SLP's Guide to Collaborating with Teachers

Marisha (00:01.934)

Hello there and welcome to the SLP Now podcast. I'm really excited to have Lacee Johnson with us today. Just a quick intro to Lacee, if you're not already familiar with her. She graduated from Southern Illinois University Carbondale with her master's and that was in 2013 and she's worked primarily in the school settings.

And she also has dabbled in private practice. And she also has an incredible blog and Instagram, all things called Speech Me Maybe. And she also has authored a children's book called Norah's World. So if you recognize her, you might've, that's probably where you're recognizing her from. And then, yeah, so I asked her to join the podcast today.

so we could chat about teacher communication. But before we do that, welcome, Lacee.

Lacee Johnson (01:05.363)

Thank you, thanks for having me. I'm excited to chat about this topic.

Marisha (01:10.038)

Awesome. then I gave you like your bio doesn't do your whole story justice by any means, but do you want to tell us a little bit about like a little bit of your SLP journey and kind of, I don't know if it relates to teacher communication or not. That's okay.

Lacee Johnson (01:15.347)

Thank

Lacee Johnson (01:29.693)

Yeah, yeah, so I'm from Illinois and went to SIUC and upon graduation moved to Nashville where I started working in the schools. And I worked in Nashville a couple of years and then move out here. I met my husband, we moved out here and I've been in the school setting ever since. So I work full time. We have three beautiful children and two golden doodles and I am busy.

ever and wouldn't change it. I love what I do. I love the school setting. I've done private practice as you said and then I've done clinic-based therapy as well and I think the schools are where I feel at home and I love it. I love what I do every day. So I'm excited to share on this topic because I feel it's important and it's not easy.

So I've learned a lot, so I'm excited to share kind of what I do at the school.

Marisha (02:30.188)

Yeah, yeah, and I am partial to the schools also. It's such a cool way to impact students because that's where they spend a third of their lives and being able, like they spent, they might spend 30 minutes or an hour or however long with us a week, but they spend the bulk of the time with teachers. And so this is.

Lacee Johnson (02:35.027)

Yeah.

Marisha (02:52.93)

The teachers are our road to having an even bigger impact and just having a more fulfilling time as a school-based SLP and having a bigger impact. So this is so huge and it can be so impactful. So I'm, yeah, I'm excited to dive into. But what does your teacher communication look like today? Just like a sneak peek at kind of what's, how you're setting things up and how you're using that.

Lacee Johnson (03:04.681)

Thank

Marisha (03:21.94)

maximizing those relationships.

Lacee Johnson (03:24.081)

Yeah, so I feel like over the years I've learned so much about working in the schools and how to be a good school SLP. Every setting is so different. So there's a couple things that I do each year that I feel like set me up for success for the rest of the year. So I always start the year off within the first couple of months with an in-service, kind of like a quick presentation for the staff.

And this can be super quick, know, 15 to 20 minutes presentation for all teachers and admin. And in this slideshow, I like to talk about, I just do a quick refresher on my role and I give them speech milestones to look out for. I give them red flags for language delays and things that they can identify because language is very vague for teachers and it's still, it's hard to identify a kiddo.

that might be struggling with language. And so I give them red flags to look for for each grade level. I touch on fluency and I touch on pragmatic language as well because I feel like some teachers, veteran, new, could all use a quick refresher on our huge scope of practice. And that, I've gotten such good feedback from teachers from that presentation. I also.

I introduce them to lot of acronyms that I use throughout the year because when you're picking kids up for RTI or MTSS or some of your kids are on IEP, it's like teachers don't know who is what and what is what. So I use a lot of acronyms, so I introduce them to, I can explain what those are. And then I also go over how I can help support them.

in the classroom setting and that I'm there for them. yeah, that's a huge thing that I do at the beginning of the year for teachers. And I feel like admin appreciates it as well, just to refresh teachers. And then I also walk them through how to refer a student that they might have concerns with. And that's where I share my Google form with them, you know, the link to

