Parents, kids, teachers happy with centralized preschool Parents, kids, teachers happy with centralized preschool (October 21, 2005)

Special needs students responding well to new program
by Rebecca Guyon

It's been nearly two months since the new preschool for developmentally delayed children and the connected speech and hearing facility opened their doors, and so far parents, teachers and students are seeing improvements in services thanks to the programs' new, central location. Previously, the preschool special education program had specialists and classrooms spread across Pleasanton Middle, Valley View Elementary, Vintage Hills Elementary and Donlon Elementary schools. Now, everything is at the central site, located at Harvest Park Middle School.

"Having programs scattered made it difficult to work," said Ken Wyatt, assistant director of special education for the district. "That's why I advocated bring the programs together, so they can work more as a team." The Donlon site, the one exception, is still running since it works with children who have severe disabilities. The new preschool works with about 30 children ages 3-5 who mostly have language and cognitive delays and autism.

"It's been great for our team," said Ellen Talbot, special education teacher and program specialist at the site. "Now we are able to have staff meetings. That's something we never had before because we were all at separate sites."

The adjacent speech and hearing facility is also a hub of activity for the district, working with 80-100 students from all of the schools, but mostly in the younger grade levels. Most students come to work on their articulation.

The preschool is comprised of four classrooms, three for classroom time and one for adaptive PE, and has three classroom teachers, an adaptive PE teacher, occupational therapist, behavior psychologist, behavior support specialist and several teacher aides. There is also a playground structure and a small, wooded area that has come to be known as "The Little Forest." Playing in "The Little Forest" is one of the children's favorite activities and they love to play games like "find the bear," Talbot said.

"Shared imagine games, like 'find the bear,' are great ways to build language," Talbot said. "All the classes play together, so students benefit from having language time with peer models that may have higher language skills."

There are usually about eight students in each class and teachers help them improve their cognitive and language skills through repetition of activities and following goal-oriented plans that are individualized for each student, Talbot said.

Each student can have about five to eight goals he or she needs to meet each day. Goals can be things like staying on task for five minutes, naming colors or sorting. Most of this goal attainment is addressed during "circle time," a 20-minute period of the day where students are lead in a group exercise by the teacher that involves activities like singing, naming objects and counting. Because each student has an individualized plan, a teacher may have eight different goals for each student in their class, Talbot said.

Although the site is new this year, it has really been years in the making. When Wyatt first joined the district four years ago, he realized how much more efficient it would be to have preschool programs at one site. The program would also improve because the staff would be able to work as a cohesive group, sharing strategies and seeing each other's classrooms first hand. Now, his vision has become a reality.

"It allows for a continuum of programs," Talbot said. "If a child needs circle time in one class, but could benefit from elements in another class as well, then he can do that." This fluidity between the classrooms is physically demonstrated by the structure of the building, which connects all the classrooms with doors.

Aside from the structure, in many respects the preschool looks like any other with organized play time and activities aimed at preparing students to enter kindergarten. In fact, the goal of the program is to have students prepared for mainstream schools, Wyatt said.

Overall, teachers, parents and students all have been pleased with the move, Talbot said.

"The ability to have staff at a single site dramatically improves our ability to meet student needs," Wyatt said.

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