At Westview, we are privileged to have 42 on-campus staff in our Special Education department this year. These staff members work tirelessly to provide Westview’s special needs students with support at school. Although their work often goes unnoticed, they play a vital role in Westview’s learning community.
Since the opening of Westview in August 2002, special needs students have been able to learn alongside general education students in many of their classes. This has only been made possible through the hard work of the special education staff who put their time and care into ensuring education is accessible to all.
Each day starts with the transportation team. With the effort of our specially trained bus drivers and instructional assistants, students with high support needs are able to board the buses that allow them to get to and from school every day.
Without them, many students would be unable to get to school easily or in some cases, even at all, without the accommodations that our transportation team provides. Inside classrooms, Westview’s technology team helps provide special education students and teachers with technological resources — such as microphones and other electronic devices — that allow students to receive education of the highest quality. These devices aid students in reading comprehension, writing, communicating, and assisting students who are hard of hearing.
On a more individual level, Westview’s instructional assistants work to provide academic support and teach life skills to our students who have special needs. Each student has a unique set of learning goals that the instructional assistants help them to work through to develop independence.
Some instructional assistants engage their students in life skills activities such as grocery shopping, cooking, and other daily living skills that help prepare them to transition into the next stages of their lives and teach them the skills needed to be successful.
In addition to this, Westview is fortunate to have an adaptive physical education teacher who comes in two days a week to provide modified physical education classes at Westview.
Unlike general education physical education classes, these classes’ activities are run in smaller group settings, giving students more personalized assistance. The teaching itself is modified to meet the needs and goals of the students in the class.
By modifying these physical activities in ways that support students with high assistance needs, these teachers allow our students to be introduced to and participate in a wide variety of physical activities, making exercise and sports fun and accessible to all.
Westview also has student vocational learning assistants who work as teacher assistants in special and general education classes. These students dedicate a class period to helping out in special education classrooms, modeling communicative and social cues, and forming connections with students and teachers.
Some special needs students are also assisted by behavioral instructional assistants. These staff members help teach the foundational behavioral skills students need to thrive both inside and outside of the classroom.
All of this only covers a fraction of the different members of Westview’s special education staff. So, thank you to each member of our Special Education department who makes it possible for all of Westview’s students to have equitable access to the high-quality education that has allowed our students to thrive.
