LSEP Goes to Castle Island |
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Sharing best practices and promoting inclusive opportunities for students with special needs
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Interim Executive Director's
Message
To the LABBB Community:
Welcome to the 2021-2022 school year! We are looking forward to seeing our colleagues and families during the week of August 30th as we begin another year of service to our students and communities!
Health and Safety Protocols
While we had high hopes that positive developments with respect to COVID-19 over the past months would allow us a more “normal” return to school this fall, it has become abundantly clear over the past few weeks that mitigation and safety standards will need to be in place in our region. Our administration and nursing department will continue to closely follow updates to DESE guidance and plans put in place by our member districts, as well as the latest protocols from the CDC and Department of Public Health (DPH).
We plan to publish our updated K-12 Health and Safety Protocol on or before Friday, August 27th, although it is now clear that masks will be required inside buildings for students, staff and visitors in all LABBB programs.
LABBB Evening Parent Meetings
We will continue to hold LABBB Parent Meetings on the same evenings as our monthly dances. This allows our parents to drop off your son or daughter at Lexington Community Center (39 Marrett Road), then attend the meeting upstairs at the Center.
These informative meetings allow us to discuss various topics related to programming, special needs planning, recreation, transition, post-22 planning, supplemental security income (SSI), financial planning, and many other important issues.
Parent meetings for 2021-2022 will take place from 7:00 to 8:15 p.m. on the following dates:
October 21
November 18
December 16
January 20
February 3
March 10
April 28
May 19
We hope that our parents will be able to attend!
Executive Director Search Process
The search process for the permanent Executive Director at LABBB will be underway very soon! You can access the timeline for this process here, as well as a video that will walk you through the different aspects of the search. We will provide more information about a survey, focus groups, and the opportunity to serve as a member of the search committee in September.
Please do not hesitate to contact me directly at blupini@labbb.net with any questions or comments.
Sincerely,
Bill Lupini
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August at LABBB AHS
By: Mike Harrington
The students and staff at LABBB Arlington High School have had an active summer! Along with participating in routine activities in our classrooms, the OT Gym, and other facilities within AHS, our students have had opportunities to attend Paulapalooza, bowl at the Woburn Bowladrome, visit local restaurants, and swim with other LABBB groups at the Lexington pool. In addition, we have found fun ways of staying cool by going to the store to get supplies to make frozen treats! Throughout each experience, our students practiced community safety, how to work as a group, as well as how to successfully self-advocate. Good work, crew!
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Summer Funnin’ at Memorial
By Meagan Welch
This summer, students at Memorial Elementary have been making memories and having fun. We have all enjoyed our community outings, visiting the Lexington pool for swimming and Woburn Bowladrome for bowling. We even got to test out the splash pad at the Lexington pool this year and it quickly became a favorite activity. These community outings are a vital part of summer programming, allowing us to practice both social and safety skills in a fun way during our time outside the classroom.
In addition to our Community outings, students received a scheduled weekly visit from the local business, Alex’s Ice Cream Truck, to help practice our math and social skills! Before enjoying their sweet treat, students practiced ordering, counting money, and making change. Building relationships within our communities is a valuable part of what we do, and so we are grateful to Alex’s Ice Cream Truck for helping to provide this opportunity to our students.
Our summer fun did not stop with outings and ice cream trucks, inside the classroom students spent time learning about our Ocean ecosystems and the animals that inhabit them. During their SPOT groups, students tie-dyed t-shirts, made kinetic sand, and even some ocean slime. During our last week, we had water days to beat the heat and set up sprinklers and splash pads outside on the playground. We are so grateful for a fun-filled summer and are looking forward to an exciting 2021-2022 school year in September!
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LABBB Adapted Physical Education, Recreation and Social Opportunities
LSEP (LABBB Summer Extension Program) and LSTP (LABBB Summer Transition Program) ran during the first two weeks in August.
The students enjoyed going to Castle Island, Harvard Square, the Burlington Mall and around the Lexington community, as part of their field trips during the two week program. In addition to field trips, students went swimming at the Lexington town pool, enjoyed music with amplify staff, cooked lunches, had social and dance time with friends, took walks and got in some academic lessons as well.
During the intense heat of week 2, we had the air conditioners running on warp speed during indoor activities, and a mister for the students to go through during the paulapalooza events outdoors. We had two fun filed weeks that went by so fast.
We hope you enjoy the rest of your summer!
Registration for Fall 2021/2022 Recreation Activities is due by 9/1/2021.
To view the sign up sheets for the 2021/2022 school year Recreation Activities please Click here
Remember to follow @LABBBREC on Twitter
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Updated LABBB Brochure
Click here or on the image to view the new LABBB brochure.
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A LABBB PODCAST
Executive Director, Patric Barbieri, Hosts a Podcast talking about special needs planning and resources related to our community
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In episode #22 we talk about our journey in building a mindful culture in LABBB. It is one of our core values that is posted throughout our collaborative. There is a significant difference between just talking about these practices and actually doing them. We made a commitment to offering mindful practices for all students in all our classrooms every single day. We also believe for us to be successful we need to offer and teach this to our staff as well. We are a community practicing together and this is the only way to get the true benefits. We have been fortunate to have many staff persons who have a myriad of unique mind-body skills to bring into our environments for both students and staff.
This initiative started organically back in the early '90s. We realized that these practices have a significant impact on managing the pervasive anxiety symptoms that people are feeling. Our mission was to bring these practices directly into our schools and for staff and students to know they have permission to practice at any time. When one individual is practicing it is benefiting their entire community!
Rayne Pratt and Lisa Poirier, LABBB Occupational therapists, join me in this podcast. They are members of our LABBB Mind/Body team and they are also the creators and facilitators of our all-day staff retreat that we offer.
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LABBB Collaborative
123 Cambridge Street, Burlington MA. 01803| LABBB.com
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