Submitted by: Susannah Flicker

Learning Support Department Meeting Notes, 4/5/22:

We discussed:

-Our contribution to the curriculum review tool, our thoughts on how neurodiversity/disability can be more included across the curriculum.

-Two main areas for growth in this are: representation in curriculum/texts and in assessment methods

-Jess shared about next year’s work with Eye To Eye-mentorship/affinity groups 

-We had a cross-division check-in/share about changes in personnel/programs for next year.

Submitted by: Susannah Flicker

Learning Support Department Meeting Notes, 2/15/22

We discussed the summer curriculum institute and the approach that our department specifically would take in terms of contributing to a curriculum assessment tool since, in our roles as learning specialists, we typically do not create/write a lot of curriculum.

Our discussion brought us to the conclusion that our approach to this is twofold:

1. Examining ways in which disability and neurodiversity is or is not represented in the curriculum across subject areas, and looking for tools and resources to promote more inclusivity in terms of neurodiversity and disability.
2. Gathering and documenting best practices for classroom teachers and learning specialists that promote equity and inclusion for different types of learners and that counteract the deficit model of ability and learning differences.

Submitted by: Susannah Flicker

At our meeting on 1/11/22 we continued our departmental discussion about collecting best practices for equity and inclusion across the three divisions.

We discussed one example that was brought up concerning using practices in the classroom that truly acknowledge diversity among learners and explicitly discussing this with students regularly. This example specifically was about students who experience stress/anxiety around timed activities, and finding ways to accommodate this while also helping to destigmatize it for students and help them to grow more confident in their ability to handle it.

We then had a discussion about standards based grading in the middle and high school divisions and the ways in which it impacts students with learning differences specifically. We discussed how we have approached grading for students so that they are not graded based on their disabilities, and how to strike a balance between helping them to develop strategies and also making sure that they are being assessed in a way that truly reflects their progress and efforts.

Lower school faculty shared about messaging in reports concerning whether students are performing at, above or below grade level and the impact this may have on students and families.

We decided that in our next meeting we would discuss math support across the divisions, as well as groupings of students and how those are created.

Submitted by: Susannah Flicker

Learning Support Department Meeting Notes, 11/9/21

1. We started with each person sharing something that has been going well/a positive from the past few weeks. Examples: middle school learning differences affinity group formation and first meeting, groups for reading and math support in lower school.

2. Susannah shared about meeting with Kalil to discuss DEI work as it pertains to the learning support department, and reiterated the goal of working to collect best practices for equity and inclusion across the divisions.

3. Discussed different ways of approaching the idea of “best practices” specific to learning support: one way is to look at teacher practices in the classroom (ie differentiation, using learning specialists for push-in vs. pull-out support, differences across the divisions) and another way would be in terms of our own practice as learning specialists or the ways in which learning support is structured at the divisional and/or institutional level.

4. This led us into a lengthy discussion about ways in which access to outside supports and evaluations could be made more equitable. The HS learning specialists shared that they have had a lot of success with helping families to access free evaluations through the DOE and getting access to services through DOE providers, while the middle school and lower school has not had the same success and there is a concern about low or no cost services not being available for families who need them the most.

5. Plans for next meeting include more sharing of resources between divisions, and more explicit discussion of best practices for our department.

Ideas for next meetings-what would be most helpful to the department…. Judith and my MS faculty meeting coming up-share ideas if you have them

Submitted by: Susannah Flicker

Agenda:

1. Discussion/Share: What’s different about your role in your division this year? Is it a positive or a negative?

                       MS: able to function as learning specialists again, learning lab open,                                  push-in and pull-out support 

                        HS: “back to normal”

                         LS: struggling with restrictions to pull-out support, many students                                    with low skills who need more support, but                 schedules/expectations aren’t allowing for learning specialists to work with them

2. Overarching goal of department work: go over the institutional DEI goals and talk about how to adapt this to our department and practice

3. Questions/ideas

4. MS shared notes from recent faculty meeting re Supporting teachers-doing a reset to start from a place of compassion, looking at students’ challenges as a need being expressed, acknowledging that everyone’s been impacted by the pandemic- teachers need support in differentiating, supporting executive functioning, etc.

5. For next meeting: gathering best practices that we feel promote equity and inclusion

6. Going forward: inviting Kalil to a meeting, meeting with students from the HS learning differences affinity group

Submitted by: Susannah Flicker

As a department we are brainstorming ways to more effectively address diversity and equity in working with students and families.

We discussed a number of ideas and plan to come up with a written proposal of our ideas, which we will work on developing next week.

Submitted by: Susannah Flicker

In preparation for our discussion during this meeting we read the first section of the book, Me and White Supremacy by Layla F. Saad. I prepared a slideshow of some of the key terms and concepts and reflective prompts that stood out to me. At the end of our discussion of the slides, I posed the questions to the department:

How can we bring these ideas and questions to our work as individual learning specialists?

How can we affect change as a department and in the institution to better support and include BIPOC?

One topic that was brought up as a relevant area of focus for our department was to work on how we partner with families, particularly when students are struggling to be successful in our school and require additional support. We all feel a need to better understand why trust is often not established, and the ways in which race and class impact these relationships. We all feel that there is a need to explore this both as individual practitioners and from the institutional/structural perspective.

We will continue to read sections of the book, and in our next meeting, will work on identifying areas of change and inquiry we want to focus on. I will be following up with all members of the department before winter break to get specifics from them before our meeting in January.

Submitted by: Susannah Flicker

-Discussion: embarking on DEI work as a department. How does this look for us as learning specialists? What are the ways in which we, as a department and as individual practitioners, are working to include and support students and families of color? What are the areas in which bias and exclusion may show up?

Some of the topics that came up in our discussion of these questions were:

-the need to diversify the clinicians/evaluators that we refer families to

-the need to explore the notion that smartness = whiteness and how this may be evident at LREI

-equity and the assumptions that are made about families’ ability to access support outside of school

-how the school can support families who don’t have the financial means to access tutoring, evaluations, and other outside supports

We decided that we would like to read the text Me and White Supremacy by Layla Saad and use the exercises in the book to frame and structure our next few conversations.