Northwood Elementary Support Services

We are fortunate to have a broad range of support and specialists on staff

to aid in the education, development, and welfare of the entire student body. 

ECSE - Early Childhood Special Education

ECSE students with disabilities such as developmental delays, communication delays, blindness, hearing impairments, autism, or health impairments are served in the district ECSE. The services are designed to provide support to children with a documented disability who reside in anywhere in the Mercer Island School District attendance area.

Eligibility is determined by meeting qualifying criteria in at least one of the following areas: communication, cognition, social-emotional, adaptive, and/or motor. Mercer Island School District offers regularly scheduled, free developmental screenings for children age 3-5 years old. These screenings, called ChildFind, provide an opportunity for early childhood professionals to look at your child's development and compare it to other children their age. We can also assist you in arranging for the screening of babies and toddlers under 3 years of age..

ECSE staff consists of special education teachers, board-certified behavior analyst, school psychologist, speech and language pathologist, occupational therapist, physical therapist, and paraprofessionals.
The ECSE setting is also varied ranging from highly structured one-on-one instruction and therapy, to group instruction and activities. 

PALS - Practicing and Learning Skills

PALS stands for Practicing and Learning Skills. The focus of PALS is to support selected students by offering additional social and emotional skills instruction. Our PALS program is currently run by Liz Kuhn, a Northwood Paraprofessional.

A student in the PALS program receives additional support during the school day to allow the student to successfully access his/her overall learning.  Oftentimes, the support is a quick check in at the beginning of the day and/or the end of the day. There are often one or two goals that the student is working on which support the student’s successful access to all learning.  Sample goals may include a Binder Reminder check, getting started on assignments, or a variety of playground skills, just to name a few. Research indicates that positive adult relationships help foster success in a school setting and the PALS program provides this type of relationship.

In addition to working one-on-one with students and their individualized goals, Liz is partnering with classroom teachers to provide a seamless flow to the student’s day. Liz often goes to the classroom to do check ins or work with students around a particular goal, but if the situation dictates, Liz may also meet with students in a shared learning space.

Liz is also a standing member of Northwood’s Student Support Team (SST), a team that meets weekly to talk about how to best support all students at Northwood. Liz is able to provide strategies for classroom teachers to use with all students and is able to talk at depth with a teacher if there is a student who is being considered for the PALS program.

Our PALS program is PTA-funded and is a critical part of the support for our Northwood students.  Before a student may access the PALS program, he/she must be recommended by his/her teacher and/or the SST and once this step has taken place, Liz reaches out to families and sends home a permission slip.  The PALS support may last a few weeks or a few months; support is dependent on individual student need.

Counselor 

Anna Fenster, the Northwood Elementary School counselor works with students, teachers and parents in order to provide students with the best available learning environment. This position is funded by Mercer Island Youth and Family Services. To help students, Laura provides guidance and counseling in the areas of educational and social-personal-behavioral concerns. In working with teachers, the counselor helps identify and provide appropriate programs for students with special learning difficulties. The counselor also works closely with parents to help them better understand the school environment, the way their children function, and provide referrals to parents who need further support. 

English Language Development Services (ELD) 

The ELD Services brings a rich cultural diversity to our school. ELD students receive instruction four times per week during the morning. The small group instruction emphasizes oral language development as well as reading, spelling and some writing. The remainder of the day, students are included in the general education classroom with program adaptation done by the teacher in conjunction with the ELD teacher.

The first step in determining if students qualify for ELD services is to ask parents/guardians during the registration process to complete a home language survey which identifies the child’s primary language. Parents who indicate on the home language survey that their student has a primary language other than English will be assessed before starting school or within ten days of attendance using a Washington English Language Proficiency Assessment (WELPA) test to determine eligibility for the ELD program. The test covers listening, speaking, reading, and writing skills. Any student who scores a level one (beginning/advanced beginning), two (intermediate), or three (advanced) will be eligible for English language instruction in the program. Parents/guardians are notified soon after testing. Upon meeting with the parents/guardians after initial testing and gathering more information about the student, the ELD coordinator will recommend appropriate placement.

Please note that all eligible K-5 students are placed at their neighborhood schools and all ELD students will attend regular class(es) while participating in the ELLDProgram. For more information about our ELD Services, please visit the district website under Learning Services, English Language Development. 

Primary Enrichment Services (PES)

PES is an enrichment program at Northwood that offers additional instruction to K, 1, and 2 students. Students who qualify for this program remain in their general education classrooms with enrichment pullout and/or push-in once a week. 

Special Education Services

Special Education Services are available to students who qualify for specially designed instruction. Northwood has a Resource Room (RR) which serves children with mild to moderate learning challenges. Students with specific learning disabilities and health impairments are most commonly seen in the Resource Rooms. At the elementary level, students usually receive 30 minutes or more per day of additional instruction.

We also house a Personalized Learning Program (PLP) which serves children with moderate to severe cognitive challenges. This program provides students who need to have most or all of their instruction in a separate classroom. Significant changes to content, methods and/or pacing of instruction are made.

Students in these programs are also integrated into general education classes as much as possible. These programs may also provide instruction in life skills, recreation and leisure and vocational training. For more information about Mercer Island School District’s special education programs, please visit the district webpage. 

Learning Support

Northwood students benefit from additional support inside and outside of the classroom. State funded programs provide early intervention which is essential to the success of our students. The goal of the Learning Support Program (LSP) is to improve educational opportunities for students by helping them:

1) succeed in the regular classroom;

2) obtain grade-level proficiency;

3) improve achievement in basic and more advanced skills that all students are expected to master.

The purpose of the Learning Support Program team is to provide a problem-solving forum for school personnel working with struggling or at-risk students as identified by teachers, parents, and or/counselors. The team may include a broad range of staff members as well as outside professionals, as necessary, for the particular child. 

Occupational Therapist

Rachel Heidling serves as Northwood's Occupational Therapist for students who qualify for help with daily living functions to support wellbeing. OT’s use self-care, work, and play activities to increase independent function, enhance development, and prevent disability. In the school setting, this means helping students with their main occupation, being students. 

Speech Therapist

Also known as a Communication Disorder Specialist or Speech Language Pathologist, Kris LaFramboise is available to provide individual speech and language therapy for students who have difficulty pronouncing some speech sounds and/or correctly putting words together into sentences. Parents who are concerned about their child’s speech, language, or hearing should contact Speech Therapist, Kris LaFramboise or their child’s teacher. 

School Psychologist 

Andrew Schulman serves as Northwood Elementary School's Psychologists. She works cooperatively with the elementary school counselor to aid teachers and parents in understanding their children’s learning and social abilities. Children are referred to the psychologist through the Building Guidance Team, which is managed by the building principal. 

Many of these Support Services play a role in the Multi-Tiered Systems of Support (MTSS)

framework used by Mercer Island Schools to target and support ALL students.