Celebrating new friends and new challenges in the ALC!

Hello families!

I hope that the holiday season is going well for your family. Things in the ALC are forever changing and exciting! Below is some information about the new and exciting things your student has been exploring this month:

New friends - We've had some change within our classroom in the last few weeks. We've added two new students to our class, and one student is moving. This has meant learning names of new students, and processing saying goodbye to someone we'd come to know. This has also meant that our schedule has changed a few times this fall, and I am so proud of how well all of our students handled these changes! :-)

New challenges - These first few months of school are PACKED with exciting learning! In the beginning of the year, we spend a lot of time helping students learn (and often re-learn) their new school routines. Now that we've been in school a few months though, we are increasing our expectations for independence. It has been so amazing to see the challenges our students are rising to!

Many holidays and celebrations - This season brings many diverse reasons to celebrate for the many families that make up our Mountain View and ALC communities. In class, we talk generally about lots of holidays that students may participate in or be exposed to. While the holiday season is filled with joy and merriment for many people, it can also be a stressful time--particularly for kids, and most especially for kids impacted by disabilities. Sometimes it is easy to forget that while decoration or celebration is fun and exciting, it may also be overwhelming or just too different for some kids. In no way do I suggest NOT celebrating or NOT exposing kids to the holidays. I just like to make sure kids are prepared. This season is fun, and even if your family celebrates in non-traditional ways, these mainstream traditions are something they are potentially going to be exposed to in their community for many years to come!

Fun times before Winter Break – This is a very fun time at Mountain View and in the ALC. We have a few activities coming up this week and next that your student will have the opportunity to join. Here are some of the fun activities you can expect to hear about:

·      Friday, Dec. 15th - PRIDE Assembly 

    Tuesday, Dec. 19th - OMSI Field Trip!!

     Wednesday, Dec. 20th - Holiday Party in the ALC! We will enjoy hot cocoa, popcorn, cookies and a holiday movie as we ring in the end of the school year for 2017! :-)  

 

Spirit Week and Important Dates

Spirit Week is coming next week!! :-)

Monday - College or Sports Fan Day
Tuesday - Costume Day (No masks or weapons, please)
Wednesday - Comfy Day (aka Pajama Day)
Thursday - Fancy Shmancy, Dress Your best Day
Friday - Grading Day, NO SCHOOL


Important Dates Coming Up

Wednesday, Nov. 1st - First Day of health for Mr. Mitcham's PE classes
Thursday, Nov. 2nd - PRIDE Celebration!
 Friday, Nov. 3rd - Grading Day, NO SCHOOL
Friday, Nov. 10th - NO SCHOOL
Wednesday, Nov. 15th - First Day of health for Ms. Carpenter's PE classes
Friday, Nov. 17th - PRIDE Assembly!
Wednesday, Nov. 22nd - NO SCHOOL
Thursday, Nov. 23rd - Thanksgiving, NO SCHOOL
Friday, Nov. 24th - NO SCHOOL

Conferences

Important Dates

Saturday, Oct. 14th - Official Opening of Mt. View Champions Park
Monday, Oct. 16th - First Day of health for Ms. Carpenter's PE Classes
Friday, Oct. 20th - PRIDE Assembly (Theme: Embracing the Community) and art project with Ms. Case :-) 
Wednesday, Oct. 25th - Conferences 5:30-8:00pm
Thursday, Oct. 26th - NO SCHOOL, Conferences
Friday, Oct. 27th - NO SCHOOL
Tuesday, Oct. 31st - Halloween!

Parent-Teacher Conferences

Wednesday and Thursday, October 25th and 26^th are parent-teacher conferences for Mountain View Middle School. This means that there is no school on Thursday or Friday, and families will soon have the opportunity to sign up for conferences. You will be receiving a conference sign-up form to fill out and return, or you can sign up using a link provided on Mt. View's website which will be available Oct. 11th-23rd.

Conferences will be scheduled on a first come, first serve basis and are in 20-minute segments. You will be able to meet with me, as well as your student’s elective teachers (Mr. Grant, Mrs. Mevis, Ms. Carpenter, Mr. Mitcham, Ms. Chasteen or Mrs. Bauer). The daily conference schedule is as follows:

 

 Wednesday, Oct. 25th - 5:30pm-8:00pm
 Thursday, Oct. 26th - 8:00am-10:40am, 12:30pm-2:30pm, 5:00pm-8:00pm

      I look forward to seeing many of you there!

Too Sick for School?

