along with a couple of other parents that put these wonderful sessions together so i wanted to let you know about a few things last month presentation was on student evaluations and reason i'm really highlighting this is because i found them to be very valuable they were really really neat so if you if you want some nice easy information on st and she shared with us about our special needs alert form so if you haven't or if you didn't even know you're registered your child with the belmont police happy to have all our presentations and you guys will be a video it takes a lot for your friends it's the last two you know that i want you to know about or three this this one is about next month's presentation executive passed away about five years ago and he's the one who told me the story of how life started and he got together with the parents and he said well let's talk about i want to get to know your children who they are what their needs are and they got together in a little room and they talked just about the idea of trying to find a house together and then they got the superintendent's together so how can we do this you're so lucky if there are a way to try to network together but see what happens and make a long story short lexington two teachers they were husband and wife and they worked in the house the children came out just like they were going to school and they went in the house to learn all the skills that they needed to be able to function on their own and i was really how whole still exists today there's still a group poem for especially the students who live there and they live on their own and i think it's actually till he does that so that's how the collaborative started it was really a regional effort focus was on creating quality special needs programs so at that time lexington going to him were already together when they got burlington on board so that's kind of like the water that we work in and they create three programs one was that lessons in high school the other  as i said you know sharing your resources you kind of creating a kind of as a scale with other regions or other districts to really able to you know develop high quality programs in the lab you know a lot of different providing the services this mission statement when about six years ago the lap board of directors which includes all the superintendents from each of the districts of our member town participation in the least restrictive environment another unique feature of lab is that all of our programs are public schools and that's really the least restrictive environment where some collaborators you know have their own buildings that they have these so they together and we just had to do some reporting for the department of education you always do report for the department of education it's a full time job but we have to report students either disability and one of the questions that we always get asked of what type of students do you serve them it really it really is diverse but i thought we put this slide together just to show you kind of the percentages of the three hundred twenty off but we don't place students according to their disability we really do it by this social function and how they fit best together that's what's most important but it does give your snapshot a little bit about you know what the profiles of our students look like would be interesting to see how this you know as you know students on the inspectors it's increasing more so that they died of it the data that we showed was higher on the elementary work for forty three percent elementary students in the high school remote we have most of our students at the high school level it was probably around thirty three percent somewhere around so but we expect that's going to increase will be interesting to see the highest functioning type of class i mean they're within the school they said now to take science or take any course that any other student can take so we always try to talk about inclusion is very important to us you know part of their members being part of being you know member of the lab they have to give space with and they're just ready for us to be able to operate programs so when we started to expand you know if you're clash each of these schools has something different offering they do something a little bit different so for instance that memorial and again memorial a lot of the students in those three classrooms we have great a lot of those students happen to have autism spectrum disorders but not all of them but they all benefit from the style of instruction that's offered the highly structured environment the intense visual support communication support and really the focus of those programs so again not all of the students in those programs cultism and that's ok box hill is a therapeutic elementary setting  classrooms there we have a great kind of section of the building it's an old style school building where the center of the building is kind of the main area and then there are pods kind of i think there are five or six pods off of that need section in my but students who really benefit from assistance with social problematics and social emotional challenges that they're dealing with and that he girl challenges they might be dealing with most of the students in that environment are not the demo right around  local give or take some might be higher in some academic areas the little bit lower and other academic areas there's and there's a great mix francis wiener and burlington we have two classrooms we have a preschool k one classroom and then a three four five classroom and the students are for the most part it's a bit tense communication focus students have multiple and more severe disabilities and a three four master and again it's not even exclusive with with great because as long as we're looking at the student's ability and where they're worth where they can best be served for instance their monkey a second grader in the older classroom because that's the best fit for her academically and socially and that's how we make those placement decisions so we're really looking at the child and where that child is that's going to be served the students in this building benefit from a modified curriculum and language