The expectations and additional requirements that are placed on schools continue to grow at an exponential rate. Public school districts are required to provide an increasing array of services to address the needs of students who attend both public and private schools. Each year, new laws are passed at the state and federal levels which add mandates, usually without the necessary funding, to the list of services that we are required to provide.

The intent of every new regulation is laudable. Our state and federal legislators listen to the concerns of their constituents and work to pass legislation that aims to improve the quality of life  experiences for, in our case, school-aged children.

Many of these laws have helped to guarantee the basic rights of children and assure that all students are provided with an appropriate education that best addresses their individual learning needs. The services are often extremely costly to deliver. However, they have enabled many more students, who may otherwise not have been successful, to succeed.

When we think about people who work in schools, typically teachers, a secretary and the principal come to mind. To provide the types of mandated services that public schools offer, you will now find a variety of specially trained professionals working in our schools.

Special education teachers deliver individualized educational supports to students with a range of disabilities including learning and behavior disorders, cognitive impairments, autism and physical impairments, to name only a few. These supports are customized to address the unique learning needs of each student with the ultimate goal of helping them to reach their full potential.

With the increasing number of English-language learners in schools today, districts need additional bilingual teachers who use specific instructional approaches to help these students learn English as quickly as possible.

School nurses play a crucial role in supporting students in school. In addition to providing emergency medical care throughout the day, these professionals develop individualized care plans to manage and address the diverse and complex health needs of our students.

For students struggling with social, emotional and behavioral issues, psychologists and social workers counsel, mentor and collaborate with teachers, parents and other mental health professionals. They proactively help to address the behavioral and social problems that interfere with school success.

Occupational and physical therapists work with students who have physical, developmental and other medical conditions that interfere with learning. The goal of these therapists is to improve students’ ability to function as independently as possible and effectively perform daily living tasks.

Communication is an essential skill that many of us take for granted. Speech and language pathologists treat all types of language, speech, voice, fluency and related disorders that interfere with a student’s ability to communicate effectively.

Better Hearing and Speech Month is celebrated in May with this year’s slogan being Connecting People through Communication.  Please join me in honoring this particular group of professionals and thanking all of our specially trained support personnel who provide these highly specialized services, which are instrumental in ensuring that our students are successful in high school and beyond.

En Espanol

Las expectativas y necesidades adicionales que se implementan en el crecimiento continuo de las escuelas siguen creciendo a un ritmo exponencial. Los distritos escolares públicos están obligados a proporcionar una creciente gama de servicios para atender las necesidades de los estudiantes que asisten a las escuelas públicas y privadas. Cada año, aprueban leyes nuevas  a nivel estatal y federal las cuales añaden mandatos, a la lista de servicios que estamos obligados a proporcionar, generalmente sin la financiación necesaria.

La intención de cada nuevo reglamento es loable. Nuestro estado y legisladores federales escuchan las preocupaciones de sus electores y experiencias de trabajo para aprobar una legislación que pretenda mejorar la calidad de vida, en nuestro caso, niños en edad escolar.

Muchas de estas leyes han ayudado a garantizar los derechos básicos de los niños y se aseguran que todos los estudiantes reciban una educación apropiada que resuelva mejor sus necesidades de aprendizaje individual. Ofrecer estos servicios a menudo es extremadamente costoso. Sin embargo, han permitido a más estudiantes, los cuales a lo mejor no hubiesen tenido éxito, a sobresalir.

Cuando pensamos en personas que trabaja en las escuelas, por lo general maestros, una secretaria y un director vienen a la mente. Para proporcionar la clase de servicios establecidos que ofrecen las escuelas públicas, ahora encontrará una variedad de profesionales específicamente entrenados que están trabajando en nuestras escuelas.

Los maestros de educación especial dan apoyo educativo individualizado a estudiantes con una amplia gama de discapacidades, incluyendo trastornos de conducta y aprendizaje, discapacidad cognitiva, autismo y discapacidades físicas, por mencionar solo algunas. Esta ayuda es personalizada para atender las necesidades de aprendizaje únicas de cada estudiante con el único objetivo de ayudarlos a alcanzar todo su potencial.

