Exceptional Learners Center

​The Exceptional Learners Center is alive and well.  Through generous donations from the 2019 auction, the ELC was able to purchase a variety of instructional materials, intervention programs, school supplies, and furniture.  Additionally, we are fortunate enough to be able to fund our ELC personnel.  Our occupational therapist, Mrs. Munira Shakir came to us from Treehouse Pediatrics in Woodridge, our speech language pathologist, Mrs. Jennifer Houch was referred to us through Kids Matters Counseling in Hinsdale, and our clinical psychology extern Mrs. Brie Arevalo, is practicing under Dr. Alana Roth from Monarch Clinics.  Without the generosity from our school families, these partnerships would not have been possible.  Additionally, the ELC has purchased toys, furniture, and materials for the sensory room, a wide variety of leveled readers for students to use within their classrooms, a subscription to Freckle, a subscription to iReady Tailored Interventions, and additional school supplies that students have daily access to such as noise canceling headphones, EZ readers, whisper phones, and hands-on learning aids.  The ELC has also used funds to purchase the materials and curricular rights to programs such as TinkRworks, NiHao Chinese, and Great Books.  Mrs. Katey Goll will be sending out an updated list of ELC enrichment classes next week.  Due to popular demand, more TinkRworks classes have been added in, along with additional opportunities for creative writing workshops and NiHao Chinese.  The NiHao Chinese program will expose students to the Chinese culture and language through the use of sounds and pictures.  It is a very different approach to learning a language that doesn’t involve using the Roman alphabet.  NiHao Chinese will be the basics for the future study of Mandarin.  The ELC will also be partnering with Kids Matters Counseling to run Sunshine Circles in the primary grades.  Sunshine Circles is a social skills group that will be run within your child's classroom to foster friendships, solve disagreements, and guide students as they grow in their leadership capacity.  The skill group spans across 8 weeks.  You will be notified if your child's class will be participating in a sunshine circle.  Lastly, Mrs. Brie Arevalo and Dr. Alana Roth will be running a parent support group on executive functioning at 6:30 pm at St. Isaacs on Tuesday, October 22nd.  If you are interested, please save the date. Thank you for your continued collaboration and support.
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Furthermore, as many of you may already know, our resource support staff, Mrs. Amanda Miller and Ms. Nicole Madda are implementing a co-teaching approach this year. They are working with fluid leveled groups within the classrooms.  When working with your student, if academic concerns arise, you will be contacted by your student's teacher and a member of the resource team.  We are hopeful that our new co-teaching model will help to identify students who have learning needs as soon as possible so that we can work with you to administer any necessary interventions or supplemental learning opportunities.  Lastly, the ELC implemented the MAP assessment this year, which is a universal assessment platform that can identify each student's unique level of performance.  We are looking forward to a year filled with exceptional opportunities for our students.