leadership in high schools

I am very excited at the thought of conducting a tour of our High School Special Education Programs which are aimed at three distinct student groups – 4 year College bound, Career & Technical College education with immediate entry into 2 year colleges or the work place and students who will need supportive living and job coaching.  Our programs currently consist of five 1:6:1 classrooms and two 1:8:1 classrooms.  We have not had this level of programming within our BOCES in Chautauqua County and have planned for  this over the past 5 years.   

Calls are coming in to tour of high school programs and a brochure is being developed so that high school Principals and Directors of Special Education can equally begin to plan their cohort graduation results four years before students enter high school.  Both these offices within a school share equal responsibility for planning, developing and investing in educational programs that benefit students and which will lead to 4 year graduations from high school.  School districts that are showing interest in our work at the Hewes Center include – Southwestern and Randolph.  Our goal is to reach all schools in the Southern Tier and to accomplish this teachers will be heavily involved with me in the crafting of our brochure so as to reflect the exciting instructional work being accomplished and the student learning taking place at the Hewes Center in our grade 9-12 programs.

Program Highlights: 

English:  Big Read America Project in colloaboration with area libraries and colleges – To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee. 

English:  Celebration of the 200th Birthday of Abraham Lincoln – reading of the Speeches at Gettysburg. 

Electives:  Marine Biology, Foundations of Music, Creative Writing, CPR training, Work Experience and Job shadowing.   

Field Trips:  Step Into Africa, an interactive Exhit at the Jamestown Savings Bank Ice Skating Rink, Illstyle:  a hip hop production staged at the Reg Lenna Civic Center/Theatre. 

Extra-Curricular:  HIgh Student newspaper written and published by students, Student Council, Popcorn and Pizza sales to promote student entreprenuership, student membership in NAMI – National Association for the Mentally Ill, donation to St. Susan’s Kitchen by students on behalf of NAMI.  Honor and Merit Roll. 

Monthly Guest Speaker Series:  To date Jim Tillotson, His Climb Up the Himalayas, Kelly Joslyn, How the Democrats took the White House.