support and programmatic language using their using their language and you know social and academic setting great group of kids great all of the environments inclusive classrooms and wellington we have two questions again i can't one two three four five again not completely exclusive because it really depends on where that student has the best academic and social those students descriptions because like she said some of these and by we have two classrooms and we have the different grades so once you hear a little bit about this on our website it's going to be updated and also never your brochure so you know a little bit about it but then it'll be broken research students from it's interesting because some parents know it's only by serving one population of students because that's who they heard from that's who they know it's all that does this and you know  it's nice that they know that but it's not always true that the black the full spectrum of students that we have from higher still goes from the severe specialties to students who go to college so that's really the wide range of a big jump on you know i think all parents realize that that's a big jump and then sometimes our little bit anxious to talk about what's middle school going to look like so we have middle school classrooms and three different buildings generate hearing about we have three classrooms one of those classrooms is for students who have pretty severe physical and medical and intellectual disabilities it's our intensive  other two classrooms are very similar in and how they operate structure and it's very focused on programming language skill development executive functioning developments providing a very highly structured classroom environment and modified going to them the biggest difference between the two classes really park where the students are in their development of those skills so one classroom the students are socially and academically a little bit more advanced than the other classroom austin middle school is students who really benefit from a continuation of really a t p focused instructional methodology and discrete trial type of instruction and then john one middle school and back third john glenn is really our highest academic and socially functioning group of middle school children there's a lot of inclusion that happens in john glenn those students who are really working on their independent both independently demick skills but independent social and building orientation skills they really get a part of that environment they take part in any classes that they can benefit from being a part of the science social studies reading classes are up for other things and those students are typically functioning around the middle to upper elementary identical that will also talk about transition before and if you really just want to know what and what's in store we have that conversation up there at the team you can talk about what the what the middle school classrooms look like we progress through visiting the classrooms you get to come and visit the classrooms we might look at our fourth graders just accompany all the other fourth graders to that the other day where they all go as a whole class and there's a time and so are students who are going to go to generate you know you but those that are going to go to just get on the bus with everybody else and go to charity and then have a have a tour and they see things the teachers and they see the classrooms and they get acquainted and we also typically transition students into middle school during the summer piece of their academic program because it's a chance to acclimate to a new building in their heart seven hundred students in it and they really get a feel for it not only their own staff who they'll be with paul here but that set so they get to experience the cafeteria and the library in the gym and all those places middle schools are typically bigger than three schools so it's it's kind of it's a different experience for the kids as well as the parents throughout the process and i think one of the big things about middle school too is it brings a lot of different opportunities for students so one of the big things that life does and does very very well is have a recreation department and i can't remember if we touch upon a leader yourself here but that's one of the one of about our own elementary classrooms and kind of typical typical transition cuts again it's not always but what happens usually you're going to get a lot of cases so john glenn the focus of that group too explain from from the elementary or middle school when you look at it if a student was here a butler what what middle school program that student that there's a good fit somewhere within that we just you your son or daughter but again it's really when i talk about the high school what happens from there is just since it becomes mushrooms out there are so many choices it becomes a little bit overwhelming the little bit more stream to middle school high school just a whole lot more choices so we try to help the parent just to try to narrow that down and say you know if your son or daughter was half chattery one of the classrooms this is probably pretty similar to one again each one of these the middle schools or a classroom is a microcosm of one of these could be one of the high school so i try to explain it the best i can to try to if you can remember a little bit about on four so we would have similar question like that of the high school but also we have a classroom that's really a high functioning classroom the students have more challenging like twenty five students so we have four classrooms there so again it's just a larger group of students were going to high school brought in high school beside about three years ago in primarily give vocational martin you know very stupid stuff and sometimes when a student comes in at age fifty two still the focus is on academics we want to make sure that you know we're trying to reach that child's full potential as you start to go to sixteen seventeen we have all these work sites to talk about a lot of laughs and that's when it starts to increase a little bit as they get older so not every student is going to be on the same track some may just