November 12, 2012
Hidden Sparks is pleased to announce a partnership with SHEMESH to provide professional development programs to Jewish day schools and yeshivot in Baltimore. SHEMESH provides a continuum of services through its partnership with the day schools that ranges from consultation with principals, teachers and parents, to direct intervention with students. The SHEMESH staff works closely with school administration and other professionals to form a Student Support Team that endeavors to meet the diverse needs of all day school students. The Hidden Sparks model offers SHEMESH a tested, systemic approach and curriculum to teacher training, incorporating components of learning, positive behavior supports, classroom strategies, and differentiated instruction for students with different learning styles, strengths and interests.
Three Baltimore Jewish day schools, Bais Yaakov School for Girls, Bnos Yisroel and Ohr Chadash Academy, will participate in the Hidden Sparks professional development and coaching program during the 2012-13 academic year. This past Tuesday, November 6th and Wednesday, November 7th, Hidden Sparks and SHEMESH kicked off their coach training program in Baltimore. For two full days, Karen Kruger, Hidden Sparks' Director of Education and Gila Haor, Coordinator of professional development at SHEMESH, worked with teachers and SHEMESH staff who have been selected to be External and Internal Coaches. Several principals and teachers also joined. We hope that the success of this initiative will lead to signing even more schools onto the program for 2013-2014.
Faye Friedman, Program Director of SHEMESH said, "Our collaboration with Hidden Sparks allows us to enhance our coaching relationship with the teachers. We can maximize our effectiveness by implementing this highly structured, systematic approach to supporting teachers. Given our current resources and staffing, we think this program is a perfect fit! Mrs. Gila Haor, who is a trained and certified coach, will act as our local facilitator and provide on-site professional development and ongoing support.”
Highlights of the Hidden Sparks Professional Development and Coaching Program include monthly grade-level team meetings at each of the selected schools led by Hidden Sparks’ trained coaches from SHEMESH and from the schools. By including both the Judaic and general studies teachers, the teacher training meetings will enable teachers to better meet the needs of diverse learners across all areas of the curriculum. In addition to monthly meetings, there are guided classroom observations and one-to-one meetings with teachers.
“One of our goals for the Hidden Sparks program is to provide teachers and schools with the tools to deepen their understanding of struggling learners and their repertoire for teaching to their needs,” explained Debbie Niderberg, Executive Director of Hidden Sparks. “We’re looking to help schools with systems for routinely talking about all students across disciplines, with a new lens and language for understanding learning, behavior and temperament, and with classroom strategies to support the struggling learners. To have maximum impact, the program is delivered on-site through classroom–based coaching of teachers and mentoring of school-based “Internal Coaches”. Although the program is geared to helping the struggling learners, it benefits all children in the class.”
Hidden Sparks is a not-for-profit organization dedicated to helping children with learning differences reach their full potential in school and in life. Launched in 2006, the Hidden Sparks professional development program is now being used in 24 schools in New York. It has also offered workshops to an additional 25 schools through No Child Left Behind and offers a Hidden Sparks without Walls webinar series for teachers. In October it launched the Parent Connection, a webinar series with innovative and cutting-edge educational information for parents. Funding to support the Hidden Sparks expansion into Baltimore was provided through a Covenant grant. If you are interested in signing up for the parent webinars or learning more about all that Hidden Sparks offers, log onto www.hiddensparks.org
SHEMESH serves as a community-wide program providing the educational support necessary for Jewish children with learning differences to reach their full intellectual, academic, emotional and social potential in a Jewish setting. Services are offered in each school in accordance with the school's educational and religious policies and include advocacy for students, case management, day school learning centers, early childhood intervention, reading intervention and social skills development. If you or someone you know can benefit from these programs or services contact www.shemeshbaltimore.org
