue. Is is a lot, because I think that if we are aware, we'll be able to advocate to our administrators, to our teacher friends, and, you know, OTs are typically very well loved people in the school like we, we really try to help as many people as possible in so many areas. And I really think that all of our colleagues would appreciate that, you know, for us, you know, and cheer us on and and want us to succeed and be able to move forward. I know that in all the schools that I've worked with, it's, you know, the OTs are often the glue, you know, to a lot of the other professions. And so I think that other people see it too. And so just having that awareness, I think, is a really important piece. And so I'm hoping, I'm hoping that that increases after they read it,
Jayson Davies
Kim, you just brought back some great memories of my profession, like just being at the IEP and kind of being that person that kind of hurt. The parent, heard the teacher, heard the administrator, and was kind of able to synthesize it a little bit and get everyone on that same page. Like I don't know that that is something that OTs practitioners, we do pretty well. I think we're good at listening. We're good at observing behavior and kind of keying into important things in each person's life and what they want for the child, and kind of bringing that together. I think that's a great point, and it's also why we might make, yeah, exactly, and it's why we might make great IEP team leaders as an assistant principal, special education provider, something like that. So, yep, superintendent, I have not sat in on an IEP with the superintendent at JP, Jamie and I hope I never will, but that said there's a lot of meetings that they do sit in on that are obviously very important, that an OT practitioner would be a welcome site. So absolutely, thank you all so much for being here. Serena, really appreciate you being here. Kim, appreciate you being here. And Jamie, as always, you're always welcome on the podcast, all three of you, but Jamie, been here before. Thank you all so much. We appreciate it, and we'll definitely keep in touch on your research. Thanks again.
Serena Zeidler
Thank you. Thank you for having us.
Kim Wiggins
Thank you.
Jaime Spencer
Thank you for helping us share the information.
Jayson Davies
All right, that is going to wrap up episode number 173 of the OT school house podcast, I want to extend a very heartfelt thank you to our incredible guest, Jamie Spencer, Kim Wiggins and Serena Zeiler. If you have any questions, well, first and foremost, go check out the research. I will link to it in the show notes. But if you do have questions beyond that, reach out to Jamie Kim and Serena on LinkedIn. Or if you know how to get in touch with them, they're pretty easy people to get in touch with, so give them an email if you have a question, or maybe you want to help out with research, I'm sure they would love to collaborate to make maybe a similar survey happen in your state, or maybe to use their research within your state to get things going. They would love to help you advocate for administrators or for OTs to become administrators in your state. All right. So with that, thank you so much for tuning in. Really appreciate it, and we'll see you next time on the OT squad podcast, take care.
Amazing Narrator
Thank you for listening to the OT schoolhouse podcast for more ways to help you and your students succeed right now, head on over to otschoolhouse.com. Until next time class is dismissed
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