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The Start of ‘Edgeucation’

Due to popular demand of students and a couple of our new students expressing their musical talent, Felicity School has decided to start a music group with five of our students, featuring staff assistance from our principal and veteran guitar player, Dr. Dignam, as well as one of our paraprofessionals, Mr. Farca and one of our social workers, Ms. Swillum. Students voted on band names such as “Berto Band”, “Rising From Ashes” and “Edgeucation”, and decided on “Edgeucation”. Students will receive English and Elective credits, depending on their credit needs and involvement in the band. These credits would be defined as writing up appropriate song lyrics as well as working on researching the elements of musical instruments.

Featured below is a “before” picture of the practice space as well as one of Edgeucation’s guitarists, stay tuned for the finished product and more practice pictures!

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Clinician’s Corner: An Update From Felicity’s Social Emotional Support Staff

Hello Felicity Families and Partners!
Our clinical staff has definitely been busy in our first month back at school. From assisting with in-person transitions of students to communicating with families about the new school year to checking in weekly with our remote students, our clinicians have been non-stop!

We have had a couple of changes to our clinical team this year. Felicity has our two full time school clinicians, Ms. Greenawalt and Ms. Swillum continuing with the team this year. Ms. Swillum and Ms. Greenawalt are responsible for our day to day clinical operations such as meeting with students individually, communicating with families and providers. Our full-time school clinicians also meet with our part-time clinical staff in order to determine who would benefit from additional therapeutic interventions such as expressive therapy from Ms. Freberg or group therapy from Mr. Gielow.

In addition, we have a part-time art therapist, Ms. Freberg, joining us this year. Ms. Freberg has previously been with Felicity and is looking to reconnect with students as well as build relationships with our new students. Our part-time substance abuse counselor, Mr. Gielow, is continuing with our Felicity clinical team as well. Mr. Gielow has been working with our Felicity clinical team since the school opened!

Our clinical team has also created some new processes this year to assist in providing resources to students, families and districts. Specifically, the clinical team developed a working spreadsheet detailing local mental health resources for students and families to utilize outside of school. Additionally, this year, our Felicity clinical team is working more often with creating data collection methods to provide to our districts for IEP’s. Our clinical team has created a number of surveys that addresses topics such as clinician feedback, general mental health, anger, impulse control, school avoidance and anxiety. We hope that we will be able to bring awareness to previous negative experiences at school and provide a bridge for students, families and our district partners for solid, measurable goals.

Last but not least, we have been also working on our professional development skills as a team. The Felicity mission reflects our desire to help students grow emotionally and academically and we continue to strive to improve our practices. To this end, our staff all completes professional development in Life Space Crisis Intervention (LSCI). This program is a cornerstone of the Felicity model which emphasizes de-escalation techniques and maintaining proper focus on the needs of our students. All staff have completed this training with David Carrillo, an LSCI expert and Felicity Advisory Board member, leading the training. In addition, all Felicity staff participate in yearly CPI training led by our own CPI trainer Andi Freberg. This in-service stress proper behavioral management techniques ensuring all Felicity staff shares the same approach and language across our school. Our full time clinical staff have also had great opportunities to complete online CEU’s and certifications involving specializations of Telementalhealth and anxiety interventions to help our students.

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Starting the 2020-2021 School Year

Felicity School has officially started off this unconventional school year with some big changes. We have been looking forward to reuniting with our students and providing necessary in person support, especially encouraging the social-emotional learning skills to be sharpened. Felicity staff has enjoyed seeing students get re-acquainted and has remained impressed by the students appropriately embracing the safety measures and policies put in place this year.

Additionally, our Felicity staff has been doing some behind the scenes improvements. In order to best smooth out these processes and IEP procedures, our Director of Student Services, Mr. Luskin, and lead teacher Ms. Wright, have started Teacher Mentor Meetings once a week after school. This will also further strengthen communication with our district and community partners.

Overall, Felicity is incorporating as much normalcy to our academic environment as possible. A dedicated 25’ X 18’ space was reconfigured to enable full classroom space. The ‘room’ has a new turf ground with lounge furniture and bleachers allowing for personal interaction combined with social distancing. With the fall and winter approaching, the addition of three outdoor space heaters will allow students to enjoy the outside for a few more months. The addition of a beautiful awning covering the space protects users from the sun and inclement weather while creating a cozy atmosphere conducive to learning, see a visual below!

Additionally, a dedicated area for several grills has provided outdoor cooking and eating opportunities for students and staff alike. Last but not least, no outdoor space is complete without opportunities to be active. A newly installed basketball hoop and court provides a physical outlet for the Felicity students. Cornhole/Baggo sets, a “life size” chess board (complete with all pieces), and other outdoor activities have highlighted the court usage throughout the early fall.

For some additional spaces to gather for meetings and encourage safety, a 20’ x 10’ portable tent is another outdoor space for students that is available. These areas have been great for clinicians, groups, and teachers to meet with students who need a breath of fresh air and a change of scenery.

Additionally, we have been working on creating some safe, “hands on” activities for academic and social emotional growth for students such as new types of groups, science experiments and new activities in P.E. We thank all Felicity students and families for taking this transition so smoothly and hope for a positive, safe school year!

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ESY Wrap Up

We officially wrapped up our Extended School Year remote learning for the 2019-2020 school year! Although it is not the end of the year we expected, the Felicity team was able to adapt to the circumstances with grace and some added creativity.

Felicity School was able to welcome our new teacher, Ms. Nightingale and our new paraprofessional, Mr. Farca for the extended school year. Ms. Nightingale worked with some of our middle school and high school students as a co-teacher with Ms. Horwitz. Ms. Nightingale worked together with Ms. Horwitz to come up with a weekly ESY newsletter of class activities and student recognition. The sample of the newsletter is featured at the top of this post.

