Alderman Road Elementary School
Student Services Programs
School Support Services within the Counseling Department
School Counseling Services and
Student Services Team
School Counseling Program
Patricia Weaver, Alderman Road Elementary School’s Counselor is a Professional school counselor who is a certified/licensed educator with a master’s degree in school counseling making her uniquely qualified to address all students’ academic, personal/social and career development needs by designing, implementing, evaluating and enhancing a comprehensive school counseling program that promotes and enhances student success. Her School Counseling Program also provides consultation to parents and students. In addition, she provides prevention, crisis, and conflict resolution.
Student Services Team
In Cumberland County Schools, (CCS), the Student Services Team (SST) is a regular education process to address and resolve barriers to teaching and learning. The SST uses a three tier intervention process to empower teachers, parents, and students to address academic, medical, behavioral/emotional, and/or other problems through evidence based interventions, data driven decision making, and collaboration from professionals from a variety of specialty areas (counseling, social work, psychology, education, and special education). Members of the Student Services Team include teachers, counselors, social worker, parent of the student concerned and an administrator. Referrals from teacher or parents often address the reason for referral and include relevant academic and behavioral student information from the student’s cumulative folder, classroom, and home. Through collaboration and problem solving, the Student Services Team develops classroom, school, home, or community interventions to address the reasons for referral. Implemented interventions are to be of sufficient duration to be effective and are to be monitored and evaluated. Alderman Road Elementary has such a Team in place. For assistance, contact Patricia Weaver, SST Chair at 910-321-0398.
Section 504
Students with physical and mental health impairments that significantly impact major life activities may be eligible for support under Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973. The Student Services Team will collaborate with parents and guardians to through the SST process to determine if students should be referred for further evaluation under the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) or valuated for Section 504 services. Every school has a designated Section 504 Coordinator to assist parents and guardians with the referral process. For more information contact your child's school at Alderman Road Elementary and ask for Patricia Weaver, 504 Chairperson at 910-321-0398.
Counselor and PBIS Mentoring Program
BELOW is our Mission:
CARES
Caring
Accessible
Responsive
Encouraging
Supportive
Our objective is to increase our students' sense of belonging to the school community and in turn impacting academic performance in a positive manner.
We invite your participation in a "Mentoring Program/CARES”. We would like to match every available teacher and staff member to mentor a student within our school. We have many students who simply need someone to show an interest in them. This means:
· focus on building a relationship-make a point of going by and saying hello, ask them how they are doing and then repeating this as often as possible thru the week throughout the year. Even if it is only once a week. Drop them a note saying that you have faith in their ability to succeed. The amount of time is up to you….
· adult modeling and coaching-let them see you "doing the right thing and asking them about any difficulties they are having in school and offering advise or sharing a story.
· protect children from adult incivility-Show them someone within the school cares. They may sometimes feel that their teacher is "too hard on them" and you are there to provide a responsive ear at lunch, morning or after school at dismissal.
WHY CARES? Fostering a sense of school membership in a personalized environment requires an expanded role for teachers. In this expanded role, teachers seek to influence students' social and personal development, as well as their intellectual growth. To sustain a pervasive "ethic of caring," adults maintain continuous and sustained contact with students, responding to the students as whole persons rather than just as "students" in need of a particular service. CARES can accomplish this. Expanding the traditional role as transmitters of knowledge, teachers help create networks of support that foster students' sense of belonging and support students to succeed in the school. For their part, adults in the school need to (1) promote positive and respectful relations between adults and students; (2) help students with personal problems; (3) cultivate students' ability to meet school standards; and (4) support students' efforts to find a place in society by forging appropriate links between personal goals and interests, school opportunities, and future plans. In exchange for this active commitment from the school, students behave positively and respectfully toward adults and peers and commit their mental and physical efforts in school tasks to a level making their own achievement likely.
Personalized schools, where students and teachers are both committed to the central purposes of schooling, can effect dramatic changes even in previously established relationships. CARES will create such an atmosphere.