From the Desk of Mrs. Brush
September 2017
Welcome Back!
Welcome back! It is my great pleasure to be a member of the Julian Curtiss Team and both principal, Trish McGuire, and I are looking forward to a successful and productive year. I would like to take this opportunity to provide you with some information that will be helpful to you throughout this school year. Please make sure to scroll all the way to the bottom! As always, please feel free to contact me with any questions or concerns. You can reach me by phone at (203) 869-1896, ext. 3302 or by email at brenda_brush@greenwich.k12.ct.us.
We hope you had a chance to relax and reconnect this summer. Everyone at Julian Curtiss School is looking forward to a wonderful 2017-2018 school year full of success and inspiration!
Staffing
We have a talented and caring team of professionals in the Pupil Personnel Services/Special Education department at Julian Curtiss, which consists of our special education teachers: Joy Carroll, Elizabeth DellaVolpe, Meredith (Blunt) Gillam, and our newest addition, Caroline Stackhouse; speech and language therapist, Yaneli Avila; and our psychologists, Kate Napoletano and Monica Rothstein. In addition, we welcome Marie Morgan and Sue Rynn who will provide occupational therapy; and Laurie Swan as our physical therapist. We are also supported by our district social worker Kristen Mulhearn and our school nurse Helen Brooks. Our Special Education Clerk, Car Westbrook, also supports our team and will be helping us to arrange our PPT meeting times. Each of our team members may be reached by calling the main office at (203) 869-1896, or by email following the format of firstname_lastname@greenwich.k12.ct.us.
We are also very lucky to have a dedicated team of professional assistants who will be working in our classrooms supporting the students. They are assigned either to a specific grade, student or teacher for most of the day. For 2017-2018, our professional assistants are: Mahalia Ferguson, Ceil Pelazza, Darlene Gerald, Barbara Re, and Kevin Sturzinger.
Communication
Open communication between families and school staff is critical to the success of all children but particularly crucial for students with disabilities. We continue to work with our parents to promote communication strategies that are effective but result in minimal impact on teachers’ instructional time with students. We ask you to use the following communication strategies in your contact with your child’s teachers. Please remember that the communication books and emails are considered educational records and may be shared with other school staff for legitimate educational reasons.
Routine Information
- The most effective way to communicate routine information with teachers is by email (for example, a sweater that was left in school, a note in a backpack). All such emails will be addressed promptly, typically within a school day. In some cases, additional time may be needed and if so, your child’s teacher will let you know if this is the case. In response to some communications, the staff will offer to speak with you directly about your concern or question. Email is NOT the best way to communicate serious questions or concerns about your child or your child’s program.
Questions or Concerns about IEPs/Services/Instruction
- Questions about your child’s IEP, including accommodations, services, etc., are best addressed directly with your child’s teacher and/or special education monitor. As a school district, we value personal connections and communication with students and families. For this reason, we encourage parents and teachers to communicate in person or by telephone regarding questions or concerns about IEPs, services instruction, etc. In some cases, the monitor may need to follow up by email with parents or other members of the school team. In some cases, the monitor may need to schedule an IEP meeting to discuss any changes to your child’s program - no decisions can or will be made about the IEP outside of a IEP/PPT meeting unless the school has your written permission to do so.
General Issues or Concerns
- Please follow the process of “chain of command” when dealing with issues and concerns. Your first contact should be the general or special education teacher, depending on the nature of the concern. If you are unable to reach resolution through your contact with the teacher, you should contact me. If you are still not satisfied with the solutions/response at the school level, you may contact the Special Education Administrator for our cluster of schools, Karen Vitti. The next level of problem resolution would either be Mary Forde, Director of PPS or Ann Carabillo, Deputy Superintendent. Please follow this hierarchy in attempting to resolve any concerns or issues you may have with your child’s program. This will allow the staff closest to the problem the opportunity to solve the problem before involving administrators outside the building.
Emergencies
- For emergencies and other urgent communication, please contact the Main Office at (203) 869-1896.
Parent Education and Communication Opportunities
Our team sends out a monthly newsletter to parents called “Support Staff News: Strategies for All.” These newsletters contain topics ranging from Dealing with Difficult Behaviors at Home to How to Best Help Your Child with Homework. We hope you will find this communication tool useful. If you have suggestions for topics you would like to see addressed throughout the year, please email me. There will also be periodic communications from my office with information about local resources and events.
We will be holding a parent coffee later this fall. This will be an opportunity to meet the staff and other parents, and provides time to discuss issues that are important to your children in our school. Information about the date and time of this important event will be communicated shortly.
Annual Reviews and Other IEP Meetings
This year, we are attempting to lessen the impact of IEP meetings on the instructional day wherever possible. We hold our IEP meetings at Julian Curtiss on Thursdays beginning at 8:00 am, with the last meeting slot of the day at 2:00 pm. By scheduling meetings on a specific day, we are decreasing the time that staff will be pulled from classrooms and services. While we understand that due to extenuating circumstances there may be a need for an IEP meeting to be held outside of the designated meeting times, our goal is to keep to the schedule as closely as possible to decrease the impact on instruction.
Annual Review meetings are held once per year in order to review your child's progress and develop a new program for the upcoming year. These meetings are determined by calendar year, not school year, so they may be held at any point during the school year based on your child's individual annual review date. Your child's annual review date can be found on the first page of the IEP document. You will receive a call to schedule your Annual Review meeting approximately 10 days in advance. We are asking all families to make every effort to attend the scheduled meeting. Should you need to reschedule for any reason, please be sure to contact Car Westbrook, our special education clerk, at car_westbrook@greenwich.k12.ct.us or (203) 869-1896, ext. 3316.
EDS - Educational Differences Subcommittee of the PTA
This subcommittee of the PTA focuses on the needs, issues and concerns of the families of students with disabilities. The representative from our school for the SES committee is Kate Collins. Together we will be planning and hosting several important and exciting events throughout the year. The central office will send out notices and reminders using the email address you provided when you registered. If this is not the best email to use, please call the school office and give the staff your preferred email for school/district communication.
For the 2017-2018 school year, the co-chairs of the EDS subcommittee of the PTA are:
Elizabeth Ann DeHaven mendelsohne@gmail.com
Audra O'Donovan Audracmd@aol.com
Lydia Rousseau lydiarouzeau@yahoo.com
Procedural Safeguards
Copies of the Procedural Safeguards in both English and Spanish can be found on the district’s website, http://www.greenwichschools.org. Also included, in English and Spanish, are the Safeguards regarding Restraint and Seclusion and the Transition Rights. If you would like to obtain a paper copy of any of the Procedural Safeguard documents, please contact me at the school or you can contact Joan Pritchard in the district Office of Pupil Personnel Services and make your request. She can be reached by telephone at (203) 625-7493, by fax at (203) 625-7490, or by email at joan_pritchard@greenwich.k12.ct.us.
Bus Concerns
Any issues with the bus should be reported to the district transportation office through the use of their on-line system. Go to the district web site (www.greenwichschools.org) and under the “Quicklinks” section on the left hand side of the home page, click on the heading, “Report Bus Issues.”
Mrs. Brenda Brush
Email: brenda_brush@greenwich.k12.ct.us
Website: www.greenwichschools.org/jcs
Location: 180 East Elm Street, Greenwich, CT, United States
Phone: (203) 869-1896
Twitter: @jcasstprincipal