Lacee Johnson (05:40.999)

refer a student, when to refer a student, and kind of like the flow chart, because every school is different, every district is different. So that is a good refresher for incoming teachers or teachers that just need a reminder. Yeah, so that's a main thing. Something else that I love to do is I'm a big Story Champs girl, and narrative language is my jam. And I feel like I...

can meet so many language targets within that, specifically that program. So I introduce that at the staff meeting that I pick one teacher a year to do push-in sessions with. And the only requirement is that you have to have a need for it. And maybe a student already on my caseload or a handful of students that are struggling in story reteller comprehension.

because we all know the classroom is the best environment for our students to apply their knowledge and carry over their knowledge that they've learned in my room. So it serves twofold. The student gets the intervention and the teacher also sees what kind of things I'm doing in my speech room. A lot of teachers don't know we do things similar, similar things to what they might be doing in the classroom.

and they can see how we scaffold for our students and students with communication disorders. So I pick one teacher a year and I always have requests for teachers that want me to do it in their room this year because word travels fast. I have teachers wanting that program so they can do it in their room. So it's just a really cool way to get in the classroom.

you know, get on the ground level with your students and model for the teachers how to work on language targets.

Marisha (07:40.238)

And I love that because that's a way to, cause you would, you pick different teachers every year. And so then you're teaching them the strategies that they can use every year going forward. So that's like a huge impact, really cool. And eventually you'll get to all the teachers, maybe.

Lacee Johnson (07:52.871)

Yes. Yeah, it's huge.

Yeah, I mean, I tried to do K through two, but I even have third, fourth grade teachers really asking like, where did you get this program? And can I borrow it? And things like that. So it's really cool to see that they're open to it. And another thing I love to do is handouts, visuals for teachers. And I make quite a few of these too.

But I love a good handout for a teacher, kind of just to explain language strategies that they could do and break it down to very simplistic steps. And it's not as complicated as it may seem. Because with our students, for speech sounds, feel like you could tell them to enunciate the correct way or model it back for them correctly. But with language, it's a little bit more vague.

So a good handout explaining how to recast appropriate sentence structure or how to model the correct way of saying it is super simple for a teacher to use tomorrow. And it breaks it down to where it doesn't feel as overwhelming as it may seem with kiddos with language impairments. So I usually give them a good handout.

I one. I pick one strategy to focus on and to do it with that student. So I feel like making it very simple and attainable is important. So I love a good handout and I can link those or we can share those at the end if you want to see the specific handouts that I have. Yeah, that teacher's use. And another...

Lacee Johnson (09:51.953)

I think another thing that I feel is important for school based SLPs is to keep an open door and be approachable. I have been at a lot of schools. I think I've worked at six schools now and just being approachable and explaining yourself and your role is so key. And every teacher is going to be different. So you have to figure out, you know, some teachers might prefer email.

Some teachers might prefer a quick chat on their lunch break or during their prep period. And then some teachers might seek you out in your room, which I have a lot and which I prefer. They come into my room and they see my space and kind of we can bounce ideas off of each other and that face-to-face interaction. But every teacher is very different. So you work with all of them. So you have to adapt to how each

person prefers to communicate. So that's super key. And it's a two-way street. Teachers are the best at giving you information and insight on how your student's struggling in the classroom. So the more they can share what themes they're working on or what curriculum they're going to target that week. I know this year we finally have a curriculum where we can access the vocabulary and pre-teach the vocabulary that they're introducing in the classroom.

So if the teacher lets me know that they're on this module or this unit, I can print off the vocabulary list and have that student more prepared for that lesson that they hear in the classroom. It's a two-way street. I think keeping an open dialogue about your students is super important.

Marisha (11:42.902)

Yeah, I love those strategies. And I also had a lot of just kind of going back to the first one that you shared. So quick recap, you talked about doing in-services, doing like collaborating with teachers in creative ways, like picking a teacher a year for like supporting in the classroom, sharing handouts.

Lacee Johnson (11:45.0)

Yeah.

