Department Updates

I hope each of you took some time to spend on your with your favorite people, working on your favorite hobbies, or visiting your favorite places. I look forward to another year working with an amazing group of dedicated counselors and social workers.

We will spend our first meeting getting reacquainted, sharing building updates, and talking about programming goals for the 24-25 school year. I will ask a few ice breaker questions- sorry not sorry.

I'm looking forward to seeing everyone soon! In the meantime, take a look at some essential updates to get the year started.

As a continuation of the PLC process, this year's K-12 Counseling Department focus will be on establishing and working toward SMART goals related to the District Strategic Plan areas of: Curriculum and Instruction; Diversity Equity and Inclusion; and Social Emotional Learning. We will work on this for a short amount of time during our first group meeting.

We will also continue to talk about the PLC process and the four essential questions as they apply to lesson planning. Here are links to the standards that are part of our Comprehensive Counseling Plan. They should be at the forefront of our decision making process as we discuss

programming practices:

ASCA Student Standards

Learning Standards for Career Development and Occupational Studies at Three Levels

NYSED Mental Health Education Literacy Standards

Please plan to attend the training scheduled in the opening days agenda. We will follow the same guidelines provided to teachers for communicating with students and families. This includes using ParentSquare rather than texting directly with students and families or using other communication platforms (Remind, ClassDojo, Seesaw, Insta or X direct messages). We will also be using ParenSquare to email families.

We will soon have the opportunity to use ParentSquare for permission forms and to schedule parent conferences. This will be a possibility once we have the majority of parents registered to access the program.

The help manuals and training tools are very user friendly. If your group of users have frequently asked questions, have one person type up a summary to send to Bonnie. This will streamline the support process for her. New staff may not be in ParentSquare yet, but will be added soon.

What unregistered parent users can and cannot see...CLICK HERE.

You will receive a new copy our district's suicide risk assessment documentation at our first department meeting. Building administrators and school psychologists have also received a copy. Please throw any old copies away prior to the start of school.

We will no longer be using X to communicate news and celebrations- this role will be filled by ParentSquare. Please send me pictures to upload onto the platform!

Administrators worked together during the summer to align MTSS models across the district. Each building will have a Building Guiding Coalition (building level PLC team), Professional Learning Teams (teacher/dept teams), and a Student Support Team (formerly known as DIT, BEST).

Data will be collected in LinkIt! to get a better overall profile of a student's strengths and challenges. This will be a place where Tier 2 interventions in Math, Reading, Behavior, Executive Functioning, and Social Emotional Learning will be created and progress monitored by teachers and instructional support staff, including counselors and social workers.

Students who are not responding to Tier 2 interventions may be referred to the Student Support Team for a program review and consideration for Tier 3 support. This referral will be completed in LinkIt!

Please plan to attend the first day training for LinkIt! even if you attended the meeting with IS providers and instructional coaches this past spring.

Liz Tiffany will be facilitating The Social Emotional Learning (SEL) Institute, designed to foster collective learning, resource sharing, and the creation of supportive systems to enhance the social-emotional and behavioral skills and well-being of both students and adults. Through vertical conversations, we aim to strengthen and support Tier One SEL instruction, as well as consistent SEL, behavior, and attendance interventions. Resources and discussions will also provide opportunities to align our DEI work across buildings - ensuring that WG students, families and staff are provided with equitable resources and feel a sense of belonging consistently through their educational experience.

Membership:

• 2 teachers per building (14)

• 1 UPK teacher

• 1 ENL teacher

• 1 elementary counselor

• 1 secondary counselor

• 1 psychologist

• DEI/PLC Coach

• Building principals as available

• Director of Counseling Services

Areas of Focus (need to prioritize):

• Unpacking and understanding the revised NYS SEL Benchmarks - how these skills are discussed, taught, reinforced, and measured

• SEL program review

• Restorative Practices across tiers

• Propose the identification of and roll-out for SEL screener

• Family engagement

• Attendance initiatives

• MTSS Connection

Counseling Department participants will be asked to report back to the K-12 Department.

Sometimes we are not sure how laws protecting students (DASA, GENDA, Title IX) impact practices such as student record keeping, use PE locker rooms, sharing of preferred names, etc. We will continue to use this reference sheet to help guide our conversations and actions as we work to support our students and create a welcoming environment.

Google Meet Workshops: Review of Frontline and FAQ (pick one if interested)

Friday, September 19 at 9:00

• https://calendar.google.com/calendar/event?action=TEMPLATE&tmeid=MDB2bG1hbWJvbjVpYWdkZTdpdTd2Z2hhMWUgbWNhbnRlcmlub0B3ZXN0Z2VuZXNlZS5vcmc&tmsrc=mcanterino%40westgenesee.org

Thursday, September 12 at 1:00

• https://calendar.google.com/calendar/event?action=TEMPLATE&tmeid=NmZwYjMxMWlnNmJybzV1cHNvYmQ0aGpwbGEgbWNhbnRlcmlub0B3ZXN0Z2VuZXNlZS5vcmc&tmsrc=mcanterino%40westgenesee.org

Accommodations

• Gather feedback from teachers about students' first 5 weeks of school and their use of accommodations to date. This can be done in any manner you would like, or you can use THIS FORM.
• Use the annual review meeting to review teacher feedback, grades, and student and parent perceptions of limitations and achievements.

• Remove any accommodations that are no longer needed based on the feedback and information you have reviewed.

• Each accommodation should match the limiting condition created by the disability. Its purpose is to ensure access to the learning environment.
• The accommodation should level the playing field to provide an equal opportunity in comparison to a typical peer. It is not to reach highest potential or something that would be nice to have. A good check for this is whether or not you can match the accommodation directly to what is being seen in school.
• The accommodations should reflect the current needs in your building.
• Accommodations must be reasonable for teachers, transportation, and building administrators to provide. Think about whether or not anyone reading the plan could reasonably provide the accommodation.
• Any requests for major program changes, including but not limited to: OT/PT, Audiology, Visual support must go through a re-evaluation process in order to ensure we have appropriate documentation and evaluations/consultations from appropriate service providers.

Frontline and Paperwork

• Open a draft in Frontline to update accommodations and dates in the 504 plan. The next annual review date should be for October of the next school year that the student would be due for a parent attended annual review meeting. Match the re-evaluation date to the annual review date.
• Update start and end dates for all accommodations
• DO NOT FINALIZE your draft
• Notify your designated secretary using the form I will give you at our first days meeting (blue half sheet). She will do a final glance of dates, press finalize, and mail the appropriate paperwork home. She will place the minutes and an updated copy of the plan into the student's folder before sending you the finalized plan.
• I have found meeting minutes to be invaluable during manifestation determination meetings and when reviewing plans of students I do not know, so please make sure your minutes reflect the conversation had by the team.

Students in Grades 6, 8, 10, and 11

• Meet with the student and follow up with teachers during the first 10 weeks of school to ensure that there are no questions about the plan.
• Open a draft to update the student's next school year. DO NOT FINALIZE your draft.
• Once you meet with each student, fill out the form I will give you at the first days meeting (gold half sheet) and send it to your designated secretary.