RGP Newsletter – Mexico & the Americas Update July - September 2016
NEWSLETTER - University of New Mexico 2016 Newsletter.pdfNew Mexico PED FOCUS Tiered Quality Rating...
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In every neighborhood, all across our country, there are good people insisting on a good start for the young, and doing something about it. —Fred Rogers The World According to Mister Rogers Wonderful things are happening for young children in Jal, New Mexico! Preschool teach- ers—DeAnna Ramos and Jamie Galindo with the support of Jal administrators—have built an impressive preschool program. On January 20th Jal Public Schools Superintendent, Brian Snider, Mrs. Ramos, and Mrs. Galindo were awarded the New Mexico PED FOCUS Tiered Quality Rating and Improvement System Outstanding Educator Award. is award recognizes exemplary public school preschool programs in the state of New Mexico. e award plaque states: In Appreciation for Daring Greatly to Provide High Quality Early Childhood Education and Inclusive Practices for All Children 2015–2016 School Year DeAnna is a New Mexico PreK teacher. Jamie is a special education teacher. DeAnna and Jamie dreamed of developing an inclusive program and they worked hard to make it happen. Together they provide a high-quality inclusive environment for all children in their program. (Continued on Page 2) In This Issue • Outstanding Educator Awards • Featured Resources from the Full Participation Institute • What’s in it for me? • Follow the Bright Spots • Consultant Spotlight • Perspectives University of New Mexico Health Sciences Center/ CDD / University Center for Excellence in Developmental Disabilities Education, Research, and Service March 2016 NEWSLETTER
Transcript of NEWSLETTER - University of New Mexico 2016 Newsletter.pdfNew Mexico PED FOCUS Tiered Quality Rating...
Jal Public Schools Teachers and Superintendent Recognized as
Outstanding Educators
In every neighborhood, all across our country, there are good people
insisting on a good start for the young, and doing
something about it.
—Fred Rogers
The World According to Mister Rogers
Wonderful things are happening for young children in Jal, New Mexico! Preschool teach-ers—DeAnna Ramos and Jamie Galindo with the support of Jal administrators—have built an impressive preschool program. On January 20th Jal Public Schools Superintendent, Brian Snider, Mrs. Ramos, and Mrs. Galindo were awarded the New Mexico PED FOCUS Tiered Quality Rating and Improvement System Outstanding Educator Award. This award recognizes exemplary public school preschool programs in the state of New Mexico. The award plaque states:
In Appreciation for Daring Greatly to Provide High Quality Early Childhood Education
and Inclusive Practices for All Children2015–2016 School Year
DeAnna is a New Mexico PreK teacher. Jamie is a special education teacher. DeAnna and Jamie dreamed of developing an inclusive program and they worked hard to make it happen. Together they provide a high-quality inclusive environment for all children in their program. (Continued on Page 2)
In This Issue• OutstandingEducatorAwards• FeaturedResourcesfromtheFull Participation Institute• What’sinitforme?• FollowtheBrightSpots• ConsultantSpotlight• Perspectives
University of New Mexico Health Sciences Center/ CDD / University Center for Excellence in Developmental Disabilities Education, Research, and Service
March 2016N E W S L E T T E R
Deanna and Jamie both recognized the support they received from their principal at Jal Elementary, Mrs. Robinson, the Jal School Board of Education, and its superintendent, Brian Snider. They also expressed their appreciation for their educational assistants, Gina Aragon and Andrea May. Together they form a strong team. Mrs. Galindo shared, “I am humbled by this incredible honor. We love our jobs and appre-ciate NM PED FOCUS for this recognition of our passion.Wecouldn’tdowhat’sbestforkidswithoutthe support of our incredible EAs and the Jal Public Schools administrators and staff.”
In addition to the Outstanding Educator Award, the entire Jal Elementary Preschool Teaching Team received an additional recognition. Superintendent Snider presented them with a proclamation of recog-nition for outstanding achievement and exceptional accomplishment from the New Mexico House of Representatives.
(Continued from Page 1)
for young children across three main areas:1) Motivation and Partnership2) Settings, Staffing and Service Delivery3) Funding Streams and Accountability.”