Can you believe it? We already have our first bug going through the classroom! I agree that it is WAY TOO SOON for this, but it's here! Half our students and teachers have experienced fever, coughing, congestion, runny nose or stuffy nose. Our students tend to be such little warriors and troop through, even when they are feeling crummy. Please keep in mind though, that sometimes our kids aren't really able to tell us how bad they feel, and when we don't feel great, we often don't feel up for learning. We are doing all that we can in the classroom--cleaning with disinfectant several times a day, washing hands multiple times, avoiding any physical contact we can and teaching and reteaching germ awareness. I've also spoken to our school custodian about getting an extra "deep cleaning" for our classroom.

We need your help too. I know that our students are serious troopers, and really want to be at school to maintain their routines. But what we often see is that kids (and adults) are coming back too soon. In the last few weeks, we have seen kids and staff come back to school, thinking they're feeling okay--so happy to be back--and then end up crashing within a few hours :-(  While this is sad for them, it also runs the risk of infecting and reinfecting others. I really hope that in the next few days we can all get well so that we have the energy for the exciting learning and fun events to come!

Here is a reminder of the Beaverton School District "Too sick for School" policies:

-Fever: You must be fever free without the aid of medication for 24 hours prior to returning to school

-Vomiting: There must be 24 hours since the last incident of vomiting prior to returning to school

-Diarrhea: There must be 24 hours since the last incident of diarrhea prior to returning to school

-Cough: Free of serious, sustained coughing or shortness of breath

-Rash: Any new rash accompanied by a fever--may return with clearance of the rash or release by health care provider

-Skin Lesions: Draining from sores need to be contained by a bandage

-Other: Symptoms that prevent the student from active participation in usual school activities or student is requiring more care than school staff can safely provide

Here We Go!

Hello Families!

 

I can't believe we're already in the last week of September! 

 

We have a few different areas of focus this month that we'll continue working on over the next few weeks…

• In literacy skills, we are working on creative writing pieces as well as elaborating on our writing. In addition to composing paragraphs about various real-life subjects in our writing folders every day, we also write to thematic or picture writing prompts. Last week was our first official reflection email, and this is where we'll be practicing our typing and editing skills as the year goes on. We are also focusing on reading topics related to our science theme, weather.
• In math skills, we’ve been working on a variety of things, including addition with regrouping, identifying fractions using visual representations, and learning counting strategies that we can use either with basic addition or when trying different upper-level math equations.
• In life skills, we’ve started our school-wide recycling program, which we use the profits from in order to supplement our weekly cooking budget for our Friday cooking lesson. We have plans to make cheese quesadillas, bagel pizzas, and homemade applesauce with leftover apples from our school breakfasts in the next few weeks. Yum!
• In science, we're starting off learning about the weather and how it affects our world. We're learning about a variety of different types of weather, and how it changes the shape of our world. Once we get rolling, we will start using our Chromebooks to make Powerpoint presentations on our favorite topic related to our theme and then do presentations in front of the class!

Here is our weekly schedule of activities:
Monday- APE and Speech for some students
Tuesday-
Wednesday- Early Release, APE, Speech, Library, Makerspace and Recycle Pick up
Thursday- Shopping Day
Friday- APE, Speech and Cooking

Welcome!

Welcome new and returning families!

I hope that you have had a refreshing and restful summer.  I would like to welcome you to the Academic Learning Center (ALC) at Mountain View! The ALC aims to encourage academic, social and life skills growth for students impacted by a variety of disabilities by creating an environment that emphasizes modified academics and life skills. We also provide a respectful and open learning environment so that we may foster age-appropriate social skills.

Students will receive specialized services in academics, life skills, social skills, organization, communication and fine and gross motor skills through a variety of research based curriculums. This class will be a secondary blended grade classroom, so we will have 6th, 7th and 8th graders working together.

For some background on me for new families, this is my eleventh year in special education, fifth year teaching and third year teaching the ALC. I am so excited for another fantastic year! We have an amazing group of instructional assistants this year (Mrs. Williams, Ms. Tami and Ms. Lorie), as well as our talented group of teachers, including Mrs. Twain (speech), Mrs. Ford (OT) and Mrs. Johnson (APE). If you have any questions about our staff, or myself, please feel free to ask at any time.

I'm looking forward to another great year!

P.S. Don't forget that we will be having an open house for students and families to come visit the classroom on Friday 10am-11:30am! I hope to see you then!

Mrs. Zaworski

Thank You!! :-)

As we begin to close on another fabulous year in the ALC, I want to take a moment to thank some of the people that have made this growth and learning possible...

My amazing instructional assistants.  As most of you know, this is the hardest-working, most loving and devoted group of women you could ever find. These unbelievable women came in every day with more passion and devotion than they did the day before. They demonstrated ceaseless creativity in helping our students overcome challenges to be successful in their classes. They laughed with your children, cried with your children, bandaged their wounds and at times even helped change their clothes. There is nothing that they would not and have not done for our kids, and they deserve more than I could ever give them. Thank you all.

