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A majority of our Felicity students have been enjoying re-visiting cooking class as a part of additional elective credit and transferable life skills. Each of the students that are a part of our cooking class have completed an online Food Handlers Safety Course that can also be utilized as a marketable skill for future job opportunities in the food service industry. Additionally, Felicity School is looking to the Deerfield community to collaborate on potential restaurant partnerships, which may also benefit students in job training.

We are also working on being more inclusive and mindful of our students individual backgrounds with food such as culture, level of experience cooking, etc. Some of the foods that have been made so far in our cooking class are: jalapeño poppers, fried oreos, corn chowder, quesadillas and lasagna. Check out a few of our staff and students working with the cooking class below!

One of the advantages of being in-person at Felicity School is having increased opportunities to work on hands on science projects that incorporate STEM learning objectives in order to increase student skill sets such as adaptability and transferable skills with different types of science.

Featured below are some of our recent science experiments that students have completed to encourage direct instruction such as make your own lava lamps, egg drop experiment, leaf pressing and learning about chick development:

2020 has definitely caused the Felicity team to think outside of the box regarding how we start a new tradition for this difficult year. During one of our staff meetings, we thought it would be best to surprise our students with some treats and a nice message from our staff to remind them that we are still here to virtually celebrate the holidays with them.

A few of our staff, Ms. Greenawalt, Mr. Farca and Mr. Mitchem volunteered as the Felicity drop off crew for our students to receive a surprise close to the holidays. The Felicity holiday gift package included a number of sweet treats and a Felicity logo glass. See a sample holiday gift package and our message to the students below!

Our Felicity staff has been using a lot of trial and error to find unique ways to involve our students in new ways, both virtually and in person. With changes and adaptability being inevitable this school year, Felicity Staff has added virtual and in-person activities to help our students make the best of this school year.

Mr. Farca and Ms. Greenawalt took the reigns on getting our e-learning students more engaged with our in person students by using Kahoot!, an online quiz platform that has been more common with schools this year. Kahoot! has pre-loaded quizzes for common trivia topics or can customize quiz questions and make a fun competition for students and staff. Each week, we see more and more staff and student attendance, which has included creating some incentives as well as incorporating educational topics!

As the school year continues, we have found ways to adapt to creating outings such as having a sledding field trip to a local park, incorporating more group sports in P.E., a quilting project and reinstating weekly Athletico visits for soccer games. Additionally, as the weather improves and safety precautions remain in place, we have been able to re-introduce our outdoor classroom space. Please see some of our photos below!

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!

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.

For the past five months, Gina and Jodi from Buddah Warrior have been working with our Felicity students. Every Tuesday during P.E., each of the instructors separate the P.E. class into two sections, one section for students who want a high impact workout with Gina. The workouts provided during high impact P.E. include: self-defense techniques and cardio kickboxing.  This is a great space for students to try different types of workouts in a P.E. class setting on a more consistent basis.

For the students who are not interested in a high impact P.E. workout, Jodi guides some of the students through practicing mindfulness and meditation exercises. “After mindfulness, the kids have said they feel a sense of calm for about 1-2 hours after the exercises” high school teacher Mr. Watson states. Mindfulness groups with Jodi from Buddah Warriors give students the opportunities to journal about being present in the moment and setting intentions for the day ahead, it encourages students to slow down and take the day one moment at a time to reduce previous patterns of impulsive behavior.

Recently, the Buddah Warriors and some of our Felicity team was featured on a news segment regarding self-defense practices! Please visit this link to check it out: https://wgntv.com/2020/01/22/around-town-learns-cobra-self-defense-with-the-buddha-warrior-girls/

For more general information about Buddah Warrior workouts and philosophies, please visit, https://www.buddhawarriors.com/