Marisha (12:06.178)

and then keeping that open door, but going back to number one for the in-service, I've had a lot of success with that too, because it's a really effective way. Like they're all sitting there. They're supposed to be paying attention, and it's a way to address everyone at once, which is great. I know that some SLPs struggle with teach like administrators giving them that time during the meetings. And so, like, just because like this is meant to be.

a menu of options. And Lacee, like I'm feeling so inspired. There's, just, I don't know, I bet your teachers just adore you and love working with you. But if you have like, if you're an SLP listening and you have major fear of talking to teachers or like speaking in front of a group, you can work up to that. Like you can use the strategies of picking a teacher to work with at a time.

Lacee Johnson (12:43.904)

well, thank you.

Marisha (13:01.866)

even if your admin is resistant at the beginning, like teachers talk, like Lacee said, word moves fast. Cause I know in my first year, like especially at the beginning of a new year in a new school, it's like pretty quiet. But once they see what you can do, then it's like, it's crazy how much it picks up. So yeah, you don't have to use all the strategies. Like if you aren't able to,

Lacee Johnson (13:06.067)

Yeah. Yeah.

Lacee Johnson (13:20.424)

Yes.

Yes.

Marisha (13:29.132)

speak, then you can have like a series of handouts that break down what Lacey listed that she talked about at the in-service. And then one thing that I like one of my personal favorite strategy is because when it comes and maybe you have this on your list too. I don't know if I cut you off. but one thing that I really like to do because

Lacee Johnson (13:34.537)

Yeah.

Lacee Johnson (13:49.349)

No, no, I don't know.

Marisha (13:54.52)

There's nothing more frustrating than going to an IEP meeting and the teacher is like, I didn't know you were working on that. Or like if we're just not on the same page. And one strategy that I have found to be super helpful is to share an IEP at a glance. So every district that I've been at, there's a way to just like, you select your whole caseload and it just prints those off. But Teachers Pay Teachers has tons of freebies also.

Lacee Johnson (14:17.48)

Yes.

Marisha (14:23.234)

But yeah, so then they, put it in a confidential, like I write confidential on a red folder and it's like a big deal. They sign off that they received it. It lists the student's goals, their accommodations. And so that's my way of checking in with each teacher at the beginning of the school year, just to be like, okay, here are your kiddos who are in speech. Here's what we're working on. Do you have any questions? And that's a,

Lacee Johnson (14:31.123)

Yeah.

Lacee Johnson (14:37.447)

Yes.

Marisha (14:53.026)

And I'm curious how you approach this to Lacee, but for me, that's way to open up like to curriculum based therapy and just connecting with what the students, what we're doing in speech to what's happening in the classroom. So one example, so the teachers then know what their students are working on. And like one group of teachers that I was working with, I think it was second grade.

but they had a professional learning goal to work on math word problems. And so that was their goal. They had to submit evidence that they were implementing strategies and all of that. So I knew they were super motivated. And I was like, and it happened to align really well with the students' goals. And so we identified that as like, OK, that's our focus, at least for the next quarter or whatever.

Lacee Johnson (15:28.649)

Okay.

Marisha (15:48.938)

And every, cause every week they had a different word problem and every week they put that word problem in my box because they're like, we want the documentation that we're collaborating with the SLP. It's like helping us towards our goals. It's helping the students. And so it was like the easiest, most motivated collaboration that I was able to set up. And it all just started with, and I mean, you don't have to have a confidential red IEP folder. but I feel like just that.

Lacee Johnson (15:55.142)

Amazing.

yeah.

Yes.

Marisha (16:17.174)

And it took a little bit of time to like print everything off and distribute it to the teachers. But I feel like there's just like little things that we can do like that, like the in-service, like the handouts, like sharing the EP at a glance that make a really big difference. So anyway, sorry, I went off a little bit on there. But do you do anything like that or do you have anything you want to add or?

Lacee Johnson (16:18.441)

Yep.

Lacee Johnson (16:27.463)

Yes.

Lacee Johnson (16:33.181)

Yeah. Yeah. No.

