Monday Message

Peer partnerships happen everyday, most are naturally occurring between students. Sometimes, we need to think through some additional structures or supports to make Peer Learning Partnerships more effective. These may occur in the form of a TA in the high school or middle school setting, or a structured Unified Class. We are working on developing a set of resources and guidance to support buildings with these more formal sorts of partnerships that may be necessary in some situations.

Yet, even for students who may need more formal structure in a certain time or place, real friendships can bloom when we create a truly inclusive culture. We recently heard from one of you about a student. At a meeting with the family a few weeks ago, the mom shared how surprised she was when her daughter came home from school, and two friends came with her. The three middle school students watched a movie together, then the mom drove the friends home. Pretty typical story, yet this student had been in a self-contained Life Skills program in another district and then moved here this summer. This was monumental positive event for this girl and family!

Our goal is to keep sharing ideas and structures for the more formal peer partnerships yet always nurturing the culture of natural peer interactions and friendships that are just fine without our adult structures, thank you very much :)

On November 19, teachers around the district worked together to sharpen their skills of engaging all students. At the primary level. ICs (Gen Ed and SPED) worked together to craft a day focusing on writing, where planning lessons on the front end thinking through the needs of all students was front and center (see the UDL topic below). At middle school, several teachers led workshops for colleagues, that included topics like Trauma-Informed Classrooms and much more. At high school, there were student panels around understanding the experiences of students of color. These are just a few examples of the great, and inclusive, PD that was happening all over!

At Inclusive Schools Leadership, team members had to make sense of the following terms: accommodation, modification, and universal design for learning (UDL). The video above gives a good general overview around what is meant by UDL. As Learning Specialists, OTs, SLPs, PTs, and more spend time co-planning with general education teachers, one outcome that we expect to see is that more and more of our lesson and curriculum planning embeds UDL. In other words, rather than having a lesson already planned for the students "in the middle" and then trying to add in accommodations for some students and extensions for others, lesson will be more and more planned to include the whole range of learners on the front end.

Here are few examples of UDL thinking that are already well in place in West Linn-Wilsonville. The primary school "book box" during Readers Workshop allows all students to be engaged in reading, but the text level, the cultural content, the language, and the audio/visual accessibility of the text can all be varied to ensure each student has a challenging and accessible entry point to the learning. Another simpler example is around seating. In the past, it may have taken an OT evaluation and related services to allow a student to use a wiggle stool or a stand up desk during class. Every day, we see great examples of classroom spaces being designed to allow for lots of different needs in terms of seating and work spaces.

How are you seeing the principals of UDL being embedded into our general education classrooms?

Did you know that the eligibility criteria for autism spectrum disorder in Oregon schools is changing? The new criteria will more closely align the medical and educational worlds. And this big shift happens on January 1 on 2019 (only 6 weeks away!) But not to worry, your School Psychs, SLPs, and SPED ICs have been attending trainings on all of the details and will be ready to help your teams work through this.

The other change that is coming will go into effect on July 1, 2019. The category of "Developmental Delay" which previously only applied in early childhood, can now apply to school age children up to third grade. Lori Prater, Iva-Marie Connall, and Andrea Ramos (our Early Childhood Eval Team) will help our primary school teams learn more about this as we gear up for our spring transition into kindergarten meetings.

Brittany Bucholz and Sarah Hiatt led a workshop at Lowrie Primary School, with the support of counselor Carmen Ryan and Principal Sarita Amaya, for parents on the topic of anxiety. This practical session helped parents understand what the role of anxiety is for students, when feelings of anxiety fall in the typical range of emotions for students, and how to find resources when the impact of anxiety is problematic for a student. They shared practical strategies and resources that parents (and teachers) can deepen their toolkit to help children strengthen their skills. One of the most important concepts is that the goal is not to eliminate anxiety but help children manage it. Having students always avoid things that cause anxiety will likely worsen the issue in the long run. Sarah and Brittany provided some great language and sentence stems for ways to respectfully support children in recognizing their feelings and developing realistic (often small step) plans for moving forward. Terrific books, for children and adults were shared, and we plan to get these posted onto our parent resource page very soon!

Our amazing PT Team continues to lead the way in making sure all children have access to our schools, stadiums, and playgrounds. Last year, Michele St. Marie and Chris Jones researched and recommended swings that could be easily added to our playgrounds, that could making swinging possible for a number of students. This year, Baljit Johl and Chris Jones took those great ideas and moved it to reality, with great support from our incredibly facilities staff from the Department of Operations. We expect to have an accessible swing at every primary playground within a few weeks. Check out these pics below and the story of inclusiveness they depict...truly worth a thousand words! Thanks for leading the way, PTs...and Robin!

• Nursing Team Meeting Wednesday, Nov. 28, 2:45 pm DO
• Inclusive & Equitable Classrooms Workshop #2 Tuesday, Dec. 4, 4:00 pm DO
• School Counselors Wednesday, Dec. 5, 7:30 am DO
• District Safety Breakfast & Table Top Wednesday, Dec. 5, 7:30 am Athey Creek Church
• Eval Team Meeting Thursday, Dec. 6, 11:00 am DO
• SLPs Friday, Dec. 7, 7:30 am DO
• SPED Parent Collaboration Group Monday, Dec. 10, 5:00 pm DO
• Motor Team Tuesday, Dec. 11 2:00 pm DO
• Wellness Promotion/Suicide Prevention Wkgrp Wednesday, Dec 12, 8:00 am DO
• Learning Specialist Cycles of Inquiry Friday, Dec 14, 7:30 am DO
• Early Childhood Team Thursday, Dec. 20, 10:00 am Early Childhood Center
• Eval Team Thursday, Dec. 20, 11:00 am DO

Your belief, hard-work, and tremendous support of each student, every student is at the heart of the success of West Linn-Wilsonville Schools. We are deeply grateful for you, and the integrity, passion, and mindset that you bring every day!

Email: Spencerj@wlwv.k12.or.us
Website: https://www.wlwv.k12.or.us/domain/43
Location: 22210 Southwest Tualatin Road, Tualatin, OR, USA
Phone: 503-673-7026