In my last post about SLP survival, I promised you some school SLP scheduling email scripts, so today I’m delivering on my promise.
These deceptively simple templates for emailing teachers are what I’ve used to communicate with teachers at the beginning of the school year, so I can set my schedule with as little stress as possible.
If you read this last post about SLP survival secrets, you already know about Robert Sapolsky’s book, Why Zebras Don’t get Ulcers. In this book Sapolsky writes about the effects of long-term stress brought about by getting ourselves in to fight-or-flight mode when it’s not necessary.
The SLP’s job, especially the time of year when we’re working on scheduling, can get especially stressful; and it can be hard not to feel panicked. But as I’ve discussed in this article here; our ability to stay calm and self-regulate is key to staying effective and preserving our health and well-being.
While I can’t take away all the stress in your life, I can make it a little bit easier to manage by sharing a key ingredient to my school SLP scheduling system: The school SLP scheduling email scripts.
Each one serves a specific purpose in my beginning of the school year routine; and I use these templates so I have a basic skeleton to my emails. This way I can just copy and paste rather than starting from scratch every time.
Also, having these steps down reduces the “chicken with its head cut-off feeling” you get when you know you have a million things to do but aren’t sure where to start.
The three key emails I use at the beginning of the year are:
The Welcome Email
The Notification Email
The Scheduling Email
You can click here to download a copy of the school SLP scheduling email scripts, or keep reading to learn how to use them.
I’ll get in to the full breakdown of these emails in a minute, but there are some key things to note about his process before I do that. First, it goes without saying that this shouldn’t 100% replace face-to-face communication.
It’s really hard to get around to all of the teachers you work with, and email is better than no communication at all. However, making an effort to get around and talk in person (both business and small-talk) helps to build trust and relationships.
Having said that, you’ll make yourself crazy trying to do that with everyone; so these emails at least ensure you’re meeting the “good enough” requirement for communication.
Next, you’ll notice that there is a theme throughout the emails; and that is to make it as easy as possible for the teachers to respond quickly if a response is needed at all.
When you send someone an email to a busy person, the best way to increase the changes of getting a response is to make it extremely clear what information you want and how they can get it to you.
Make it easy for whoever you’re emailing to fire off a quick response without doing a lot of work. Ask for specific information, and don’t ask for too much at once.
If you ask a busy teacher to do something that requires a lot of digging during the first week of school, or you send them an email asking them for a million different things at once, its more likely that they’ll make a mental note to respond to it later and forget about it.
This does not mean they’re lazy and don’t care. Most of them want to help you. They’re just really freaking busy (like you).
Think about our communication with people in high-level leadership positions and how we might handle our communication with them.
The superintendent. The mayor or other politician. An executive or a CEO. A doctor.
Chances are you’d take great care crafting an email to someone like that. We also wouldn’t hold it against them if they didn’t respond; but we’d be honored if they did (especially if it came from them and not their assistant).
This is all acceptable because these people have big, important jobs.
But so do the people we work with. And who’s to say their days aren’t packed with just as many important things (if not more).
So why wouldn’t we give a teacher (or other colleague) that same level of respect?
Fortunately, it’s possible to do that in a reasonable amount of time with these school SLP scheduling email scripts.
The Welcome Email
This is the email I send to all the teachers in the buildings I’m covering. This one is pretty easy because you can send a bulk email to everyone; so you only need one email per building.
While you’re doing this, it’s also good to set up a distribution list for each building you’re covering. For those of you who aren’t very tech-savvy, a distribution list is just a group of people in your email contacts. This way, when you want to send an email to everyone on the list, you just enter the distribution list instead of each individual email list.
Some places will already have distribution lists set up in their email providers for each facility or for all of the employees, so you’ll want to check on that. If you aren’t sure how to do this, Google it or talk to your tech person.
I recommend setting up these distribution lists at the beginning of the year so that you have them available in case you need to send mass emails later in the year (for example, if you’re going to be out of district or need to cancel services for meetings).
So…let’s get back to the email. The purpose of the welcome email is a simple way of saying, “Hey, I’m here! And I available to help whenever you’re ready!”
This is a good one to send out the first week of school to start priming teachers to think about speech services, but not require them to do much about it right away.
Remember, they’ve all got a million things they’re thinking about, and your speech schedule is probably not on the top of the list…except for those select cases they realize that they have students who are a real handful and they know they need your help ASAP.
The email goes like this:
Let’s do a quick break-down of why this email works for school SLP scheduling. The first sentence is the “cheesy-friendly intro”. Don’t underestimate the impact this has on the overall tone of your emails. You want to sound like the decent human-being that you are.
The second and third sentences let them know that you’re the go-to person for speech services and referrals.
If you have a district that has multiple SLPs covering services, it can be confusing for staff to know who to go when they have concerns, which means they’ll be less likely to make referrals or think to collaborate with you to make accommodations for students.
The harder something is for someone to do, the less likely they’ll do it. Again, this is not laziness, it’s basic human behavior. How many times did you put something off that you knew you needed to do, but weren’t sure where to begin?
Many times I also attach something to this email that lists red flags for speech and language issues. Teachers are pretty good at spotting articulation and fluency issues, but they may not be aware that you can help with voice disorders or social skills.
They also may not realize that you can help with language issues or how to spot those issues, so an easy-to-read handout can help with that.
Many teachers may not read through the handout right away because they’re still getting to know their students, but now they know they have it for future reference.
(For new teachers I haven’t met before, I may make a point to also deliver this handout in person)
The last sentence of this email just let’s them know I’m working on the schedule and that they can expect to hear from me. The beauty of this sentence is that I am not asking them to do anything.
Many teachers will respond back with questions or give me some information that I can use to start working on my schedule, but I haven’t made them feel obligated to do it.
