Targeted actions, strategies, supports and services are coordinated and/or provided through School Support Team and through school resources and structures.
School Support Teams: School Support Team members work collaboratively with each other and with school-based staff to provide support in response to student, classroom, school and/or family needs. School Support Team members include school administrators (principals and vice-principals), Learning Support Teachers, and school-based therapy services. These teams may also include school counselors. Note that school support team members focus their work on all levels of the support continuum.
School-based therapy services focus on the student and how he/she interacts with the school environment and curriculum. The role is to support students, teachers, and staff in meeting ISP goals and/or increasing participation, engagement, and achievement in the educational setting. This is done by collaborating with staff and parents to develop a plan that meets the student's needs and/or working with staff on ways to integrate activities, methods, supports and/or adaptations into the student's daily school activities. School-linked teams include:
- Occupational Therapists (OT) and Occupational Therapy Assistants (OTA) who provide support to our students with fine motor, sensory regulation, and adaptive functioning needs.
- Speech-Language Pathologists (SLP) and Speech Language Assistants (SLA) who provide support to our students with a number of communication needs. Supports include, but are not limited to: articulation, speaking in full sentences, learning word meanings, listening comprehension, and social communication development.
- School Liaison Counselors (SLC) provide short term counseling, small group support and skills training, and universal classroom consultation around social-emotional support and skill development. School Liaison Counselors also support families in providing parent information and connecting families to relevant outside agencies/organizations.
School Resources and Structures: In addition to the resources and structures put in place through the divisional Learning Service department, school administrators work closely with the Learning Support Teacher, School Liaison Counselor, and other school staff to structure their school to support school-wide targeted support needs through school schedules, school spaces and school-based resources and materials.
- Collaborative Planning Circles (elementary schools): School linked team members and other relevant stakeholders come together monthly for a Collaborative Planning Circle (CPC) meeting that involves discussions of the strengths as well as the challenges facing students, staff and/or families. Through the CPC dialogue the various partners use their expertise and services to "wrap around" the child or family in a manner that will promote growth, capacity, and long-term life success.
- Learning Support Teachers: help to organize, maintain, and integrate services in the school and, as part of a school-based team, provide the major link with support services available at the district level. Learning Support Teachers can also complete Academic testing to support the development of a learner profile and implementation of a student support plan for students who are struggling academically.
- Resource and Resiliency Workers (Junior and Senior High): work collaboratively with the school staff in ensuring environments that foster student wellness, regulation, the positive development of student behavior, and social-emotional learning.
- Learning Assistants: Under the direction of teachers, learning assistants work directly with students individually or in small groups to deliver activities that reinforce and advance their wellbeing and educational program.
- School Support Spaces: All schools in the division both design their common spaces and have designated support spaces that focus on responding to the personal care, therapy, regulation, developmental, social, emotional, academic and/or behavioral support needs of their students. Schools collaborate with students and parents/guardians to create plans for how designated support spaces are best used to support an individual student.