Kicking around the idea of weekly workshops to discuss K-12 education issues

Would you be interested in attending weekly meetings at VCLA...perhaps one morning a week from 10 a.m. to Noon to learn about K-12 education issues? The topics (and format) presented at the meetings would be participant driven: book discussions, presentations, Webinars, etc.

What do you think?

Which day of the week would be best?

Will you help me think of a catchy name?

I truly want VCLA to be a family affair...a place where every member of the family is learning, growing, and achieving!

I am eager to hear from you!

The Bully and the Bullied: Tiered Intervention and Supports

The Council for Exceptional Children will host a three-part Webinar series about bullying:

The Bully and the Bullied: Tiered Intervention and Supports
A Three-Part Webinar Series

• Bullying Behavior: Prevention and Intervention
  Tuesday, Oct. 8, 2013, 4-5 p.m. ET
• Students Who Are Bullied: Prevention and Intervention
  Tuesday, Oct. 22, 2013, 4-5 p.m. ET
• Functional Behavior Assessments of the Bullies and the Bullied: Tiered Intervention Plans
  Wednesday, Nov. 6, 2013, 4-5 p.m. ET

If you would like to participate in this Webinar series as my guest (no charge) at my office in King George, please let me know by October 1. If there is interest, I will register. The series is listed as professional development, but I think parents would benefit, too. To learn more, visit 

http://cec.informz.net/z/cjUucD9taT0zNTA3MTc5JnA9MSZ1PTEwMzMxNzQwNTcmbGk9MTkwODQwNjQ/index.html

Remember - Please call me at (540) 625-2184 or send me an e-mail by October 1, if you plan to join me!

Educator is passionate about student learning!

Carolyn Berry has been advocating for students with disabilities since she was a young child. Her first "job" was to organize backyard carnivals to raise money for the Muscular Dystrophy Association. “I loved it,” she says. “Every year my neighbors and family members would play the games I had set up and buy lemonade and cookies my mother and I had made. I raised no more than $50 each year, but I learned a lot about disabilities, entrepreneurship, and the importance of volunteer activities.”

As a teenager, she babysat for a young boy who had muscular dystrophy. That led her to volunteer as a counselor at camps for students with muscular dystrophy and intellectual disabilities. “I also volunteered each Labor Day Weekend to answer the telephones during the telethon Jerry Lewis hosted to raise money for MDA,” Carolyn says.

Fast forward to today and she is the director of the Virginia Center for Learning and Achievement, a center that provides tutoring and other academic help for students of all abilities and consulting and coaching for parents, teachers, and administrators.

“Consulting, coaching and teaching are great jobs for me. I am very passionate about helping students learn, and coaching and consulting give me the opportunity to utilize the skills I've developed and the knowledge I've absorbed throughout the years," she says. Plus it fits perfectly with her personal mission to empower those around her to achieve goals beyond their dreams.

Her passion for the students is hard to miss. She becomes quite animated when she talks about assessing students and figuring out which strategies would be the best to incorporate into her lesson plans.

“My leisure reading is the stack of educational journals that sit on the end table,” she says. “I belong to several professional organizations, so I receive three or four journals each month. I love to read the articles because that’s how I learn about classroom strategies and how to implement them.”

Carolyn says it is important to use research-based strategies in the classroom. “They are a blueprint for student success. If students need more intensive instruction, teachers already know the next steps. There is no guessing.”

To learn more about research-based strategies, contact Carolyn Berry at carolynberry@vclatutoring.com or (540) 625-2184.