Our phenomenal speech pathologist. So many times in the last few months, Mrs. Twain and/or I would be engaged in a conversation with a student and turn to one another with sheer amazement. Our students are TALKING...A LOT! This is the result of their hard work, your hard work, and the relentless dedication of our amazing SLP that insists that language be expected in every moment of every day. She creates such an atmosphere for speaking, that our children can't help but be brimming with words. This is such an amazing and exciting time for all children, and it is such a wonderful feeling to KNOW how they feel about everything...because they tell us! Thank you Mrs. Twain!

Our enthusiastic APE teacher.  Mrs. Johnson is truly one of a kind. In such a short time in the course of one school year, she molds are excited little friends from balls of energy into routine-following athletes. Her carefully planned, expertly executed PE lessons help each child learn the gross motor and social skills they need to play on the playground, be healthy, and play sports. Thank you Mrs. Johnson!

Our unbelievable principal, vice-principals and special education facilitator. Without your never-ending advocacy, our children would not have experienced the success that they have. Please know that your efforts have never gone without notice. We are all so grateful for everything that you do.

Mountain View's secretaries. These women do it all. Mrs. Brownell, Mrs. Moreno, Mrs. Thun and Mrs. Reiken answered every question, healed every wound, and praised every effort. All with a smile and tremendous love and understanding for our kids. You guys are amazing!

Mountain View's custodial and cafeteria staff. Each and every day, our wonderful staff made our children feel a part of this community. They each took special care to address our children's sensory needs, and always made time to say hi to our kids. To Mr. Julio, Mrs. Belle and the rest of their staff, thank you for all you do.

Mountain View teachers, support staff and students. Thank you all for making us feel welcome in this school. We are home. A special thank you to Mr. Mitcham, Ms. Fitzpatrick, Ms. Chasteen, Mrs. Mevis, Mr. Grant, Mrs. Bauer, Mr. Erion, Mrs. Sweet, Mrs. Acosta, Mrs. Butero, Mr. Lent, Mrs. Cadavona, Mrs. Dunn, Mrs. Goldberg, Mrs. Murphy, Mrs. Holland, Mrs. Robinette and Mrs. Brady for going the extra mile to be a part of our student's lives.

And, of course....all of you. Thank you for your love and support of your student and our program. Your children are thriving because you work with your school team to support and reinforce skills across environments.

I hope that you have an amazing summer. I look forward to seeing you in the fall!

End of the Year Activities!

It’s amazing to think we are in the final stretch of the 2016-2017 school year! This year has been so jam-packed with fun and learning and it has just flown by! I know this time of year gets a little crazy, so I wanted to give you a bit of a heads up about some big events coming up, and what we will need from you!

Special Education Track and Field- Thursday, May 25^th- This is the day where all the students in the district who are in a self-contained special education classroom get to showcase their athletic skills! Students will have the chance to run, jump, throw and win medals! There is also a school spirit competition, and this year’s theme is spectacular school spirit! We’re making individualized t-shirts based on our school slogan "Believe in Yourself... We Do At Mountain View!" You are welcome to come cheer your student on at Beaverton High School from 10am to 12:30pm. After we get back to school, we also have our annual school Talent Show starting at 2:50pm, so feel free to come watch your student perform if they get picked :-)  Permission slips are due next week. Students will need to bring a sack lunch, running shoes and possibly a jacket, depending on the weather.

Dairy Queen Field Trip- Thursday, June 15th- Our class will be going to Dairy Queen across the street to celebrate the end of the year together as a class! I will be buying everyone a sweet treat, but if they want to buy something for lunch or as an extra treat they can bring extra money. It should be a ton of fun!

How you can help

Hello Families and Friends!

Over the last several weeks, I have had many parents and friends ask how they can help support our classroom. In these uncertain economic times, we have been fortunate to maintain such a skilled staff, supportive administrators and creative solutions for lack of funding for supplies. However, this year has presented new challenges. With the funding being reduced district-wide, we are being asked to do more with an already limited classroom budget, including purchasing sensory supports for our students with Austism. Some of these supports, like Hokki Stools and Balancing Balls, are simply outside the realm of our classroom budget. 

 One easy way to help out is to check our class Wishlist, which is posted on the side of this blog. It includes some basic items that we're always in need of, such as hand sanitizer, tissues and Chlorox wipes. Occasionally, I'll also list items that we need related to a specific activity, such as cooking items or art supplies. I try to update it at least once a month.

