I want to wish each of you and your families a Merry Christmas and a New Year filled with peace, blessings, and much happiness.
1. Santa and Mrs. Claus
I would like to thank Santa and Mrs. Claus for visiting our pre-kindergarten Christmas programs, each of our school buildings, and nursing homes. I know they are especially busy this time of year. Santa and Mrs. Claus enjoyed getting their pictures taken with the students and even some staff this year!
2. Certified Occupational Therapist Assistant
Kelli Elmhorst has resigned and her last day was December 16.
Interviews were held this week. Lorie Schmitz has been offered and accepted our full time COTA position. She has experience as a COTA, Day Services Assistant at BRI, lead teacher at Sand Box, and owner/manager at a local organization. Lorie will work on obtaining her renewal licensure as a COTA. Upon that completion she will start working for Medford Schools.
Memorial Health Center has a COTA - Lorie Bernecker. She is available on Wed, Thurs, Fri hours from 7:45-8:45ish so she is back to hospital at 9:00, then 1:00-3:30 (so she is back at clinic by 3:30). Lorie will be working with us until our full time COTA position starts with the district.
3. Speech Language Pathologist
Memorial Health Center has been contacted about the availability of time for a speech language pathologist to fill our long term sub position in February for Eliza Decker. Mark Arndt is confirmed for January. Due to recent law changes, school districts are able to contract with places like MHC for speech language.
4. Job Coach/Employability Specialist at Alternative HS
Clarice Zenner has accepted the position of Job Coach/Employability Specialist through our Weyerhauser Grant. This position will be four hours per day in January and February then decrease to 8-10 hours total per week until the grant is done.
5. iPads for ELL
CESA 10 Title III Consortium will be purchasing I-Pads for use with ELL students. The I-Pads will be pre-loaded with a few free apps and they will schedule a special day for ELL teacher professional development that will include an introduction to the I-Pad, criteria for selecting apps, and ELL app resources. Medford Schools will receive 1 iPad through this consortium.
6. Wisconsin Disability Documentation Guide
A Wisconsin Disability Documentation Guide:Helping People with Disabilities
Prepare for Post-secondary Education and Training
http://www.dpi.wi.gov/sped/pdf/tran-disab-docum-guide.pdf
7. Special Education and Student Services Social Media
Twitter: www.twitter.com/Joseph_Greget
Blog: http://jgreget.blogspot.com
Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/pages/Medford-Area-Public-School-District-Special-Education-and-Student-Services/120488408019562
Website: https://sites.google.com/a/medford.k12.wi.us/specialed/
8. Contacting Me
If you need to reach me over Christmas Break it would be best to contact me through email or calling/texting my cell phone at 715-560-0171. I am not planning to be in the office at this time.
9. iPads
We have had several parents express interest and information on purchasing iPads for their children. We can forward them a list of applications that might be beneficial to download. They are also welcome to attend our monthly iPad/Educational Technology workshops that are held. If they would like to be added to our google group for more information, please let me know.
10. Special Education Meetings in January
January 3 = Elementary
January 10 = MAMS
January 17 = MASH
11. Safety and De-Escalation Training
This will be presented by Don Everhard focusing on high school and be held on January 17 as part of the building special education meeting. MASH Support staff, Certified Staff, and School Response Team members should plan on attending.
12. Early Release Day - February 28 - Round Table Presentations
Our February 28 Early Release Day will feature a round table presentation of area organizations. They will each provide information on their services and supports available. Confirmed so far include: Taylor County Family Support, Parent Resource Center, UW Extension, Abiding Care Pregnancy Resource Center, Taylor County Mental Health Services, and Big Brothers Big Sisters of Taylor County. More will be added.
2:15 to 3:30 for Paraprofessionals
4:00 to 5:00 for Certified Staff, Parents, Community Members, and other Paraprofessionals
13. 2011 Wisconsin Federal Funding Conference
There will be a Federal Funding Conference focusing on Title I, Special Education, Maintenance of Effort, Funding RTI, and more held on February 27 and 28. Director of Business Services, Director of Curriculum, Building Principal, and I are planning to attend. www.wasbo.com .This is a repeat conference from November when it registration was full and there was a waiting list of districts looking to attend.
14. Taylor County Transition Advisory Council
Our next meeting will be held on Thursday January 12 at 12:00 pm at the D.O. We will be looking at a Transition Night for Families with Disabilities similar to one held in the Marshfield School District. We have obtained their list of organizations, schedule, etc on how to run this event.
15. iPads
If you are having problems with updating your iPads it could be there are too many applications on there and some will need to be deleted. Auto B Good, History Maps of the World, XE Elementary, Time/Money/Fractions, Toy Story, Proloquo2Go are some of the larger memory apps. It may also be because the iPad has not been updated to 5.0.1 yet.
If you are having an issue with an iPad, please email me or ask me if there are issues. I will come to the buildings to pick up the iPad if necessary. Please do not send through interoffice mail to me at the D.O.
I currently have some time to update your iPads to the new operating system of 5.0.1. If you have not given yours to me already, this would be a good time right after Christmas Break.
16. Working in Medford
I wanted to take a minute and say thank you to all of our staff who travel to work in Medford whether you are coming from Marshfield, Stratford, Wausau, Eau Claire, and/or Flambeau. These are long distances and we appreciate you traveling those distances to come to work here in our schools. I hope that your travels are safe both to and from Medford.
In addition, thank you to each of the staff who reside in the Medford and Stetsonville Communities and making these areas your home. Thank you as well for working in our school district and I hope you each have safe travels as well to and from work each day.
17. Christmas Break
I hope you all enjoy your Christmas vacation with family and friends. I hope you have a safe holiday and we will see you in January.
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