keep  and then the other three days they're out of work so they could be at one of the last placements they offer to have individual placements but that program is really unique just for students and that transition  a lot of the students weren't going to become older students they wanted to have the experience of the auction to be able to go to school experience all the shops and all the trades have the academics so it's really grown i for whatever reason needing a chance to have someone really look at how they learn their strategies and interventions that work best for them and then the method know where are they academically how do they learn best what were they respond to there's a lot of different pieces that can go into that assessment so it's overseen by a social worker typically when students come to us they're dealing with some kind of social emotional or behavioral challenge so that's kind of the key and then as we get to know the student and see how they responded i mean we can put in another specialist to help us identify some of the other challenges that they might be dealing with occupational therapist might come in and look at some of the sensory integration needs and some of the century challenges that they're dealing with speech and language pathologist works collaboratively with both the counsellor under the occupational therapy their class to help with social skill development in the language trap nights to help students learn how to identify what their bodies feel like when they're isolated whether they're really excited or whether they're really angry and to learn strategies that they can use that help them to relax and get to a place that's common that enables them to participate in education and then once they're at that place one of the strategies that work instructional strategies that work to help them be an education process we do this in two different ways we can do it in an integrated setting which means that integrate into a lab classroom not not not integrated into my father's school so we have classrooms that we just all talked about in various locations working with a variety of students who have similar needs so we can do an assessment of forty or forty five day assessment in any one of those classrooms depending on where the student elementary level and you also have the girls currently from high school as well we also have a substantially separate classroom set up it happens to be located arlington high school but we've done elementary assessments you know location it's actually a pretty cool location you don't really have to touch the high school to get to the classroom there's a preschool right underneath it so the students come in the preschool entrance last year all of the assessments we did not classroom were elementary so we had a middle school or high school assessments didn't we might handle that a little bit differently in the classroom can be altered depending on who would benefit from the environment but the purpose of having it substantially separate is that if the student khan being referred for an assessment really isn't ready to be integrated into a full functioning classroom with a lot of students and they might need just a little bit more individualized pressurized attention when they first start so that's what the question is for christians on the again i kind of talked about this already but some of the some of the things that we look at and students do come from come for assessments and not every student may need every one of these areas typically psychosocial that's for a challenge as again it's part of the issue is that they're not understanding how to use their little language to get their their thoughts and their feelings across then the person hours speech and language but i'll just hear the counselor are working with students to not only identify what i feel i would want to control but how do i express how do i use my words to get that across sensory integration a lot of our students really seem to need some some pressure not all of them but a lot of them really benefit from outside pressure and they're able to actually tell us that we actually have students who after they've you know acclimated to our setting a used a lot that's really done successfully you know we have a couple of our occupational therapists who are certified yoga instructors who come and work with the students to help them learn to relax their bodies it's been really wonderful to see them that change students when they use t se strategies and again not every strategy works for every student but what the assessments fail to help them identify what works for them to bring them to a point where they can phase because we need to get to know the student and kind of we have all kinds of people work and we have written assessments but they're not your child we really want to get to know your child and so there's a process that every teacher goes through to help the child to make to the new setting and really feel i could definitely socially communication rise where they're where their baseline is where their learning was and where their frustration level is sometimes that's that's more formalized kind of  so different than colorado but similar in some ways but i didn't know what i was walking into i kind of discover things with my son you know so like are so much to learn as a parent so understanding the parents level of understanding that i would have happily take boys with well and that's the assessment part so and i know i know your son isn't in the assessment but part of why the social worker runs don't use the case manager for the assessment cases as we're really and we'll get to this to a little bit later we're always looking at the whole child and we want to know how that child responds and reacts in all their different environments so part of the assessment process is home component where the social worker who is wonderful will take the time and needless appearance and understand how that how that child is at home and in the community and in different settings so that we can incorporate those peer observations and responses and into into the whole valuation and assessment package as far as what i was thinking when you're asking that question what is our own