How We Serve All Students Is a Question of Our Values
By Susana Campo-Contreras, Director of Special Education and Psychological Services
At Green Dot Public Schools, our mission is to prepare all students for college, leadership, and life — including students who need additional support. Our network of schools currently serves more than 1,300 students with disabilities, each of whom receives services and support through an individualized education program administered through a variety of channels and delivered by 71 special education teachers.
All means all
Our Special Education approach is unique. Green Dot considers Special Education a program, not “a place” for students, and as such, remains committed to ensuring that all Green Dot students have access to quality teachers, quality programming, and quality support.
Our approach is also collaborative. Green Dot’s robust professional development program ensures that all teachers — special education teachers, too — have access to support.
We embrace a model in which general educators and special educators work in sync to serve students with disabilities. We embrace collaboration between all stakeholders to create a collective ownership to serve our students.
Our School Leaders, Special Education Program Administrators, School psychologist, Special Education Assistants, DIS Service Providers, Office Staff, Clinical Supervisors, and Curriculum Directors all work together to ensure that each of our students have access to the resources he or she needs
Leading the way for students with special needs
Green Dot’s commitment to “doing whatever it takes” has had a strong effect on special education services across our 26-school network. We consider ourselves transformation leaders in secondary education; we hold ourselves accountable and transparently submit to oversight, ensuring that the needs of students requiring special education services are met and their integration into the general classroom is successful.
I’m proud to be part of a team whose purpose is to get it right and stretch every resource in order make the best decisions for our students.
I believe Green Dot’s passionate and mission-oriented people are among our greatest assets, and that our ability to collaborate with one another to provide the best we can for our students is what truly makes Green Dot different.
We feel it in the communities we serve, and it’s especially so for students with disabilities.
Green Dot remains committed to helping students who need a specialized education, and we’ll stop at nothing to help them get there. But, there are sometimes barriers. The need for access to the program and support services we provide for students is as great as it has ever been, and ensuring sustainable resources to provide them is crucial. The communal values that guide us in our approach to special education remind us that we can’t do this alone.
