Those who attended the March 18 meeting of the Voorhees Board of Education walked out well informed on Voorhees Middle School’s program for students with multiple disabilities.
District director of special services Elaine Hill introduced a presentation on the program, which focuses on helping students ages 11–14 with multiple disabilities by educating them in areas such functional academics, daily living skills, personal care and hygiene recreational/leisure skills, community awareness and exploration, workplace readiness and pre-vocational skills and social/behavioral competencies.
Hill said the program started nearly a decade ago as a way to give the district more responsibility in education those with special needs — previously those students were sent out of district — and as a way to actually save money as well.
Voorhees Middle School special education teacher Stephanie Steinbeck spoke in length about the school’s program and said the main focus is to help kids who might have slightly more challenges in life to get out and be functioning citizens and an important part the world.
Steinbeck said a big component of the program is the vocational and job skills education aspect, which at the middle school level she said was an “awareness type of approach” to get the kids ready for a high school setting where they’ll focus more on getting ready for a job outside of a school environment.
According to Steinbeck, when the program first started she had trouble finding teachers the kids could assist in someway.
However, as the program grew and evolved to its current state, she said she’s now inundated with requests, such as helping in the supply closet, the school store, and just different clerical jobs in the office or anything that the staff needs.
“It’s a great way to help the school, it’s also a great a way to get the kids involved and feel like their helping in our school environment,” Steinbeck said.
Steinbeck also said another key component to the program was staying connected in the school community beyond learning skills, such as mentor programs and involvement in extracurricular activities, of which said all the after school advisors and coaches were more than welcoming for the program’s children to be involved with.
She specially noted the running club and track program, which she said as expanded to the point where students with needs can participate not through a separate program, but being embedded their general education typical peers, as with a recent meet.
“It didn’t matter if they came in first or if they came in last, everybody was cheering,” Steinbeck said. “The coaches, the teammates from our team, children from the other team, are all cheering until they pass that finish line. It’s a pretty amazing time.”
In addition to being involved in the school community, Steinbeck said it was important for the students to be involved the township community as well, so community based instruction also takes places in which students take trips to show teachers how they can use their skills beyond the classroom.
“It allows for not only for the kids to get out in the community, but for people out in the community, police, different personal, to become familiar with the faces of our children, so it kind of aligns with a safety issues,” Steinbeck said.
Ultimately, Steinbeck described the program as a well-oiled machine due to hard work of dedicated teachers, therapists and other staff.
“Some days it’s more well-oiled than others, some days its just controlled chaos, but we get through,” Steinbeck said.
