Illinois Valley Times

At its Feb. 21 meeting, the Streator Elementary School Board welcomed director of Special Services Heidi Schultz. 

She explained how all students who qualify for special education in the district receive their own Individualized Education Plan (IEP) to help them achieve the goals that they need personally. 

“And just a little background for any student who does receive special education support here in the district,” Schultz said. “They have what's called an IEP, which is an individual education plan. And part of that plan is specific goals for that student, and they could relate to academic goals. That's one area. And that's typically what we see and what we think of the most, like the reading, math, written expression. But we also have what are called functional goals. And many of our students have these as well, and that could relate to things like executive functioning, their organization, their attention and focus in the classroom. It could relate to social skills. A lot of our students receive social emotional support from our social workers, and those goals would fall under these. And then some of our students have life skills goals, whether it's focusing on job skills, pre-job skills, daily living skills and community skills.”

Schultz went on to explain that while every teacher in the district teaches their students functional skills, these skills have a bigger focus in special education classrooms. She discussed a classrooms at Northland that is teaching life skills through a soup kitchen program. The program involved students taking orders from teachers and staff, preparing and serving the orders, collecting payments, and cleaning up. Schultz said this program teaches budgeting, organization, collaboration, and task completion. 

She said there are several other skills in the program, like fraction measurements in recipes, using kitchen tools correctly, reading numbers and directions, and using collaboration to finish all parts of the meals.

While Schultz did not share any specific data points, as those can be found on the school report card, she said that the data didn’t always reflect the growth that staff saw in students. She shared how exciting it was to see the students in the class use their different skills and strengths to help each other along, gaining confidence in themselves and trust in their peers.

In other business, the board also discussed appointing a new assistant principal for Northlawn Junior High School.

The board will meet again at 6 p.m. on March 14 at Northlawn Junior High School Library at 202 East First St.