Sarah Cooper-Evans

speech/language clinician

Grades 6-8

Hello families of students receiving speech/language services this school year at Andersen! I would like to introduce myself and let you know a little about me and my passion for guiding, supporting, and directly teaching students with various communication disorders.

I live in south Minneapolis in the Windom neighborhood with my husband, 3 school-aged children, 1 toddler, and many pets! All three of our school-aged children attend a nearby Minneapolis public school- Ella Baker Global Studies and Humanities Magnet. Our toddler spends his days playing and getting into various mischief. I work part time (24 hours per week) so I spend my non-work time each week keeping up with family life. I believe in the power of play and lots of experiential learning so we spend our evenings and weekends making the most of our family time together. We also love to get out of the city when we can, and spend some time at our family farm house near Fergus Falls, MN, and this summer spent time with extended family in Kenosha, WI as well as Washington Island (near Door County, WI).

I have worked for MPS since 2002, but I have taken a couple of leaves of absences: one to go work in Portland, OR, for a couple of years and another to work even more part time (substituting in other districts) right after we had our third child. In MPS, I have worked in many settings, including early intervention with children aged birth to three and their families, elementary schools, and working with preschoolers with autism spectrum disorders. Last year was my first year working in a middle school, and I loved it. I will be working at Andersen 3 days per week- Mondays, Tuesdays, and Wednesdays. I believe in building strong and meaningful relationships with students and families as well as using evidence based practices to improve student communication, meet IEP goals, and make communication and learning more accessible to all students. I am a lifelong learner and do my best to reflect on student learning each time I see a student in order to provide the best service I can. Some specific practices I am really excited about this school year are focusing on inclusion, adaptation, and coteaching models, continuing to use CORE words and “aided language input” with students and staff, language based literacy intervention that is part of a balanced literacy approach within students' content standards, specifically science this year, and teaching students to “analyze as they practice” speech sounds.

Thanks for the opportunity to work with your children. I believe each and every student is brilliant. Email and texting are both effective ways to contact me Sarah.Cooper@mpls.k12.mn.us

google voice number 612-314-6985

Everyday as a practice. Looking forward to being in community with you.

google classroom

https://classroom.google.com/c/Mzk5MzU1NDQwODAy

Schedule:

Mondays, Tuesdays, and Wednesdays: Andersen Middle School

Supporting students in 7th grade science, social emotional learning and literacy in Setting 3 classrooms- Autism Spectrum Disorders (ASD) and Developmentally and Cognitive Disabilities (DCD)