This year I also have a DonorsChoose website to ask for assistance in purchasing various supplies, supplemental activities and curriculum, as well as classroom technology that we can use during both small and large group instruction. In case you aren't familiar with it already, the concept of DonorsChoose is simple. Teachers create a page, requesting specific items for their classroom. Donors from around the world read about the need, and donate money. DonorsChoose then purchases the supplies, and delivers them to the classroom. My experiences with DonorsChoose  have been very positive in the past, after I saw the positive impact it has made on many of my fellow teacher's classrooms both at Mountain View and other schools in the Beaverton School District. I am asking that you spread the word about our page to friends and colleagues who may be willing and able to donate. Here is the link:

Mrs. Z's DonorsChoose page 

Thanks for all of your support!

Mrs. Zaworski

Quick Update

Wow! This year is just flying by! It’s amazing to think that we are in the final stretch of the 2016-2017 school year :-)

Here are a few important dates coming up:

 

March 24th - Pump It Up Field Trip! :-)

 March 27th- 31st - Spring Break!

April 11th-14th - Outdoor School for 6th graders

April 17th - No school for 6th graders

April 28th - Grading Day, No School 

May 25th 10-12:30pm - Special Education Track and Field! :-)

May 26th - Staff Development Day, No School

May 29th - Memorial Day, No School

Spirit Week 2.0

 Happy Spirit Week!

Monday - Ditch Day, No School
Tuesday - Hat Day
Wednesday - Pajama Day
Thursday - Superhero Day
Friday - College or Sports Fan Day

Restoring Snow Days

Hi Families,

The district just announced its plan for restoring the snow days we lost earlier this month and in December. The new school calendar, which will be available on Mt. View's website soon, now has us in school on the following days:

Friday, Feb. 3rd (Previously Grading Day)
Wednesday, Feb. 15th - Friday, Feb. 17th (Previously Conferences)
Friday, Mar. 10th (Previously Staff Development Day)
Thursday, June 22nd (NEW Last Day of School for students)

Happy New Year!

Happy 2017 everyone!

With all the snow days and delays recently, we've had an interesting start to the new year, to say the least! With everything going on and everybody getting back into 'school mode', there was the potential for a lot of craziness last week, but it turned out to be a really amazing week! Everyone was very excited to be back and quickly slipped back into their schedule without complaint. We also enjoyed drawing, writing and sharing about our fun winter holiday break!

Many of us have started new classes since returning from winter break, and while a new class is always a transition, so far everybody is enjoying their new science and math classes with their peers. I am so proud of how well everyone has handled the changes!

Important Dates 


Thursday, Jan. 12th 6pm - Spaghetti Feed Dinner
Monday, Jan. 16th - NO SCHOOL, Martin Luther King Jr. Day
Friday, Jan. 20th - *Rescheduled* Personal Responsibility Celebration!
Friday, Feb. 3rd - NO SCHOOL, Grading Day
Wednesday, Feb. 15th - NO SCHOOL, Conferences
Thursday, Feb. 16th - NO SCHOOL, Conferences
Friday, Feb. 17th - NO SCHOOL, School Closed
Monday, Feb. 20th - NO SCHOOL, President's Day

Too Sick for School?


Unfortunately, I have talked to many of you lately about illness. The cold and flu season has hit our room (as well as the rest of Mt. View) hard this year! Many of the students, as well as some of our staff have been affected, and some have already started experiencing a second round of sickness. We are doing all that we can in the classroom--cleaning with disinfectant several times a day, washing hands, avoiding any physical contact we can and reteaching germ awareness. But we need your help too... What we're seeing is kids coming back to school too soon. In the last few weeks, we have seen kids and staff come back to school, thinking they're feeling okay, and then end up crashing within a few hours :( While this is sad for them, it also runs the risk of infecting and reinfecting others.  

Thanks for your support in this! I really hope that in the next few days we can all get well so that we have the energy for the exciting learning and fun events to come!

 Parent-Teacher Conferences

I'm sure you have all seen in your mail from our principal, Mr. Pedersen, that Wednesday and Thursday, February 15^th and 16^th are parent-teacher conferences for Mountain View Middle School. This means that there is no school on Wednesday, Thursday or Friday, and families will soon have the opportunity to sign up for conferences. 

Conferences will be scheduled on a first come, first serve basis and are in 20-minute segments. You will be able to meet with me, as well as your student’s elective teachers (Mr. Grant, Mrs. Mevis, Mrs. Holland, Mrs. Cadavona, Mr. Mitcham, Ms. Fitzpatrick, Ms. Chasteen or Mrs. Bauer). The daily conference schedule is as follows:

 

 Wednesday, Feb. 15th - 9:00-11:20am, 1:00-4:00pm, 5:30-8:00pm
 Thursday, Feb. 16th ^- 8:00-10:30am, 1:00-4:00pm, 5:30-8:00pm

      I look forward to seeing many of you there!