Source: Luria Academy
Room on the Bench: A Project of the Luria Academy of Brooklyn works to transform the experience of students with special needs and their families into one that fully integrates them as members of the Jewish day school community, collaborating with schools to create an inclusive environment through modeling best practices, online guides, and consulting services. Room on the Bench works within existing frameworks and engages teachers, outside service providers, and parents, to create more integrated schools. The project is grounded in the belief that students with special needs belong in our classrooms, at our play dates, and at our birthday parties, as full members of Jewish Day School communities.
Room on the Bench provides an assessment, toolkit and individualized consultation services to school staff to benefit the education of students with disabilities in Jewish Day Schools and Yeshivas.
Room on the Bench provides the following consultation services:
Individualized Coaching
For a specific teacher or staff member, individualized coaching is best for an individual seeking to learn a wide variety of information about meeting the needs of students with disabilities in the classroom. Coaching can be done in person, by phone or by video chat.
Group Coaching
For a small group, such as a team of teachers working with the same class of students or an administrative team, group coaching delves deeply into individualized areas of concern or difficulty when accommodating students with disabilities in school. Coaching can be done in person or by video chat.
Workshop
For an entire faculty or large array of teachers, workshops tackle an issue through an engaging presentation and role - play to work on student engagement on a systemic level. All workshop s are delivered in person.
Topics include:
- Creating student - centric environments
- Communicating with students with disabilities and Collaborative Problem Solving
- Response to Intervention and Differentiation in the Classroom
- Making Lessons Multi - Sensory
- Positive Behavioral Interventions and Supports and 1:1 Behavior Intervention Plans
- Transitions
The Luria Academy Inclusion Guide is an overview on how to build an inclusive Day School community. It includes descriptions of the Individualized Education Plan process, student-centric classroom design, a parental perspective on having a child with a disability, and what the community can do to ensure students with disabilities feel welcomed and supported inside and outside of school.