Zelda: TQS' Newest Employee

Dear Parents,

 

Most of you have met my new puppy, Zelda. My family adopted her in December from a wonderful rescue organization called WAGS, which fostered her in a home right down the road in Montgomeryville. 

Our 15-year-old beagle, the dog the kids called the nice one, passed in early December, and JD, the dog the kids call the mean one, was awful lonely. After a few days of mourning, the search was on for a puppy.

I explained to WAGS that the dog we adopted would have to come into a school for children with complex challenges every day and live with my own special needs child, Pearl. The rescue selected Zelda, an 8-month-old Plott Hound, for us. “She is perfect,” they said … and wow, were they correct. 

And, wow is a puppy a lot of work. 

So now, Zelda has a new home and a new job -- and she is quickly becoming a paws-down favorite among the students. I think at this point she spends more time walking alongside children who are struggling with anxiety than she does in my office. Having Nicole, Nori or Melissa stop by the office to ask “Can I borrow Zelda?” has become a regular occurrence. 

Zelda is a stellar new employee, and a quick learner. For example, she’s already recognized how deeply committed The Quaker School at Horsham is to professional development for ALL staff -- even those of the canine variety -- and she can’t wait to continue her own education. 

That’s right: after several coaching conversations, Zelda committed to the long road of becoming a therapy dog. 

Her first step is to practice for and take her canine good citizen test. Then, the American Kennel Club has five levels of therapy-dog certification through which Zelda must progress. (If you ask the person whose granola bar she just stole, even the first step is going to take considerable effort. However, starting in a few weeks. a trainer will begin coming to school and Zelda will begin her professional learning journey.)  

Zelda’s professional development efforts are in good company here at TQS. 

Right now, Lisa Nolan, Randy Viscio and Nicole Adamayorka-Negro are in the midst of a rigorous 25-week training program that will lead to them being the first three Collaborative and Proactive Solutions-trained professionals in the state of Pennsylvania. Julie-Ann Stimmel and Ian Pearsall are working toward their Wilson Reading System Level 1 certification by reading, attending trainings, and performing supervised lessons. Denise Guiteras is working on her Wilson Reading System Level 2 certification. Every faculty member attended a full-day training in Step Up to Writing … and this is just what I can list in this letter. 

While Zelda’s training is sure to make her even more successful with our students, I can’t help but be even more proud of our teachers’ professional development. 

The TQS teacher training budget represents 2% of the TQS total operating budget, which is $68,000, and TQS faculty have participated in 244 hours of Professional Development since September. That’s pretty doggone great. 

In 1978 Jean Piaget wrote: 

“The heartbreaking difficulty in pedagogy, as indeed in medicine and other branches of knowledge that partake at the same time of art and science, is, in fact, that the best methods are also the most difficult ones.” 

We have a critically important mission here at TQS: to help each child blossom socially, behaviorally, and academically. To accomplish the audacious goal set forth by our mission, we need to all be the best trained professionals in the field (and, of course, the best behaved dogs too). 

As Piaget illustrates, sometimes the most important jobs are the most difficult ones, and we must be the best artists and scientists possible. In addition to time and funding, this requires tremendous commitment from the professionals involved and, as you all know, this fine group of people will stop at nothing to see their students’ succeed. 

If you want to learn more about all the exciting professional learning happening at TQS, please hit reply on this email -- and if you haven’t met Zelda yet, you are missing out on some awesome puppy hugs. Stop on by and say hello.

Shine on,

Alex