West Cook News

At its Nov. 15 meeting, the Norridge Schools District Board of Education heard from Peter Masters, director of special education, who discussed the cooperation between the special ed., and general ed. teachers.

“They support us through our co-teaching model, so having our special education teachers push into the general ed. classroom and collaborating with a general ed teacher (gives) our students the best opportunity for learning,” Masters said. 

Masters discussed recent updates within the special education program. The program sends out updates at the end of each trimester to each of the students identified as having a disability to update parents on how things are going within the classroom. The most recent round of report cards should go out in the first few days of December. 

Masters said the special education committee has been very busy so far this school year. It has been working on creating a department-wide handbook, which it finished on the day of the board meeting and was hoping to give out in about a week’s time. This was done toward having a more cohesive and consistent department. 

The board learned future projects include creating some sample IEP’s and tutorials on various challenges in paper work processes, which is something that takes up a lot of time in the department. The committee has started looking at some summer training for staff, and some of the staff had attended training and lectures in Chicago this past fall.