Link:http://eclkc.ohs.acf.hhs.gov/hslc/tta-system/cultural-linguistc/fcp/docs/dll-strategies.pdf
This link takes you to an eight-page (including refer-ences) guide Strategies for Supporting All Dual Lan-guage Learners. If you are unable to use the Control + Click option to navigate to the site, then copy and paste this URL into your browser. The development of this guide was funded by the Office of Head Start. It is a simple, easy-to-read primer for successfully working with children who are dual language learn-ers. The guide contains tips and case studies that will likely be an asset to your program.
Link: http://webapp.northhampton.edu/streamingvideo/bicc.wmv
This link takes you to a homepage. Here, click on the first page listed to reach the eight-page Evi-denced Based Practices That Support Access for Each Child. This guide includes graphics and assistive technology references. It is a helpful resource for understanding universal design for learning (UDL) and can be used by school staff to support access to learning for all children.
This past December the Full Participation Institute hosted more than 500 New Mexico public school ed-ucators over a three-day event at the Hyatt Regency Tamaya Resort north of Albuquerque. The present-ers at the institute shared a wide variety of resources to support the full participation of each child in the public school preschool program. Below are fea-tured resources to revisit as you begin to plan your programs for next year.
Link:http://www.nectac.org/~pdfs/topics/inclusion/financeinclu.pdf This very useful link takes you to an April 2012 re-source entitled: Considerations for Making Finance Decisions to Promote Preschool Inclusion: A Toolkit. This seven-page guide is a quick and informative reference for district- and school-level personnel. Thisexcerptfromthetoolkit’sintroductionprovidesa taste of its utility: “The following chart is a frame-work of fiscal considerations for state administrators and local programs to address as they strive to braid funds in order to create blended programs
Full Participation InstituteFeatured Resources
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The educational imperative of inclu-sion resides in the ability of educators to impart upon the majority, without conscious, accep-tance and compas-sion towards others that transcends a moment or time.
— E . Toledo Parent
PED FOCUS consultants bring their expertise in early childhood, developmentally appropriate practice, and specifically, their knowledge of the PED FOCUS Criteria and the New Mexico Authentic Observation Documentation and Curriculum Planning Process to their partnerships with participating FOCUS school/classroom administrators and teachers.
FOCUS consultants currently provide consultation, coaching, and training to thirty-three New Mexico public school districts. Sometimes the consultant is there only to listen and acknowledge the hard work the teachers are doing every day in the classroom. After a site visit last week a teacher sent this e-mailto one of the FOCUS consultants:
Perspectives on Inclusion
Our job is to serve children, to do what each child needs so that they feel successful. So, including stu-dents with special needs is no different than serv-ing any child, because we are going to do whatever each child needs. Our planning must be strategic so that we make full use of our time and target specific needs. With the help of teachers with experience in
this area, we’ve been able do this. —DeAnna Ramos
Preschool TeacherJal Public Schools
What’s in it for me?
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—NM PED FOCUS Consultant Guide, 2015
I have been feeling kind of frustrated. You know how that goes as a teacher. Anyway, your
visit yesterday and the kind words of encour-agement from you really gave me a boost! It
seemed like you understand my situation and I really appreciated talking with you.
Take the time to reach out to your consultant and utilize his/her expertise. Your FOCUS consultant is an added support to both teachers and administra-tors, as together we strive to meet the goal adopted by the New Mexico Early Learning Advisory Council that “every child in New Mexico will have an equal opportunity for success in school, based upon equi-table access to an aligned and high quality learning system.”
—Special Education Preschool Teacher
Consultant Spotlight
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For more information on the CDD PED FOCUS please visit www.cdd.unm.edu/ecln/ped-focus
PED FOCUS StaffKristy JonesProgram [email protected] Teresa CarmackTraining & Development [email protected]
Vonell HuittTraining & Development [email protected]
Alex RuizTraining & Development [email protected]
Nancy TreatTraining & Development [email protected]
Terri TapiaEducation & Development [email protected]
Jody AlpersTraining & Development [email protected]
Suzanne HarperTraining & Development [email protected]
Deborah JacksonTraining & Development [email protected]
Laura SalemTraining & Development [email protected]
