William S Baer After School

It is our belief that each child is “infinitely valuable”, and must be provided every opportunity to develop into independent social and productive members of the community regardless of ethnic, social, religious or disabling conditions.

We embrace each child’s:

*Right to an appropriate, comprehensive educational program to achieve goals and objectives as stated in each child’s individual educational program.

*Right to be provided with staff that demonstrate positive attitudes, work ethics, commitment and professionalism.

*Right to be assisted and encouraged to obtain the skills necessary in seeking mobility and independence, toward the goal of least restrictive environment and inclusion, as defined for each student through the individual educational program.

We’ll be gathering great updates for this site from the brand new leadership at The Baer School. It’s an exciting time for the children, and we hope to bring you into all the festivities and knowledge we have to share with them all.

Stand by, the new site will be available soon, but until it goes live, please enjoy the site under the previous leadership of Dr. Shari Huene-Johnson.

The William S. Baer School staff believes the development of literacy is a life-long endeavor and utilizes all available resources to establish communication with the children with severe multiple disabilities. The continuum of literacy development is based on the establishment of communication utilizing adapted daily living experiences. This familiarity with the concepts of self and others, people and basic concepts, knowledge and information, increases the development of the skill. It is understood that communication, both oral and through the use of written material, is stressed in every classroom and in all educational activities planned at the school. A print-rich environment can be found throughout the school, in each discipline. At the Baer School, staff members shape instruction around the needs, abilities and interests of the children. Teachers expose students to a wide variety of life and language experiences, which develops vocabulary and practical background knowledge. It is understood that the foundations for beginning independence in reading lie in the development of oral language, life experience and familiarity with literature and patterns of written language. Due to the unique communication needs demonstrated by the students attending the Baer School, staff members use a multi-sensorial approach to teaching literacy. All children are assessed by staff and students then begin their individual program consisting of realistic goals and objectives. Speech therapists design communication programs using icons, lapboards, computers, flip charts, individual speaking devices, manipulatives, switches, augmentative communication devices, blissymbols, Braille, etc. All activities tie into a school-wide thematic unit plan. Performance-based hands-on experiences are provided to support student learning. Using the Children’s Literacy Initiative books and Open Court materials, students are taught to recognize sight words and use decoding to build phonics skills. CLI, Open Court, DLM and BCPSS K-2 library books expose readers (listeners) to a wide variety of story forms and good literature, above their reading levels. Using the Open Court method, students begin developing phonemic awareness. Students and staff work on increasing modes of communication. Students listen to stories and participate in comprehension checks. Students are encourages to order and sequence events. This system helps in understanding concepts of words. Students recognize and name letters and words while learning the letter/sound relationships. The children match sounds to letters and to letter sequences in words. It is understood at Baer that not all students will become independent readers, due to their disabilities. Instruction needs to be matched to the abilities and builds on what students already know and on what makes sense to them. Teachers use prediction to increase student assessment of a story. The hierarchy of skill development begins with: the development of oral language, the development of print and phonemic awareness, the relationship of print to meaning, the development of the knowledge about letters, letter names and sounds, reading independently and finally with becoming more fluent and independent, thus increasing competency.