This leaves the ball in their court and helps to gauge whether or not they’re ready to get more information. At some point, we do have to push them a little bit to move forward, but I don’t recommend doing that the first day of school.
If you’re in a district that requires you to meet minutes that first week, you can always throw together a temporary schedule and let teachers know you’re just doing that the first week or two while you get the “real” schedule together.
The Notification Email
This next school SLP scheduling email script may go out within the first day or two of school starting. It lets the teachers know which students in their classes have speech/language services, and gives them a brief explanation of why that student is getting services.
This school SLP scheduling email goes like this:
Before I break this second school SLP scheduling email down, remember that you want to make sure you’re sending this email from a HIPPA compliant server because you’re including identifying information.
Again, we start with the cheesy-friendly intro, then get down to business with the list of kiddos. I keep the explanations of what they’re working on brief and only as technical as I need to be.
With some teachers, I may say “articulation”, or “language processing”; but only if I’ve been working with that teacher long enough to know they understand what I’m talking about.
I’m by no means suggesting that teachers aren’t capable of understanding these technical terms, its just that we want to remember that not everyone speaks “SLP” and there’s no sense making them work harder to translate.
I always tell them that they can expect a copy of the student’s IEP from me (unless I’m not the case manager, and then I just let them know they’ll be getting the IEP from the special education teacher).
I used to ask teachers if they want me to send IEPs because sometimes teachers would have copies already from the previous year’s teacher. That would leave me waiting to hear back from teachers and would require me to track who needed what.
It also required the teachers to either see if they could dig it out or track it down and then give me a response as to what they needed.
This doesn’t sound like a lot, but these little tasks on your to-do list can add up.
Now, I just start assume they all need the IEPs and start distributing copies for students I case manage. This makes it less work for everyone. If teachers already have a copy handy, they usually let me know because I’ve mentioned it in the email. Worst case scenario is that they have an extra copy.
With the last sentence of this email, I only include this if there is no other way for me to get their schedule. Many times you can print schedules off your school database for older students, and teachers often turn in schedules at the main office to keep with the administrative staff.
I usually ask the administrative assistants if I can make copies of the schedules that are turned in, and I just let the teacher know I have a copy of their schedule and I’m working on scheduling their students.
For the stragglers who haven’t turned their schedules in to the office yet, I may ask them for it just to help move things along.
Now let’s move on to the third school SLP scheduling email script.
The Scheduling Email
This is the email that has caused the biggest amount of agony for me, and anyone who has dealt with school SLP scheduling may agree. You send the emails out, then wait anxiously expecting your perfectly made schedule to fall apart as people object to the times you’ve slotted.
While that may be inevitable, it helps to have a template for letting people know the speech times so you can get through the scheduling debacle as quickly as possible.
It goes like this:
This school SLP scheduling script is pretty self-explanatory, but there are a couple things I want to point out. First, you could teachers a paper copy of their students’ schedule, but I’ve since stopped doing that.
There’s nothing wrong with doing a paper copy and following the same format above; but we kill enough trees with all our special education paperwork so I’ve opted for the paperless option whenever possible. If teachers want a physical copy they can always print out the email (and they often do).
Next, let me talk about the chronological versus listing by student name. When a teacher just has a couple kids who come to speech, it’s easy to just list the students’ names and put their times next to them. That looks like this:
John Smith: Mondays 9:30-10:00, Thursdays from 8:30-9:00
Missy Johnson: Tuesdays and Thursday from 2:00-2:20
But let’s say you have a big group of kids from a teacher’s class. Sometimes they come together, but you mix and match it so that the same students aren’t always paired together.
The days/times vary. If you list by student name, this can actually look really confusing because the teacher will have to cross-reference the times to figure out who is coming with who.
I remember a time that I did this to a teacher, and she asked me to rearrange the way I’d written it so she could see it more clearly. What I did was switch to a chronological list, where I listed the days of the week, and then all of the student groups that came each day.
She preferred that organization much better, and since then I’ve used that system when I have a teacher who has a lot of students with services.
That looks like this:
Monday: John and Bill 8:00-8:30, Missy 9:00-9:20
Tuesday: John and Missy 10:00-10:30
Wednesday: Neil (plus student from Mrs. Smith’s class) 9:00-9:30
You can see that John comes with Bill one day and Missy another, so its easier for me to just list them by day and time. I’ve also listed Neil’s time and mentioned that he’s grouped with a student from another class.
Sometimes I share that information with teachers just in case they’re wondering how the groups are arranged; but it’s not always necessary.
Last, let’s talk about the tone of the email. This is a subtle art. You want to be assertive enough that you don’t get walked on, but you don’t want to sound bitchy and inflexible either.
This is why I don’t directly ask, or say “Is this okay with you?”, or “Is this convenient?”
The fact is, its never really convenient to have a kid pulled out of your class. You have to keep track of who is going where, and you need to get them caught up when they get back.
There may also certain times of the day that it’s less intrusive, and sometimes teachers will all want their kids to come during that time (in the past, that’s been either the very beginning or very end of the day).
Unfortunately, its impossible to fit all of your students in to these “convenient” times, so sometimes you have to ask teachers to be flexible.
Nine times out of ten they’ll meet you in the middle and work with you if they know you’re doing your best and you show that you understand their perspective (this is why face-to-face conversations are such an important supplement to these emails).
Thus, this is why I prefer to mention that they can give me comments/questions, but I don’t specifically ask for it. This way, if they REALLY have a concern they reply; but many of them don’t feel the need to respond.
Adding a sentence like, “Thank you so much for being flexible with me,” or something to that effect that shows your appreciation and recognition that they are making some sacrifices goes a long way.
To get a copy of these school SLP scheduling email scripts, click here.
