Florence Unified School District No. 1

Adam Leckie

Director of Exceptional Student Services

March 2014

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Board of Education

Bob Dailey, President Denise Guenther, Vice-President

Rose Marie M. Monks, Member Jim Thomas, Member Janeane Candelaria, Member

Director’s Summary

Conferences/Trainings/Meetings:

•Kristin Stevens, Nikki Fyffe, Maria Hunthausen, Victor Mukhopadhyay, Pearl Russo and Katherine Mullin went to “Tying Together Standards and Activities for the Moderate to Severe Population” designed to integrate the common course for students with intellectual disabilities.

•Bradley Garber, Jeff Brenan, Adam Leckie, Pam Fesko and Amy Levinton attended the SEAA Day of professional development, with Dr. Steve Leinwand. Dr. Leinwand provided strategies for integrating math instruction for students with disabilities.

•Kade Johnson, Aimee King, Beth Coweles, Amy Levinton and Scott Johnson attended the BET-C (Behavior, Education, Technology) conference which provided professional development in each of these areas including PBIS.

Materials:

•STAR Program – designed to assist our students with autism at the pre-school level. Materials were provided by the State through a grant, but the District chose to expand and purchase additional items.

•NASCO-Common Core (math, social studies, book set and CD text Math set)

•CPR – First Aid Supplies

•N2Y – Online Learning System for Apollo program. (Online curriculum that ties common core into modified, functional curriculum.)

Medicaid:

•Reimbursement for medicaid is currently $63,387.77

Project Bridge:

• Project Bridge helped 248 people with food boxes

• 3 families were helped with paying a disconnect notice bill

• 25 families were helped with community resources

Gifted:

• Tara Walter presented on Differentiated Instruction in January for gifted site coordinators and teachers

• A total of 36 kids have qualified for gifted this year

Special Olympics:

•Poston Butte and Florence High School participated in the first Unified Track Meet of the year at Coolidge High School. We had well over 50 students competing with 5 other Chandler area schools.

•We are working on expanding the Unified Sports program to our junior highs. We anticipate having teams at Anthem and Walker Butte participating in basketball 4th quarter.

Challenges:

•Recently, many students with disabilities are having discipline issues. We are working with our site administrators and psychologists to provide the necessary supports at the home schools, and looking at appropriate placements when needed.

•The SPED department is attempting to get some educational initiatives off the ground including PBIS, RTI, and assistive technology integration.

Successes:

•We are going to host a facilitated IEP training for the region in partnership with ADE this fall. This will provide the district personnel with training necessary to run more effective and efficient IEP meetings.

• We have added a preschool class to our Walker Butte campus. This was needed due to the increase in our preschool student numbers.

Adam Leckie

Director of Exceptional Student Services

Board of Education

Bob Dailey, President Denise Guenther, Vice-President

Rose Marie M. Monks, Member Jim Thomas, Member Janeane Candelaria, Member