parent miserly council which i get i can't remember if we tackle that in the slideshow or not but so lab has its order to work with their their children home or you know i want to know more about what's out there for our social activities or i'm like to know how how do i how do you deal with behavior or you know how do i encourage speech development within my home or those types of things so we're always happy to kind of hear what parents needs are and so to put our hands and have our own staff actually talk to parents about some of the questions that you have for your children in different  speeches are by far the largest related service group and many of them are very versed in the e c devices but i have to throw kudos to our preschool and elementary gentleman who is our speech and language pathologist whose specialty so our home services program is really meant to address your child's needs in the home and community environments and we have got looks as we have at the scene who goes into the home meets with the family  know what the child's needs are in the environment she also acts as a bridge between school and home so that skills that are being learned from the school can generalize into the environment the job of the b c v a is to design develop program and we have a different person service provider who comes in and implements the programs and models how goes the program should be and works with the parents so that the parent can learn how to implement those programs and systems and home in the home as well so the goal is eventually got the parents kind of get the training to help understand how to move through these developmental programs and processes with their child because they were differen knowledge base a b a is really kind of a broad on that categorizes different multiple instructional strategies yes it's applied to behavior it's applied to how you teach children breaking tasks down into task analyses and teaching step by step using discrete trial method of teaching it's a whole lot of different things and it's a strategy that we use in different classes f that we're able to go to a business we have job coaches that take our students go to work every day you probably see some of the lab vans driving around town some of those vans are at our schools but many of the vans to take your students to a w all the other students similar work sites you know we're just integrated within there where we have to get along and we have to understand the there's no business plan going to make sure that we're doing the right thing so our students can be there for a long time so  we have a full continue on with work experiences that students can can have and based on what they're ready for at the time so we some of our younger students might have jobs that are more in school with my jobs and we have some pretty actually it's extensive jobs throughout the lexington high school campus that are very meaningful and in what they do they deliver all the details from the central office to all the different buildings around how many you're familiar with that looks into high school campus rooms like a little mini k of tasks very greatly from one from one setting to another so very specialized in very integrated jobs that take a lot of intellectual and motor skills to jobs that are more entry level you know basic jobs and then find work is the extension of the other end of that one students who really are showing a level of independence both socially and skill wise independence wise to move out an awful lot of work sites so not all of the community based businesses we we just talked about we have a lot of occasional instructor more of our own staff who are working with our students and teaching of the th general employed over the skills and the the actual tasks i'm workers more specifically focused to the students interest it's an dependent placement so there's not a group of students that cuts one student based on his or her interest still a lab staff check in with that student but what we do is recruit the natural support from the jobsite who agrees who understands what we're trying to do and agrees to take our student kind of under under their wing teach them the skills of that job help them navigate some of the challenges that they might have that they're it's social problematics or you know skill based things are taking initiative to move from one task to the next or any of those generally ability skills how to accept constructive feedback all of those types of things so i work i guess is on that kind of that one step before your competitive job and students come to us you know they could not be ready for a more independent we actually grow apart and it's use to you know help the operation with the job it's very complex and it's not easy i go to build all these little to put it together of the fine motor but to really with students come to labs we want them to be able to have the opportunity to be there because spend time with their friends after school you knew the weekends so there are a myriad of opportunities to be able to be involved one of our high schools and maybe work for best buddies but gone vav with lab so everybody's very familiar with our students some of the app and this is just up from very cursory overview of some of the things many students come to us and have never had the opportunity to be part of a competitive sport so we actually are part of the future of the last private something with the social connections part of you know being with them in the public schools we have a lot of connections building to building best buddies is just has expanded significantly over the years you know our goal is to have the best place chapter almost every school but it's it's getting i think we have it all over our high school i don't know about middle school you know you work with the families to find a song because there's a lot of things that a lot of possibilities and a lot of these kids end up with a home i mean what what kind of help do you get the parents at that point so as far as adulthood to is making sure that your agencies that would be potentially supporting your child after twenty two so we also would help you make sure you get connected with the agencies that will be supportive