romoland school district...march 2017 romoland school district e d u ca t i o n a l s e r vi ce s d...
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March 2017
Romoland School District Educational Services Division
Special Ed Fact
❖ California has the most students age 3 to 21 served under IDEA than any of the 50 states with 717,961 students with special education services.
❖ The Romoland School District presently serves 480 students with special education services.
Blurring the Lines for Preschool Students with Disabilities Ricky Alyassi
The Romoland School District’s “Blurring the Lines” campaign is in its third year of implementation districtwide. This campaign is dedicated to increasing inclusionary practices for students with special education services through a structured Learning Center/SAI classroom approach. The Learning Center model was first introduced in the Romoland School District during the 20142015 school year at Ethan A. Chase Middle School for middle school students with special education services. All four of our elementary school sites implemented learning centers/SAI classrooms during last school year (20152016) to support elementary school students with special education needs. Now, during our third year of implementation, the Early Childhood Education department is very proud to share that we have implemented a preschool blended SAI class to support our blurring the lines campaign from the bottom up.
Our preschool blended SAI class is a state preschool classroom located at Boulder Ridge Elementary School that was designed to have a blend of students without special education services along with students that do have special education services. This classroom is licensed to hold up to 24 preschool students, with at least 6 students in the classroom requiring special education services. Additionally, the classroom utilizes a Collaborative CoTeaching Model with a State Preschool Teacher and an appropriately credentialed Special Education Teacher. The intent of this classroom is to support inclusionary practices for students with disabilities. The Romoland School District’s Blurring the lines campaign has made great strides in our small district and this campaign has been noticed. On February 1st, 2017, our Blurring the Lines campaign was a featured presentation during the Association of California School Administrators (ACSA) Every Child Counts Symposium in Anaheim. Our campaign was well received by districts across the state that are hoping to replicate our work to support all students as well.
Did You Know? A student who finishes second grade without being able to read has only a 1 in 4 chance of reading at grade level by the end of elementary school.
Quote of the Month: “Literacy is… the road to human progress and the means through which every man, woman, and child can realize his or her full potential.” Kofi Annan
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By The Numbers
45% will need to repeat a grade level or be in special education
25% will not complete high school
29% will only receive a GED
48% will be unemployed at age 21
50% will experience homelessness
25% will be incarcerated
Less than 12% will earn their BA Foster Care Video The Toughest Job You'll Ever Love
Why Foster Kids Need Our Help Valerie Gonzales
1 in 11 children in the U.S. will live in foster or kinship care at some point before turning 18. Their outcomes are the worst of any population. Why? One reason is simple economics. As a society, we invest about half as much in a foster child as we do an average biological child, and less than a quarter in a child being raised by kin. Caregivers funds are limited, or funds cannot be used for some of the resources the children need. According to the USDA, it now costs over $250,000 to raise a child from 0 to 17. Neither foster care payments nor kinship benefits (where these even exist) come close to covering these costs.
A second reason is that the foster care community is fragmented and isolated from each other. There are foster children in every community and every school. Foster caregivers might work together but don’t know it. Because of the privacy and security needs of the children and youth in their care, they have very limited opportunities to support and learn from each other. Children in foster and kinship care need the same resources and opportunities as children being raised by biological parents. iFoster is a national nonprofit with a mission of providing lifechanging resources to children being raised outside of their biological homes. iFoster forms partnerships with hundreds of companies, government agencies, nonprofits, and foundations who can supply the critical resources, supports and opportunities these children and youth need to succeed. iFoster provides tangible resources like laptops, tutoring, eyeglasses, and more, bringing the highly fragmented foster care community together with the resources they need.
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Guided or Close Reading
Teach Like A Champion Blog: Featuring Tim Shanahan
“In a good book the best is between the lines.” Swedish Proverb
Guided Reading & Close Reading
Pat Denton I recently immersed myself in the Guided Reading procedures of Fountas and Pinnell, advocates of Guided Reading in the 1980’s, the Common Core State Standards Appendices A, B, and C, and the works of Tim Shanahan, a renowned expert in literacy. Thus, I’ve adjusted my thinking and practice concerning Guided Reading and Close Reading. Fountas and Pinnell believed that children needed some guidance and support with texts that were “just right” in difficulty level, due to the reading programs being “too hard”. Of course, small group instruction supports students’ reading, supports student engagement, and includes higher levels of interaction. It also gives the teacher greater opportunity for observing any struggles, shaping the instruction, and providing support for English Learners. Research is telling us that “just right” texts, those that can be read with 95% reading accuracy, may be too easy to effectively drive student learning. A far better predictor of student learning is an 85% 94% range of independent reading level, which is considered to be a struggle. Anything 84%, or below, may be at a frustration level. Tim Shanahan, an author of CCSS, for English Language Arts, believes that, “By varying text difficulty, together with the amount of scaffolding, teachers can make it possible for kids to handle more challenging and more motivating materials with greater amounts of learning.” This, of course, addresses the CCSS Anchor 10 which states, “Read and Comprehend complex literary and informational texts independently and proficiently.” Shanahan Literacy Doug Fisher is also an advocate of having students read more complex texts which include Close Reading strategies. “Close Reading is an instructional routine in which students critically examine a text, especially through repeated readings.” It also includes limited front loading, using short passages, with repeated readings, and with effective textdependent questions. The focus is not on one’s background knowledge, but on the author’s word choices, literary devices, and on deeper meaning. It may involve a small reading group or involve the whole group. Rigorous Reading Douglas Fisher and Nancy Frey We need to ‘stretch’ students’ critical thinking so that the challenges of discussion and writing may be addressed. So, too, with teacher ‘read alouds', students would be given more access to complex texts and concepts that they wouldn’t read independently. Finally, we need to manage strategic use of both Guided Reading and Close Reading. Perhaps, this would allow the students to eventually read more challenging books successfully!