TBANS KESHER PROGRAM
“Kesher” means “connection” in Hebrew.
TBANS values the unique qualities that each child brings to our community, and our goal is to provide the necessary support to promote each child’s success.
Our Kesher Team:
Meredith Polsky, Developmental Support Coordinator
Jen King, Speech Pathologist
Judi Lapidus, Occupational Therapist
Naomi Rubenstein, Social Skills Specialist
The Kesher Team provides a variety of services, including:
- Teacher consultations during which specialists focus on behavioral intervention or practical application techniques to facilitate children’s skill development.
- Ongoing meetings with parents to consider their child’s progress and discuss specific supports that may facilitate their goals for the school year.
- Coordination with outside service providers to create comprehensive and consistent treatment plans.
- Professional training to provide teachers the tools to achieve classroom specific goals.
- Screenings of students which include clinical observations, testing and reports of findings and recommendations to parents and teachers.
- Direct interactions with students in classrooms and/or in small groups to model, practice, or reinforce particular teaching strategies for targeted skills.
The ability to include these kinds of specialists on a nursery school staff is quite unique. Each child is benefiting tremendously from these experts’ knowledge and insights.
TBANS Inclusion Statement
At Temple Beth Ami Nursery School, we value the unique qualities that each child brings to our community. We do everything we can to create a learning experience that recognizes individual differences among children, while maintaining an intentional play-based educational approach. Our goal is to be a fully inclusive school. We welcome all children, including those with special developmental and/or health care needs. However, we recognize that some children may not be best served by our approach or structure, and in such cases, our school staff and parents work together to determine the best placement for each child.
“Kesher,” which means “connect” in Hebrew, is our program for providing support services for children. Professional therapists in a variety of fields provide consultation services to teachers, parents, and children. Kesher services are provided at no additional charge, though private evaluations and treatments are available for a fee.
TBANS is committed to building open communication and partnerships among our school, families and any outside providers supporting our students so that we can most effectively meet the needs of each child. We expect parents to inform their child’s teachers of any services the student is receiving, and we welcome and encourage those providers to visit our school to observe the child in the classroom setting. To aid in accommodating activities to meet all children’s needs, parents are required to share any existing IEP or IFSP.
All children at TBANS, with or without special needs, are honored by our policy that states that the welfare of the classroom as a whole takes precedence over the needs of an individual child. That is, a child with special needs may require and receive extra time and attention from the teachers, but this cannot be out of balance with the needs of the class as a whole.
Our program and our commitment to serving diverse learners in our community continues to evolve to meet the ever-changing needs of our students.