Save the Date: Special PTO on March 21st at 7:30 PM: Response to Intervention - Addressing the Needs of All students at Franklin

Dear Franklin Families,

I am writing to invite you to the second family workshop in our Inclusion Presentation Series on Tuesday, March 22nd at 7:30 PM. We were fortunate to receive positive feedback from many of you following our first workshop on October 6th. After speaking with several parents and after reviewing the result of the post workshop evaluation online survey, two primary questions surfaced:

  1. What is the school doing to ensure that we meet the needs of all our children, including those who perform at or above grade level?
  1. To what extent the inclusion model is beneficial or deleterious to the academic and social growth of typically developing children?

Our workshop on Tuesday, March 22nd at 7:30 PM is our response to the first question. If you have ever wondered about the systems, structures and educational offerings the Franklin Elementary school has in place to ensure that we are addressing the needs of our typically developing students, you will find the workshop on Tuesday, March 22nd helpful. A multidisciplinary team composed of Franklin teachers, parents, members of the district’s Elementary Stabilization Program (ESP) and me have been hard at work to plan and execute a workshop that we believe will be relevant, informational, helpful and practical. We will distribute two handouts at the end of the workshop that families can use as resources to support their children and to answer their questions.

I hope the following article, entitled: “Inclusion and the Other Kids – Here is What Research Shows So Far About Inclusion’s Effect on Nondisabled Students” will help to answer the second question. Although the article is a bit long, I encourage families who may have questions or concerns relating to the effect of inclusion on their children to peruse it. Please see the link to the article below:

  • Inclusion_and_the_Other_kids.pdf

I would like to express our deepest gratitude to the PTO for their support and for allowing us to use the PTO meetings for these presentations. It is important that we keep in mind that the purpose of these presentations is not to provide information only. These workshops are in keeping with our commitment to continue to build Franklin into a caring community in which all our children feel loved, liked, accepted and supported by their peers and by the adults they encounter on a daily basis. We also want all families to have the confidence that we have systems and offerings in place to meet the needs of all our students, including our typically developing children, so that we accelerate the learning of our students who are behind grade level to reduce the achievement gap and continue to push our students who are at or above grade level to higher levels of achievement. Our entire team looks forward to seeing all of you at our 2nd workshop in our inclusion series: RtI: Addressing the Needs of All Students at Franklin on Tuesday, March 21st at 7:30 PM.

Thank you,

Joel