1995 Town Report

Northborough, Massachusetts

Special Education and Student Support Services

Jean M. Bean, Director

The Special Education and Student Support Services Department is committed to providing outstanding programs for students with a variety of educational needs. Last year the school districts of Northborough, Southborough and Algonquin reorganized the administrative services under one Director of Special Education and Student Support Services. Mrs. Jean Bean is the Director of programs for all three districts. Ms. Martha Starr is the inclusion specialist working with regular and special education staff to create school and classroom interventions that effectively meet the needs of students with regular education classrooms. This model of instructional support has been the Commonwealth's focus and merges nicely with the pre-referral model that our child study teams have initiated. The Child Study teams continue to be active providing pre-referral assistance to classroom teachers.

The Northborough School district added a language based special education program at the middle school last year. This program is providing a highly structured classroom available for a small group of fifth, sixth, and seventh grade students who struggle with reading, writing and oral expression. The program continues to be refined and enhanced and is proving to be an effective model of instruction that allows students with significant learning problems to be educated in their home school district rather than in an out-of-district placement.

Mrs. Janet Tower, Speech and Language Therapist, has been appointed three days a week to serve students at the pre-school and middle school levels. The Northborough Public Schools is a member of the Assabet Valley Collaborative. The Collaborative enables small school districts to provide services for youngsters with low incidence special needs. Programs offered through the collaborative include pre-school, occupational therapy, transportation and programs for students with multiple handicaps.

The Special Education and Student Support Services Programs benefit from several grant programs. These grants include Early Childhood grants, P.L. 94-142, Pre-referral and Integration grant, Health Protection grant, Chapter I grant and Individualized Educational Plan grant. The Massachusetts Department of Education also awarded the Northborough-Southborough School District with an Inclusion Mentoring grant. The district was one of eight districts statewide chosen to provide technical support to other school districts within the state. The grant will also allow this district to add programs to support local school activities. This grant is renewable for the next three years. All the grants have allowed the school district to supplement programs by adding staff where needed and for necessary training of existing staff.

The school psychologists in the district continue to provide high quality counseling for students with behavioral and emotional needs. This year we are adding therapeutic support through contracted services with counselors working in the local area. This model of adding consultation to our psychologists and additional counseling to our students is proving to be effective in meeting the needs of these at-risk students. Also the school department is working closely with the Office of Family and Youth Services to coordinate counseling services.

Nursing Services provide an important component of the Student Support Services offered to the children in Northborough. Currently two full time nurses provide nursing support for the entire district. This year in addition to the two full time nurses we added a half time nursing position. Mrs. Sally Pini has been employed as the nurse at Lincoln Street School.

In October 1995 the California Achievement Tests and the rest of Cognitive Skills were administered to students in grades 3,4,5,6,7 and 8. This test measures student's achievement in the areas of Reading, Mathematics and Language.

The Special Education and Student Support Services staff are committed to providing a comprehensive program of service delivery to all students within the district who require additional attention at any time during their educational career. We are most interested in maintaining close cooperation with parents and community agencies so that we can work together in meeting the needs of all students within the town of Northborough.