Lacee Johnson (16:40.349)

That's right. I'll just add that I think teachers really do appreciate that. And I think whenever you can get them that and get the accommodations, I do the same. I do a similar thing with the accommodations folder and even special area teachers like art and music. I go to them as well because our kids are in their classes too. And we have to explain to them that these accommodations are

most of the time universal in every subject a lot of the time and we'd have a conversation about how it might look in the classroom and strategies I've used and I think the less prep work they have to do so like if you know your student is going to need a visual schedule or a first then schedule and you take that and you kind of give that to the teacher like this is what he will need and that student comes in and it's already on their desk or it travels with them or however

I think the teachers are so appreciative to that extra little bit of effort.

Marisha (17:47.102)

And a lot of times they might not know what to do with some of these students. so knowing, like having support with those strategies and all of that is huge. So, yeah.

Lacee Johnson (17:58.985)

Yeah, yeah, yeah, a lot of them don't get any training and they'll, you know, they'll just be thrown into the fire a lot of the time. So the more support you can give them those early weeks of school, it's, we reap the benefits. So.

Marisha (18:16.526)

Yeah. Yeah. And that like the initial of like the initial period of like that conversation of going through the IEP at a glance, we won't be able to cover everything obviously, but we can like jot down some notes of like, this strategy would be helpful. This one, this one. And so then we can queue up those handouts and like trickle them out throughout the year, like all the strategy. is there anything that you wanted to add in terms of

Lacee Johnson (18:30.887)

Yeah. Yep. Yep.

Yeah, yeah, yes, yes.

Marisha (18:45.186)

and what your teacher communication collaboration looks like today.

Lacee Johnson (18:50.279)

I think it's much better than what it was when you start. feel like experience is the best teacher. man, I would say the biggest lessons to just to know is kind of what we touched upon. Every teacher is going to be different. Their preferred method of communication is going to be different. So just ebbing and flowing and figuring out what the best way to communicate with each person is key and being flexible.

Marisha (18:52.846)

Thank

Yeah, what lessons have you learned?

Lacee Johnson (19:20.679)

you know, your days are busy. Our jobs are hard, their jobs are hard. We both have a lot of expectations and deadlines and all the things. And just to recognize that the more we can do to fulfill our role and help them, you know, they've got 20 to 30 kids all day, every day. And our kids can be some of the more challenging kids in the classroom. So.

pushing in, just getting in the classroom with them and showing that we're there to support is absolutely key. Yeah, think flexibility is the number one thing as a school SLP that I've learned, you know, is key.

Marisha (20:07.72)

I completely agree. And do you feel like you've had any like, especially challenging experiences that you had to work through?

Lacee Johnson (20:20.059)

I mean, I think as you learn and navigate and become more seasoned, you recognize that, you know, not every teacher is going to be amazing and do all the strategies, right? So if you have a teacher more resistant and, you know, they've always done it a certain way, you can't control everything and you can only do what you can do. So I think...

Just being cognizant of that is key. I know even from district level, you might get a lot of encouragement for teachers to provide some, let's say for articulation, lot of arctic support in the classroom. And I think when it comes from a district level, they are far removed from our day-to-day and they don't see

They might not have caseloads, they might not see what teachers have to handle every day. So their expectations of what a teacher might be able to do in the classroom is quite different of what it may actually look like here. So I'm just thinking, for example, we have a program, our Speech Improvement Program, and it's for students kind of with one to two speech sound errors that might need a little extra support. And they might...

want you to give the teacher a slideshow of speech sounds and the teacher will do some interventions with speech sounds and I feel like it's not always attainable and you have to know your school and your teacher specifically and what you're asking of them because they have umpteenth standards to meet 30 kids you know all in the same room and it's just

can't be expected of them to work on those speech sounds sometimes. Just one example.

Marisha (22:23.81)

Yeah. And I love what you said about like just like being flexible when it feels like teachers are resistant, like, cause we don't always know the full picture. Like what we see isn't, doesn't explain the whole scenario. And I've, I love the analogy of using like sunshine versus wind. I know this sounds really weird, but like if

Lacee Johnson (22:25.598)

Okay.

