Lighthouse School, Inc.

February 12, 2021

"There is no greater disability in society, than the inability to see a person as more."

--Robert Hensel (Guinness World Records holder and Advocate for the disabled)

"Believe you can and you're halfway there."

--Theodore Roosevelt (26th President of the United States)

"The only disability in life is a bad attitude."

--Scott Hamilton (American figure skater)

News & Announcements

Announcements:

Administrators' Corner

By Rose Mitchell, Coordinator for Specialized Services

As a treatment center and a school, we are deeply committed to providing high-quality treatment and services to our students, through both online and hybrid learning opportunities. Our bioeducational services blend APEX Treatment with academic and therapeutic services to provide opportunities for our students to learn about themselves and others.


This happens throughout the day, whether in a math class, speech therapy, individual therapy, or group therapy. Many of our students come to us with unique learning challenges, and online learning has added an additional layer to this challenge. Our dedicated staff have embraced a variety of technology platforms such as Pear Deck, NearPod, and Kahoot! to make their lessons engaging and accessible to all of our learners, even the most reluctant.


We continue to explore creative approaches to motivate and encourage these reluctant learners, gently shape their participation and nurture every success, large or small. Many of our once-reluctant learners have recently earned Honor Roll on their most recent report card!

Through collaborative efforts and co-treating opportunities, our Occupational and Speech Therapists have addressed language, sensory, and language development during academic lessons to support students’ learning needs. Our Assessment Division utilizes evaluation tools to identify learning strengths and weaknesses as well as a student's social and emotional development, which is translated into learning accommodations written into their Individualized Education Plan. This information guides the development of treatment and lesson plans for our students. As a team, we are able to address the individual needs of our students in a coordinated and unified way.

In the words of Helen Keller, “Alone we can do so little; together we can do so much.” Our partnership with our families and districts provides our students with the best opportunity for long term success for their future.

Bioeducational Theme of the Month: Disability Awareness


Bioeducation

You can find the January Cluster Notes by clicking the image of the folder!

Student Engagement: 2nd Quarter Honor Roll

To expand the impact recognition can have on our students as learners, we began quarterly Academic Honor Roll last year. This acknowledged students that maintain excellence through A/B or Adv./Prof. grades in their core academic areas (ELA, Writing, Reading, Math, History, Science, Electives), with the exception of a grade scope of Adv./Prof./Prog. for Reading and Writing. This opportunity has been powerful for our students to help define their identity as learners and in rebuilding their confidence inside the walls of a school. They can reflect on their hard work and perseverance and thrive from the acknowledgment and attention for rising to the challenge each day. This has also allowed us to also have short term goal setting. Not earning Academic Honor Roll might be seen as a defeat. However, it is an opportunity for students to meet with their teachers and strengthen their partnership to set attainable goals for the next quarter. It allows them to look at their strengths and limitations and not see them as a roadblock, but an obstacle to work together to overcome. While this focus not only motivates students to learn about content, it also encourages them to learn about themselves. Together, this process strengthens our efforts in helping students become not only well-rounded learners but also well-rounded people. We would like to recognize and congratulate the students attaining 2nd Quarter Honor Roll for school year 20-21: Click here to see the 2nd Quarter honor roll and hit "present" at top of the page.

Spotlight on:

Motivation

At Lighthouse, we know that our students can struggle to feel motivated to attend and participate in the school environment. Many have not felt successful at past school placements and may not feel that they can accomplish their goals (or even know how to begin setting goals for themselves). As a team, our staff has been focusing on motivating our students to believe in themselves and recognize the value of their education. At Lighthouse, the foundation of helping students remain engaged in their learning and treatment starts with building a relationship based on mutual trust and caring. Beginning on a student’s first day at Lighthouse, staff look to make an emotional connection by sincerely taking an interest in the student as an individual and helping the student to establish a sense of self-worth through these open and honest relationships. We work to develop trust by investing in getting to know the student and learning more about their feelings, needs, beliefs and interests, as we help them to develop a deeper understanding of themselves as well.

When a student is new to Lighthouse or is struggling with motivation, we start by exploring external motivators, such as electronics, clothing, or food, in an effort to provide the motivation a student may be lacking intrinsically. They earn these items by working on their therapeutic and academic goals. As the student continues to work hard, they also earn things they want, and in addition to the motivational item, they are rewarded with positive reinforcement in the form of tokens and verbal praise. The goal initially is to increase the student’s insight into why they are at Lighthouse, what they need to work on while enrolled, and how they can achieve their potential. The hope is that over time, the student’s source of motivation changes from an external object to internal motivation and that they develop their own sense of striving toward optimal life success. Throughout the years that a student is enrolled, we see them develop a belief in themselves, along with a sense of hope for the future where there may not have been much hope before. The relationships formed with key staff deepen and become stronger emotionally so the student’s feeling of hope and growth is connected not just to themselves, but is shared with people they know care about them and have their best interests at heart.

Last March, when we shut down our building in response to COVID-19, we recognized that working remotely would pose additional challenges for our students in terms of motivation. It was particularly important for us to find ways to maintain our relationships and adapt our reinforcement system to continue connecting with students, using the power of these connections to encourage and support their engagement. We developed an Outreach Motivation Team to maintain a connection with the students who were particularly struggling to participate in the remote learning experience. We brought groceries out to families to support them and so we could let them know that although not physically together daily, we were still here. We brought items of interest to our students to provide the extrinsic motivation they increasingly needed as remote learning continued. It was so meaningful in an uncertain time to find ways to spend quality time with our students, in a safe way, especially the students who we were not seeing consistently online. We took these measures because we believe in our students, but even more importantly, we want to help them believe in themselves and the importance of their educational experience at Lighthouse School. Please do not hesitate to reach out if there is a way in which we can support you and your child in engaging in their educational and treatment opportunities!

Recent Communications

This section of the Lighthouse School Update is designed to provide important communication topics that have been emailed or mailed to parents and guardians. If you have not received these documents, please reach out to your Family Therapist to make sure we have your updated information.

Please click on the letter you wish to view.

To our LEA's

Thank you for your continued partnership as we work to support our students and their families. We are here for you. If you need anything, please do not hesitate to contact us:

Dorothy Pepin

Director of Program Administration
Pepind@lighthouseschool.org

Jennifer Kamin

Associate Director of Program Administration Kaminj@lighthouseschool.org

Amy Bassett

Supervisor for Team Meetings
Bassetta@lighthouseschool.org

Sandra Muldowney

Supervisor for Enrollment Services
MuldowneyS@lighthouseschool.org

To our Families

Our therapists are available to offer clinical support to families and students 24 hours a day.

If you are in need of assistance, please call our support line, starting with Line 1.

Line #1: (978) 821-1351

If you are not able to connect with a therapist or do not get a response within 10 minutes, please try Line 2.

Line #2: (978) 821-0316


Resources

Click the icon for up-to-date information regarding COVID-19 from the Mass General Hospital website

We are Still Here!

To our LEA’s: We truly appreciate the partnership we have with all of the LEA’s who have the trust and faith in our programming that allows us at Lighthouse to provide for the students in need from each district.


As we come closer to marking a year of adjustments and challenges we wanted you to know that we are here for you to help in any way we can. As we approach the halfway mark of this unusual school year and begin planning for the next school year we want you to know that we are accepting new students.


Please click on the video to learn a little more about how “We are Still Here”.