Ralph Richardson Center

• May 12: 3:00 - 8:00 Chick-Fil-A Fundraiser
• May 21: 5:00 - 7:00 Open House
• May 22: Minimum Day for Grades 1-12, Dismissal at 12:05
• May 25: Memorial Day, No School
• June 1: 10:00 Graduation
• June 9: Last Day of School, Minimum Day for Grades 1-12, Dismissal at 12:05
• June 22: First Day of Extended School Year (ESY)

Amanda Morgan, Kelly Santin-Gouldthread, and I went to Cleveland, OH last month for Camp Alec Training. I can’t tell you how amazing it was to be in the same room with 200 educators who throughout the United States work with our population of students. We learned about new research tied to reading and writing instruction that is also successful in helping students communicate utilizing their AAC devices. As you know, as a staff, we have been reading Comprehensive Literacy for All, and meeting the author Karen Erickson, just made the pages come to life. We learned that it is super important for our students to learn the names & sounds of the alphabet. If we can teach them to read, then we are opening them up to more than just the 3,000 words a year that could be on their devices. Also, keeping in mind that it is still really helpful for you to continue to read to our kiddos nightly. As you are reading if you talk about concepts of print (capital letters, punctuation, ask them to find a “__” letter on the page, or the letter __ that makes the _ sound. This will also help reinforce what we are teaching in our classes. This is all a part of our literacy program. All three of us are even more energized about teaching these important concepts to our students and sharing the information with our staff.

You’ll notice in this picture below, our peer volunteer is helping to cut apart a students’ sentence into words.

We will be having our silent auction again this year at the open house on May 21. More details about the Open House will be sent home as the event gets closer. For now though, please see the attached flyer with information on some of the items that will be available for the auction.

Our students had a great time during I Am Week. We’d like to thank Kaitlyn Nicolai and David Gonzalez for organizing such fun activities for the kiddos. El Camino High School Government Class did an amazing job of planning the dance, creating the decorations, and making it such a great atmosphere! We loved the Under the Sea theme. Ralphie even made an appearance!

We are very excited about the early planning stages of our remodel plans. The 19Six Architects have come up with some really good ideas for our site. In the near future, we will have a video recording of the Zoom held May 6, posted to our website, so that you will be able to see their ideas. In the meantime, if you have ideas that you would like to suggest, please use this survey QR code or go to sanjuan.edu/RalphRichardsonSurvey

M.O.V.E. stands for Mobility Opportunities Via Education/Experience and is a San Juan sponsored activity-based program designed to teach children with severe disabilities the functional motor skills needed to sit, stand, and walk as independently as possible. We have students and staff working very hard on this every day!

Meet Ramesh! Ramesh arrived at this school being able to only tolerate 30 seconds of upright sitting before being in distress. Now he sits upright and even does small bouts of supported walking using a mobility device called a KidWalk. He has made so much progress and is always laughing and smiling!

Thank you room 6 for designing such a great bulletin board this month! Room 6 spent time this month learning about butterflies and their life cycle. They even had the opportunity to raise their own butterflies in the classroom. It's so fun to get to see a little of what they learned in the office.

Rotary held their annual Golf 4 Kids tournament on Friday, May 8. Christie Waldron, Andrea Horton, and Kerri Umfress attended the event to show our support for such a great program. Rotary donates money to our school every year to help purchase supplies and much needed equipment for our students.