Student Support & The Purpose of an Evaluation

Is anyone else finding it hard to believe that the school year is more than halfway over? As we approach February, we are prepared and excited to meet with you for winter conferences soon! With conferences on the horizon, I wanted to share with you about the purpose of our learning support and HEART teams so you know how they are involved in student success. 

Students in early childhood and lower school are developing at different speeds with a variety of different abilities, skills, and needs. I have learned this to be true in my own household at the beginning stages of parenthood! At conferences, you may notice that your teacher says your child is an angel, and you might reply, “who are you talking about, that’s not what we see at home!” Your child might be struggling with behavior or academically at school. They may excel in the classroom. They may have a hard time with changes in their daily schedule, they might have a harder time making friends, they might not enjoy a certain class, they may not feel challenged … etc. There are various things your child will find success in, as well as things they will probably struggle with. I’m here to tell you that it’s okay. There are some concerns you certainly want to address more promptly than others, but having strengths and weaknesses is true for every human being I know. School is just as much about learning proper social skills and etiquette as much as it is about learning academics. We are here to do our best to address your child’s needs! 

We have a learning support team headed by Delaney Zimmermann that focuses on addressing specific academic concerns or enrichment. This includes outside tutoring, pullout times during the school day, modified classroom assignments, and so much more. We also have a HEART team made up of Abby Pavlisin, Chris Fernandez, and Delaney Zimmermann to help provide social and emotional, academic, and health support to help our students be the best versions of themselves. These teams work together with teachers and Division Directors come up with a plan to help individual students while working alongside parents. Support can range from weekly check-in meetings with Mrs. Pavlisin to sharing resources with parents to schedule an evaluation.

As I mentioned, children develop at different rates and have certain areas of strength and other areas that may be more difficult for them, and that’s completely normal. There may be times when an area of struggle needs to be addressed. If that’s the case, you may be asked to have a psychoeducational evaluation. That’s a mouth full of a phrase and you may have no idea what that means! Let me explain. A full psychoeducational evaluation is testing that covers every possible angle of learning and behavior concerns to pinpoint specific areas to focus on. There are different types of evaluations that we may recommend, but a psychoeducational evaluation is the most effective and beneficial because it covers everything. This type of an evaluation helps teachers know specific strategies that will be helpful to a student instead of trial and error attempts. I like to think of it like throwing arrows at a target. Nothing may come back from an evaluation, many things may come back, or possibly just one arrow will land. We can at least say everything has been explored, uncovered, or eliminated by going through the full psychoeducational evaluation process.

Once you get results back from an evaluation, our learning support team along with classroom teachers will work together to create an Oakhill Student Success Plan. This plan can be adjusted as needed and will follow students all the way through college, if needed. This plan is shared with parents and interpreted ensuring everyone understands. If students don’t need certain supports, we can change or remove them from the plan at any time. Delaney Zimmermann does a fantastic job coordinating with teachers and families so everyone understands the success plan moving forward, and she keeps them up to date if the plan changes. In my time at Oakhill I have seen many students find great success after going through the evaluation process and receiving a specific plan tailored to their needs. 

It’s amazing how getting some momentum headed in a focused direction can produce positive results. I’ve seen that momentum along with Student Success Plans and teacher/parent partnerships make a world of a difference in a child’s life! We also have parents in our own school willing to talk to you about their own experiences.

If you have any questions or concerns about going through the evaluation process or how our support teams can assist your child, please reach out to your teacher, Delaney Zimmermann, or Tim Ziegler and we would be happy to chat!