The Pride

Lots of activities have occurred this past week for both special services students and teachers.  Trainings on administering the WIAT (individualized assessment), SpedTrack (computer program for special services paperwork), and DRA (directed reading assessment) were attended by many of our staff.  A special thank you goes to Dr. Susan Marcum and Janetta Garton for also providing two trainings on ACUITY.  These comprehensive sessions showed the various ways to analyze data obtained from ACUITY assessments to diagnose and remediate specific areas of academic weaknesses and to design lesson plans based on this information.  Positive feedback indicates our teachers are eager to add this tool to their strategies/methods of instruction.  Thank you also to Janet Simmons, Angela Stevens, Carolyn Nixon and Amy Stroder for helping our teachers, through their workshops, to better educate our students. 

Special recognition goes to high school paraprofessional Abby Fugitt who supports our students working at the Sheltered Workshop in Springfield. I received the following e-mail Wednesday:  “Just wanted to let you know I got the chance to go to the workshop today with the kids and Abby.  It was an awesome experience!!!  I could not believe how all the kids worked so hard at their jobs.  It was amazing to just watch them. Kudos goes out to Abby, she is wonderful with all the kids and they all love her!!”  This was written by fellow paraprofessional Delana Freedle who wanted to share seeing Abby in action with our students.  Thank you to both Abby, Delana and all our students at the Sheltered Workshop!