Con el creciente número de estudiantes aprendices de inglés en las escuelas, los distritos necesitan más maestros bilingües. Los cuales utilicen enfoques educativos específicos para ayudar a los estudiantes a aprender inglés lo más rápido posible.

Las enfermeras de las escuelas juegan un papel crucial en el desarrollo de los estudiantes en la escuela. Además de proporcionar atención médica de emergencia durante todo el día, estos profesionales desarrollan planes de atención individual para administrar y atender las diversas y complejas necesidades de salud de nuestros estudiantes.

Para estudiantes que luchan con cuestiones sociales, emocionales y de comportamiento, psicólogos y consejeros de trabajo social, instruyen y colaboran con maestros, padres y otros profesionales de salud mental. Proactivamente ayudan a identificar los problemas sociales de comportamiento que interfieren con su éxito en la escuela.

Los terapeutas ocupacionales y físicos trabajan con los estudiantes que tienen condiciones de desarrollo físico y otras condiciones médicas que interfieren con su aprendizaje. El objetivo de estos terapeutas es mejorar la capacidad de los estudiantes para funcionar  independientemente como sea posible y para realizar las tareas cotidianas.

La comunicación es una habilidad esencial que muchos de nosotros damos por hecho. Los Patólogos del habla tratan todo tipo problema de voz, fluidez y desordenes relacionados que interfieren con la habilidad de los estudiantes para comunicarse efectivamente.

El mes de Escuchar y Hablar Mejor se celebra en mayo y este año el eslogan es Conectando Gente A través de la Comunicación.  Por favor acompáñenos a rendir honores a este particular grupo de profesionales y agradecerle a todo nuestro personal especialmente entrenado quienes proveen estos servicios altamente especializados, los cuales son un instrumento para asegurar que nuestros estudiantes tengan éxito en la escuela secundaria y más adelante.

In English

Retarded.

It’s a hurtful word.

Addams and Mead junior high schools and Lincoln Prairie School joined an ongoing, national effort this spring known as Spread the Word to End the Word. The campaign is intended to have individuals, schools, organizations and communities pledge their support to stop using the words “retard” and “retarded.”

Both junior high schools hosted a whole week’s worth of activities, including having students visit the www.r-word.org, and sign the online pledge.

Addams students created a public service announcement which can be viewed online at http://www.schooltube.com/video/2473913b3a894d02bf8e/. In the announcement, students, who have friends or siblings with disabilities, spoke about how they feel when people use the words “retard” or “retarded” around them.

Mead included its Spread the Word campaign in its annual Celebration of Diversity, Acceptance and Tolerance. Weeklong activities were designed to help students recognize and stamp out prejudice in all its forms.

One of Mead’s activities was led by Mead students Ted Dernekxis and Nick Senase, who have been selected to serve as ambassadors for the Illinois Special Olympics. They talked to their classmates about how wrong it is for people to describe them based on their disability. “I have Asperger’s Syndrome, but it’s not the only thing that defines who I am,” Ted said. “Neither should it only define anyone with a disability.”

Each Lincoln Prairie middle level student wrote a personal commitment pledge on a small hand. These were collected in a scrapbook and sent with two Lincoln Prairie students to the Project UNIFY conference in March in Bloomington, Ill. Project UNIFY works with intellectually disabled students and their non-disabled peers.  Its goal is to create a corps of leaders who understand how alike we all are, and who advocate for the equal treatment of all students in their communities.

The District 54 Special Olympics program received a $1,000 grant from Special Olympics Illinois to support the programs in District 54.

Registration for District 54’s Summer Band and Orchestra program has begun.  District 54 students who have completed fifth, sixth, or seventh grade and have had lessons on their instrument for at  least one school year are eligible to enroll. Summer Band and Orchestra will take place July 9-26 (Mondays-Thursdays) at Frost Junior High School.  Click here for the 2012 Summer Music Registration Form. Registration is by mail only and must be received by June 21. If you have questions, please contact the band/orchestra teacher at your school or call (847) 357-5138.