Mr. Farca, has been working with some of our high school teachers, Mr. Luskin and Ms. Wright on getting to know the high school students and keeping students engaged during this challenging time. Mr. Farca brings a background of acting and would like to come up with some acting exercises to use in class to help students try a new outlet. We also were able to officially congratulate our newest high school graduate, Alex Marquez.

Looking ahead, Felicity School is encouraging students to stay informed, when possible, about current events. Felicity School wishes students and families to have a safe and fun rest of the summer.

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Felicity’s Message on Current Events

Felicity Families, 

We have been through some challenging times over the past three months, to say the least. Individually and as a community, we have been forced to re-examine ourselves and our country. Whether you have been deeply affected by current events or have noticed an increased level of stress, our thoughts are with you. We hope you have been kind to yourselves and patient with all  you interact with. Everyone is dealing with modern events in unique ways. We encourage discussions with your child or loved one about the importance of speaking openly and respectfully to others regarding race and systemic concerns visible in current events. Felicity firmly believes in the greatness of every single individual and that our institutions must share these values. As we open and develop our minds, we can elevate the spirits of individuals and as a nation. 

Felicity’s commitment to developing one’s morals and value system, giving back to the community, encouraging second chances and self-improvement is unbreakable. There is no time like the present to remind families and ourselves of this mission, as well as hold each other accountable to practice it each day. This can be a great opportunity to challenge yourself and your loved ones about having those difficult conversations and be willing to learn from each other. Please remember that Felicity will continue to be supportive and walk alongside you all during these uncertain times. 

Specifically, our school clinicians will happily answer any questions or provide access to resources to access mental health treatment or community assistance. Our school clinicians know that mental health may be affected in different ways based on individual experiences, whether it is school avoidance, increased signs of frustration or reminders of past trauma, we see you and we hear you. 

Lastly, we hope that you will take this chance to look at some important resources on how to speak with your loved ones openly about current events that may be impacting mental health, no matter what you or your loved one’s opinion may be:


Resources: 
-https://neaedjustice.org/black-lives-matter-school-resources/
-https://rogersbh.org/about-us/newsroom/blog/supporting-students-school-anxiety-during-covid-19
-https://www.nami.org/Your-Journey/Identity-and-Cultural-Dimensions/Black-African-American 

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Felicity Graduation 2020 Shoutouts!

Felicity had a record high count of graduated students for the 2019-2020 school year! Unfortunately, due to the COVID restrictions in place, our staff had to brainstorm how to honor our hard working students while still maintaining safety guidelines. We decided to collect staff volunteers and map our a driving route based on each of the graduating students in order to deliver a certificate of completion and customized Felicity lawn sign for each student.

Most importantly, we wanted to provide a shoutout to our high school graduates: Taylor Miller, Ani Shrestha, Max Salzmann and Schuyler Walker. A number of our high school graduates have expressed a desire to start online college courses or move forward in their working professions. Additionally, we also wanted to recognize of our eighth grade graduates and give a shoutout to the following students: Kevin Acevedo, Aiden Cruz, Brandon Molinari, Nick Pesce, Nora Serbe and Yousef Zmali.

Please see some of our featured graduate signs and students below:

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Online Learning Creativity

During online learning over the past few months, our staff has found lots of creative shortcuts to improve motivation, consistency and maintain hope to move forward in all of our students’ academics as well as keeping focused on future goals.

Specifically, one of our high school classrooms, featuring Mr. Luskin and Ms. Wright, have come up with some incentives for students including weekly prizes for students such as $10-15 giftcards for students who completed the most amount of assignments on Edgenuity by Friday. In fact, Mr. Luskin and Ms. Wright worked with one of our paraprofessionals, Mr. Townsend, on creating a newsletter to publish the names of the students who completed the most assignments for the week.

Additionally, students have been offered alternative assignments to complete safely in their homes such as starting a garden and documenting plant progress as science credit, an ice cream creation experiment with homemade materials for our middle school students created by Ms. Horowitz and Mr. Bolek, as well as a COVID time capsule project, presented by one of our clinicians, Mollie Swillum, to find a creative outlet to document this time in history.

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Online Felicity Platforms and Technology Upgrades

Felicity’s principal, Dr.Dignam, has been working closely with a few of our staff during the COVID-19 pandemic to brainstorm ideas, analyze the data management systems and adjust our electronic information systems to make for a collectively smoother experience for students, families and staff. In turn, we have launched a variety of new school-based platforms to maintain student, parent, and staff records. These will include an e-learning data management system for all Felicity School staff, a student information system to improve accessibility to learning resources, and a new parent portal for new and returning parents to electronically submit student information to the school, from releases of information for providers to registering students to start at Felicity School. For families, the system allows for online registration and document sharing. Students will not only be able to continue to access their online academic programs, but also access all other classroom work.

Currently, the system is up and running and allows for every teacher and paraprofessional to have protected access to information about their students, access to academic work, and resources that may be helpful for students. Our student information data repository simultaneously improves our IEP management. This system is going to make our work an effortless process when it comes to documentation and monitoring student progress, with our valued district partners, to match IEP goals.

Further, we provided some technology updates inside the building. Felicity administration has been able to upgrade security systems with twenty cameras throughout the building. This will ensure staff and student safety and has been a feature that Felicity has been working towards since our new building transition was complete. Additionally, we officially added additional door security with camera entry features to help assist visitors such as parents and district partners, with the sign in process. Specific to our health regulations, temperature taking stations are also utilized as students and staff enter the facility every day.