Inclusion

Goal: ISY is committed to addressing the individual learning of each student. A program of Inclusion will ensure differentiated instruction for all of our students, de-emphasizing the need for additional tutoring.

Throughout the 2018-19 school year, ISY has demonstrated its commitment to inclusive practices that better address the individual needs of students.

Professional learning opportunities for our teachers focused on inclusive instructional practices and interventions, including workshops on essential components of Response to Intervention (RtI), Reggio Emilia, John Hattie’s Visible Learning, and Teaching ESL Students in Mainstream Classrooms. Additionally, teachers participated in workshops delivered by inclusion consultant Belinda Karge and in guided reading groups. The Student Support Team (SST) completed training in aimswebPlus, an online curriculum-based measurement tool for monitoring and tracking student progress. All teaching faculty and staff will be trained in how to use this data tool next year.

A multi-tiered support system is now in place for in Grades 1-10. Within this framework, student needs are identified using data from Measure of Academic Progress (MAP) testing, Developmental Reading Assessment (DRA), and Language Proficiency assessments (LAS Links). Teachers identify targeted, instructional interventions that can be provided within the classroom, in small group settings, or on a one-to-one basis. Some of these interventions include Freckle, an online differentiation platform for math and language arts, Newsela and ReadingWorks.org for differentiated reading levels, and speech-to-text Chrome extensions.

This is the first year of ISY’s scholarship program, which is comprised of two students recruited in the previous academic year. As these scholarship students have never experienced an international environment, special care was given to ensure they were successful academically and socially. After one year at ISY, both students are excelling inside and outside the classroom. Last year’s inaugural application process saw nineteen applicants whereas this year ISY received fifty applications. Two excellent candidates have been selected from this group and we look forward to them joining the school next year.