Lacee Johnson (22:49.609)

Mm-hmm.

Marisha (22:52.48)

If someone has a coat on and our goal is for them to take off the coat, we can like force in there and like try to blow the coat off, but they're just going to hold on tighter. Whereas if we just like shine, and I know this is so silly, but this visual comes up to me like every, cause I've had some challenges with communication. And so I picture this and I'm like, okay, I'm not going to be the wind. I'm just going to try and be the sunshine. I'll be patient and they will eventually take off their coat and be open like

Lacee Johnson (23:09.831)

Yeah. Yeah.

Lacee Johnson (23:19.654)

Yes, I love that.

Marisha (23:22.51)

be more open to working together. And sometimes that looks like working with other teachers first and letting the teachers talk for you. Because that actually happened to me in my first school. There was one teacher and I was like, the students would really benefit from like, just some support in the classroom, but the teacher just did not want me in there. So I worked with the other second grade teachers and then I was like, then she was like, when are you coming to my classroom?

Lacee Johnson (23:51.709)

Exactly.

Marisha (23:52.558)

then just like being creative with how, like how we're sharing the strategies, like maybe, maybe they like handouts aren't the best way. Maybe it is like chatting. Like before lunch or whatever. don't know. Candy always helps too. I'm not above some bribery. but yeah, so that was something that like, that's one big lesson that stood out to me. And you reminded me of.

Lacee Johnson (24:07.421)

Model E.

That's same. Yes.

Lacee Johnson (24:17.435)

Yeah, I agree. I think I try to do that as much as possible. And a big thing that I've learned over the years is to not take it personal if it doesn't work out. You know, nine times out of 10, it's not about you. You know, we don't see the whole picture. We don't know what else is going on. And there are so many expectations put on teachers these days that it's hard. It's very, hard to be a teacher. And so we're here to help.

And that's what I try to do at least. Yeah.

Marisha (24:51.094)

And a lot of times it's like, again, just reiterating, it's not personal. And it's just maybe a misconception or maybe they've had like tricky experiences in the past or like, who knows what it is, but just getting creative, trying different routes and like trying to be that sunshine. But yeah, I love that. And then...

Lacee Johnson (25:04.775)

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Lacee Johnson (25:13.265)

Yeah, with the sunshine.

Marisha (25:19.628)

Okay, so, I feel like we could talk about this for hours and hours and hours. Like you've got me super inspired now. But I guess we'll start to wrap up. But, we've talked about this a little bit, but what tips do you have for SLPs who are struggling to make this work? And I guess we kind of talked about, okay, like some of the challenging relationship types of things.

Lacee Johnson (25:26.631)

Yeah.

Marisha (25:47.25)

but what if an SLP is listening and it's like, wow, that's great, but my workload is insane or like what other, if you can come think of any other challenges, like what would you say to those SLPs?

Lacee Johnson (26:00.785)

Yeah, I think I've been fortunate to be at a really good school for the past, you know, so many years, but I have been in those schools where it's just, it's just not attainable to do what I do now. So I've been there, but I do think that a couple of things that I've done more recently have been game changers that would be helpful to try. So, and I know not everyone is able to do it, but.

What I like to do is a modified version of the 3.1 model. And it's been a complete game changer for me. And my caseload's pretty busy. I'm here five days a week. our school is big, and I'm constantly busy. But this has been a complete game changer this year. So I've done a modified version. So Mondays are completely blocked off.

for assessing, testing, report writing, paperwork, and collaboration. So this is the day where I'm in the classroom with students completing observations. This is the day where I'm doing story champs interventions. I'm report writing, and I am touching base. I'm free all day. So if I know that my third grade teacher is on prep, this is when I can go have a conversation with her about our upcoming IEP meeting.

I know it's not attainable in every scenario and a lot of SLPs are split between two schools. you know, two days they're here, one, you know, it's in a perfect world. This would be my suggestion to everybody is a version of the 3-1 model. And it's been amazing for me at least. I've done it now for a few years and I don't think I could ever go back. I just don't think it, I think,

you have to allow yourself time to do the parts of your job that aren't face-to-face with students really well or else you're gonna take it home and you're gonna be working all the time and you're gonna get burnt out and you're not gonna be happy in your role and all the things. So this would be my number one tip.