District 54 has set Monday, June 4 as the graduation date for eighth-grade students.

Eisenhower Junior High School will graduate at 7 p.m. in the Hoffman Estates High School gym on Higgins Road in Hoffman Estates. Lincoln Prairie School will graduate at 6 p.m. from the auditorium at the same high school.

Mead Junior High School will graduate at 6 p.m. at Conant High School on Plum Grove Road in Hoffman Estates, followed by Frost Junior High School at 8:30 p.m.

Keller Junior High School will graduate at 6 p.m. at Schaumburg High School on Schaumburg Road in Schaumburg followed by Addams Junior High School at 8:30 p.m.

Other students will attend school until Tuesday, June 5. On June 5, all elementary students will attend school from 8:40 to 10:40 a.m. Junior high students will attend school from 7:40 to 9:40 a.m. that day. Lincoln Prairie will attend school from 9:15 to 11:15 a.m. There are no early childhood or kindergarten classes on June 5.

School District 54 and the Schaumburg Park District present a multicultural fair from 11:30 a.m. to 2:30 p.m. on Saturday, April 14, 2012, at the Community Recreation Center, 505 N. Springinsguth Road in Schaumburg. The event’s theme is A Garden of Diversity – Celebrating Our Community’s Cultures.

District 54 school groups will perform, as will professional groups hired by the Schaumburg Park District. Other activities will include multicultural crafts, a book walk, a puppet show, face painting, henna painting, balloon making, and other and games and activities for all ages.

When you’re tired of playing, sit down and sample food from around the world. Some of the food vendors will serve food from Japan, Italy, Mexico, China and other countries. One restaurant will even conduct a noodle-making demonstration.

For more information, please contact Julie Colgrove, director of the District 54 Department of Language and Culture, at (847) 357-5096.

District 54 has once again received the Bright Red Apple Award from SchoolSearch, a company that offers relocating families information about schools.

The Bright Red Apple award is based on five factors (obtained from 2011 Illinois State Report Card data):  academic performance, student-teacher ratio, expenditure per student, educational level of teachers and average teacher salary.

Only 79 Illinois school districts (out of 868 school districts) were honored with the award this year for striving to provide their students with an outstanding educational environment.

All districts in Illinois were considered for the award and the award criteria were based on objective factors – so that all districts would be judged fairly. The award criteria were based on the primary areas of concern of most of SchoolSearch’s relocating families. While statistical factors are revealing, it is very important for families to visit schools that are of interest to them.

To obtain the award each district must have the following:

1. At least 60.4 percent of teachers must have a master’s degree or higher.
2. The student-teacher ratio must be 18.8:1 or better.
3. The operating expenditure per student must be at least $10,730.
4. The average teacher salary must be at least $55,565.
5. The average percentage of third- through eighth-grade students who meet or exceed percentages on the Illinois Standards Achievement Test for reading and math must be at least 89.5.

SchoolSearch is a Kansas City-based firm that has provided comparative school district information for corporations, homebuilders, school districts, libraries, real estate professionals and relocating families since 1991.

Families of students currently enrolled in District 54 will receive a pre-printed registration form for the 2012-13 school year in the mail the week of April 2. This form must be reviewed, signed, dated and returned to the school your child is currently attending by Friday, April 13th in order to have your child placed on a future class list and to ensure busing is set up for the 2012-13 school year for students who qualify for free busing (home is 1.5 miles or more from school).

An annual renewal of parental permission for Internet, email and district network was included on your child’s registration form for the upcoming school year in the spring of 2012. Failure to sign and return these documents by the deadline date will deny your child’s access to the Internet, email and district network for the 2012-13 school year and your child will not be able to access the above until the new registration and Internet forms are returned.

If your child is not currently enrolled in a District 54 school, please visit your neighborhood school to register. For more information, visit http://sd54.org/registration.