​For this week’s blog post, I’d like to introduce our newest Los Angeles partner school: Aspire Slauson Academy! Slauson Academy is one of eleven Aspire Public Charter Schools in the Los Angeles region. Opened in 2011, Slauson serves 300 students, TK through 6th grade, with a mission to provide all students an exceptional education that will allow them to excel inside and outside the classroom.
 
Our Unconditional Education partnership with Aspire Slauson Academy is funded through the CA Department of Education’s California Community Schools Partnership Program. We partnered with the Slauson team last year to write the grant that will fund our work starting this year and at least through the 2026-27 school year. Our UE Coach, Lauren Kennedy, has had a busy fall semester, partnering with Slauson’s team to situate the new role on campus through direct support and the launch of several new initiatives. Some of these highlights include:

• Conducting interviews and focus groups with all Slauson staff to hear their perspectives on school culture and climate, systems of student supports, and staff practices for responding to challenging behaviors
• Facilitating the Positive Behavior Interventions and Supports (PBIS) Tiered Fidelity Inventory with Slauson’s leadership team, to self-assess the school’s systems of positive behavioral support and develop an action plan to improve them
• Administering school climate surveys to all staff, students, and parents/caregivers (with responses from 169 families!) to inform Slauson’s culture and climate goals
• Founding and launching Slauson’s Culture and Climate Committee (C3) to collaboratively plan and improve on the priorities identified in the fall assessment
• Partnering with Slauson leadership to redesign supervision structures for multiple rounds of student lunch and recess times
• Participating on the MTSS team to analyze school-wide data and action plan based on areas of need
• Providing valuable direct support for high-need students and classrooms

 
Slauson’s leadership has quickly proved to be incredibly aligned to UE’s goals and mission, and we truly see the work this fall as building a solid foundation for years of partnership to come. We are thankful for Aspire Slauson as partners and hosts and are looking forward to the work ahead!

​Seneca has had an ongoing partnership with Caliber Beta Academy to provide a Collaborative, or Collab Model. At Caliber, we have two clinicians, one behavior support specialist, and one student support assistant who help facilitate this program. The goal is to keep students who might otherwise need higher levels of placement (Special Day Class, Counseling Enriched Classrooms, Non-Public Schools, etc.) in their general education setting.  In order for students to qualify for this service, Caliber has already tried a variety of different interventions. Usually students already have an IEP, academic support services, behavior intervention services, therapeutic services, and possibly speech or occupational therapy services. If these services separately have not been enough to help the student succeed, our staff step in to support with some additional layers.
 
Justin Vizinau, our behavior support specialist, is key in the extra level of collaboration between all the team members involved in students’ treatment. He holds weekly, or biweekly meetings that include all key players for the student’s team.  This ensures regular and consistent communication on student plans, updates on any significant events, and collaborative problem-solving regarding behaviors on campus. In his words, “The highlight of the Collab Model is getting to see everyone come together for the better of the client and seeing everyone’s voice and ideas incorporated into the planning and execution of plans”. 
 
Clinicians Jamila Voltaire and Eddie Vasquez provide individual therapy, and consistent communication and collaboration with caregivers regarding student treatment. Eddie’s highlight for the Collab Model is “Collaborating with people that actually care about our students’ overall well-being makes Caliber a special place. I love working with all the individuals that support our students, and especially love working with our students.” Together the Seneca team helps build capacity of the campus community by providing valuable psycho-education regarding the internal working model of students, and best practices regarding behavioral interventions. 

Constellation is excited to announce our expanding partnership with Castro Valley Unified School District at Creekside Middle School! We have been in discussions with Castro Valley over the past year to lead up to this exciting news! We will be opening our newest Counseling Enriched Classroom in Fall of 2024 at Creekside Middle School in Castro Valley, and in preparation to open this classroom we will be integrating a clinician to start building relationships on campus this school year.