Marisha (28:20.322)

Yeah, and even if an SLP is at multiple schools, you could still have Mondays but have blocks of time at the different schools, or you could alternate Mondays. There's lots of ways. that's just a couple examples of how you could modify it. But where there's a will, there's a way. And I love what you said, too, of like,

Lacee Johnson (28:32.275)

Great. Yeah.

Lacee Johnson (28:40.006)

Yeah.

Yeah.

Marisha (28:47.882)

Sometimes it isn't possible to do everything. so giving ourselves grace and kind of setting mini goals to help us like work towards the things. I think like if you're particularly, if an SLP listening is particularly inspired by one of the ideas, like take some time to implement that. And I think it's, you're inspired for a reason and

Like I think a lot of these strategies have the potential to like decrease our workload over time. Like for example, like doing that in service might be a little scary and it takes a little bit of prep time, but by doing that, might be getting, cause getting inappropriate referrals takes a lot. That's significant addition to our workload.

So implementing that strategy could have like a huge impact on your workload throughout the year. So it's like thinking about, okay, yes, this is an extra thing, but what's the benefit down the road? And yeah, some things might take a little effort upfront, but they'll reduce workload over the long run. So do you have anything you wanted to add?

Lacee Johnson (29:46.515)

subject.

Lacee Johnson (30:01.789)

Yeah, for sure.

I don't know, think that's, I mean, I think that's it. Hopefully I shared all of my.

Ideas, clearly. I really feel like the school is such a good place and you can reach so many students. And I mean the classroom setting and with their teachers, they're in there so much more than they're with us. So the more you can get the teacher on board, the more you can get their buy-in to what you're doing and help carry over, I feel like the more impactful your therapy is gonna be.

Marisha (30:41.302)

Yeah. And then that collaboration will help our students make more progress, maybe like reduce issues that come up along the way. Cause the drama stuff can be hard. Like if, if things are kind of imploding in the classroom, like we often get called in for that too. So if we can be a little more proactive, like everyone's more happier, like the student, the teacher, the parents, us. So yeah, there's.

Lacee Johnson (30:46.93)

Yeah.

Lacee Johnson (30:52.21)

Right.

Yeah.

Lacee Johnson (31:03.561)

from active.

Lacee Johnson (31:08.135)

Yep. Yep.

Marisha (31:10.895)

lots and lots of benefits, these types of strategies. So, I'm not...

Lacee Johnson (31:12.583)

Yeah, for sure.

Marisha (31:18.018)

cool. Well, thank you so much. I loved kind of getting a sneak peek into, you know, what your cause there's so many ways of doing this, but I loved getting to see a little bit of what it looks like. And I know there are tons more strategies and ideas and all of that. So if SLPs are wanting to kind of learn more about what you're doing, what are the best places to find you?

Lacee Johnson (31:28.072)

Yeah.

Lacee Johnson (31:47.209)

So I try to keep up my Instagram pretty often. yeah, thank you. I try and it's busy. And then I try to blog about some of these things too, because I know that working in the schools, it gets a bad rap and not every situation is ideal for sure. But there are some things that can make your life a little bit easier. And that has come with like experience and just finding the right place.

Marisha (31:51.318)

You do a great job.

Lacee Johnson (32:16.201)

So yeah, Instagram, my handle is speechmemaybe and my website is speechmemaybe.com. So that's where I keep all my school SLP fun things.

Marisha (32:29.538)

Love it. And I will share links to the website, Instagram, and all of that in the show notes. You can find that in the episode description. I will also link to, Lacee said she has some free handouts related to what she shared today. So we'll link those in the show notes as well. And yeah, I think that's a wrap.

Lacee Johnson (32:56.273)

Okay, perfect. Thank you so much. This was fun.

Marisha (32:58.158)

Yeah, thank you, Lacee, and I hope everyone has a good rest of their day.