At our District Staff development, we discussed the SEPP referral process. Here is a short version of that session that lays out the most important details for you. Download the document, “precursors-to-a-sepp-referral.”  

Hope you all are doing well.

Download an example of a Behavior Intervention Plan here.

Download a blank SEPP referral here.

Download a resource from the The Center for Effective Collaboration and Practice specifically on FBA’s and BIPs.

Download a powerpoint presentation on Behavior Intervention Plans created by Liz Rudrud, South High School Psychologist.

Suppose you were asked to be a part of a group whose primary task was TO LEARN FROM EACH OTHER such that you not only became better teachers, but were able to show demonstrable increases in student performance in the classes you teach? Suppose for once, your task wasn’t to attend a meeting that drones on and on with no end or gain in sight, but instead you left with new ideas and tools in hand and the task of returning to the group later to share the actual results of the ideas/tools? Suppose for just a minute that for once you were a part of a group that asked the questions, “are the students learning, how do we know, and what are we going to do about it if they are not?” I know; such a group would be nothing less than radical.

The reason I’m raising such a scenario is that MPS is, and has for some time, been promoting the idea of teachers forming “Professional Learning Communities” (henceforth known as a PLC) as a primary Staff Development and student achievement strategy. PLC’s are teacher-teams and are, at their best, “embedded” within the structures, schedule, and calendar of the school. As an example, a team may meet during the 2nd half of a Late Start day to pursue its goals/objectives. Another, even better example of “embeddedness” would be a team that has a common prep time that allows the team to meet on a regular basis.

How does this apply to Life Skills in Minneapolis? Quite naturally, we have the most in common as it relates to our students, our curriculum, and the desired outcomes for students. We have spent several years working on common course descriptions, and begun discussions this year on sharing “resources” with each other. So where are we? We know what we want the students to learn. Do we know IF they are learning? If so, how? What are teachers using to measure progress? What would we do if such tools for measuring progress showed the students are not making progress?

Will we rise to the level of becoming a Professional Learning Community with other Life Skill teachers at our own school or on a district level? There are no clear answers as of yet. The answers depend on the kinds of commitments we get from administrators as well as our own personal commitments to such a process. In the meantime, I hope you’ll give some thought as to whether or not you’d make the commitment to explore this more thoroughly in the fall.

Click on this link if you want to read more about Professional Learning Communities.

If you’ve never visited the webpage for The Center for Effective Collaboration and Practice then you owe it to yourself to do so.  I think this particular resource is so important, I’ve placed it on the right sidebar as a permanent link.   Also, visit the website for LD Online which has also been placed in the sidebar.

For the past 3 years there has been a concerted effort to increase the quality of Life Skill courses, teaching, and program uniformity across the district.  We have made great progress in all of these areas.  Great things are happening.  In February, we met and began generating a list of resources we often use in our rooms and this was a good start to naming for ourselves and others just what we do from day to day.

At the end of the day, what matters to our students is not that they all learned from the same textbook, but that what they get from us is of a very high quality.  As a citywide program, we know our population better than anyone and we’ve been very clear about what we believe they need the most from us, in terms of content.  So the next biggest question is simple:  From where cometh that content?  

I personally believe that we are as capable than any publishing company of generating high quality assignments for the transition courses.  If we teach skills that are needed for everyday life, then the content most often lies right before our eyes in our own homes in the forms of bills, labels, financial documents, calendars, instructions, and so on.  It might take a few minutes to create a meaningful worksheet using such things from our homes, but that at least allows us to adapt material for our audience.  And up to now, I have never found a published curriculum that covers such areas in enough depth or that provides enough practice.  To be sure, there are some ‘okay’ things out there, but nothing that could cover the amount of time our courses are taught.

This is where we have our challenge.  To provide sufficient (and hopefully more uniform) material of a high quality for our students.  I have had great hope that many of you would offer such homemade assignments to each other at this website, but frankly, “it ain’t hapnin” right now.  But in the days ahead, we have an opportunity to show that we can, will, and do provide such high quality assignments to our students.  It will not likely be the case that we will all be able to do whatever we want to do in our own classrooms.

Would you consider making a backup of the documents you’ve created for your courses on a disc and make those available this summer, perhaps even on this website?  If you are, I would be more than happy to work on uploading such things here on lifeskillsmpls.

And, from now on, you’ll receive automatic emails alerting you to the fact that a new post has been created.

Jim Barnhill, South High

Willie Radtke sent a recommendation for “English to Use” by AGS as a means to develop writing skills in Post Secondary Strategies.In Adult and Family Living, Willie has used “Totally Awesome Health” by Meeks & Heit.   

Several other resources were suggested that relate across multiple courses.

1.  The Boystown Social Skill program offers a direct way to teach the critical job related skills on the spot.  The 16 social skills can be found here, but can also be found in numerous other places by doing a google search.
2. Project C3 is an incredible resource that helps students find everything else they’d ever need, IN ONE LOCATION.  You need to have as a casemanager.  They need to have it as a person who may one day need to find critical resources in the community.
3. Google Earth.  Talk to your school’s computer tech if you need it downloaded onto your computer.

At our Feb 29th staff development meeting, the following resources were suggested by the Life Skill teachers in attendance.

1. This website!  When you create an assignment in on your own computer, why not share it with others.  There is no greater resource than each other.  Simply attach the document in an email to Jim Barnhill.  Name the course for which you used the assignment, and provide a short description of the assignment if you wish.
2. United Streaming.  Go to your media specialist to figure this out.  It is more than worth it.
3. Edhelper.com is commonly used among staff for all areas.  There is a fee.  Staff can split the cost of it or even inquire as to whether or not Special Ed might pay for it. Ha!  Good one.
4. Teacher Magazine (and online resource for teachers)
5. A magazine called “Extra,” though I haven’t been able to find it through online searches so far.
6. Various math websites including the Math Worksheet Site, and A Plus Math
7. Remedia Publications offers an excellent number of resources you’d have to purchase, though very reasonable.  One of the best that targets real life math problem solving for consumer situations is called “Shopping Mall Math.”

There are a number of videos available at United Streaming for this class.  Doing a search on “teen pregnancy” will bring you to a great video of a group of New Jersey teens who do a great job of discussing the difficulties they face as teen parents.  If you do not know about this, it is well worth your time to immediately leave your classroom and go talk with your media specialist to ask, “how to I get access to United Streaming.”  One unit in this class is on pregnancy and the importance of getting medical care, avoiding drugs/alcohol, eating well and getting good exercise.  This website is useful during instruction when discussing Stages of Pregnancy.  Other websites that are useful for the class include:

1. This link at the Centers for Disease Control.
2. This link at Cool Nurse.

Here are some ideas from Liz Dettling of Southwest.  Thanks Liz! 

1.  Wells Fargo has an online banking tutorial that you can use. If you have a computer/room projector hookup you can project the website on the screen and go through it with the students:

https://www.wellsfargo.com/tour/overview

2. Another good website–this one I’ve used for reading credit card statements. There’s also a TON of vocabulary related to banking and budgeting if you go through the site.

 http://www.practicalmoneyskills.com/english/resources/tutor/statements/credit_state.php

I’ve also done on-line job applications for Cub, Dairy Queen, etc. These are so very different from the paper versions and the kids need to practice going through them.

Liz Dettling