Support Services

Our goal at Trinity School for Children is always focused on facilitating the growth and development of young children through adolescents in all our interactions with them. With our eye on the development of the "whole child"¬ù, we provide a learning environment that understands the stages of growth and development in every child. With a familial partnership, we offer supportive programs to target interventions or accelerations when needed. Such programs may involve early intervention, small group instruction, individualized and/or targeted strategies to help all children learn and maximize their potential.

Guidance Services at Trinity School for Children
The basis of our Guidance Department's work for all our students is founded in the belief that human beings can improve the community in which they live. As we attempt to navigate through life, we become "social thinkers"¬ù. Through increased social and emotional awareness, we teach children to identify and express their feelings and have perspective for what others are feeling also. In developing a child's sense of self via the developmental-interaction approach, we begin training this philosophy from the earliest years through adolescents.
Such a mindset allows for the natural experiences of growth and learning, and the balance and significance of the consequences that follow. We facilitate the progression from early physical, body-centered communication and interaction to more constructive intercommunication later on in their development.
By providing the opportunity for social learning, children create meaning of their world based on their unique and different experiences. The end objective is for them to recognize and communicate their emotions, have others understand what they are trying to communicate and realize how their emotions affect the people around them.
Developmental Guidance Curriculum and Goals
. Understanding of the School Environment: Students will learn about their school community and what services are available to help them and the role of the school counselors and teacher advisors.
. Understanding of Self and Others: Students will learn more about their abilities, interests, personal characteristics and potential through self-assessment, self-acceptance, and self control.
. Understanding Attitudes and Behavior: The understanding of self and others gives attention to how habits, attitudes, and perceptions can affect behaviors, as well as how these behaviors and feelings are related to goals.
. Decision Making and Problem Solving: With an emphasis on personal responsibility and individual choice, the students learn to how to set goals and make responsible decisions.
. Interpersonal and Communication Skills: Students are trained to value developing positive interpersonal relationships and learn how to communicate effectively with others.
. School Success Skills: These are designed to help students be more successful in school. This includes the development of study skills, learning behaviors, time management, conflict resolution with peers and teachers, and developing positive attitudes and habits which enable one to get the most out of school, as well as life in general.
. Career Awareness and Educational Planning: This is one of the most traditional aspects of school guidance and counseling. This goal integrates career information into the academic curriculum. The focus is to understand the world of work, career awareness, career exploration, educational plans such as preparing for future education and job searching.
. Community Pride and Involvement: Trinity programs stress the importance of community involvement in order to become responsible and productive citizens and leaders.
Specific Guidance Services
. Individual Counseling
. Small Group Counseling
. Large Group Counseling
. Peer Mentor Program
. Social/Emotional RtI Groups
. Teacher/Family Collaboration
. Academic Support
. Family/Community Service Outreach
. Support for students with 504 plans






English Language Learners (ELL) Services

The mission of Trinity's ELL program is to ensure that all second language learners have the opportunity to develop linguistically, academically, socially and cognitively to their fullest potential.  This goal is accomplished by fully immersing the ELL students our core curriculum while maintaining respect for their native culture and language.

ELL Goals:
*   Scaffold core curriculum instruction to meet individual linguistic needs
*   Value each student's social and cultural experiences
*   Provide  families of ELL students with written and oral communication in their native language to the greatest extent possible


Response to Intervention (RtI)
Response to Intervention works under the core principle that we can effectively teach all students and make them successful. All RtI practices are founded on the assumption and belief that all students can learn. It is the responsibility of the school's faculty, working together, to identify the most effective curricular instructional and environmental conditions that enable learning to take place. We need to provide the necessary resources to enable all students to learn and maximize their potential.
The RtI process begins in the general education classrooms and includes all students. RtI is a general education initiative, developed at the federal level, to ensure vigorous, research-based education, enrichment and meaningful progress monitoring for all students.

Implementation Steps to RtI
Tier One: Research-based instruction happens daily for all students in general education classrooms.
Tier Two: Students that are identified through progress monitoring techniques needing specific skill reinforcement, receive a focused, supplemental approach to target their specific needs.
Tier Three: Through on-going progress monitoring, if it is identified that a student needs a more intensive approach that addresses a specific need, a more individual targeted plan of action is implemented.
Students, depending on the progress monitoring results, may move in and out of the tiers. If after a student has moved through the tiers and enough progress has not been made, we will conference with parents and decide whether or not to refer the student for ESE services.

Highlighted Skills Covered in RtI
Reading decoding, reading fluency, comprehension, math computation and problem-solving, social-emotional needs of students impacting achievement that target student work habits and personal development in the educational environment.



Exceptional Student Education (ESE)
The mission of the Exceptional Student Education Program is to challenge all learners with a variety of educational opportunities in a safe and positive environment of mutual respect and trust. Through a range of inclusive support models as well as participatory decision making between educators, parents, and students, we are able to maintain the high standards of Trinity's rigorous curriculum and maximize each student's potential.
ESE Goals:
. Facilitate cognitive, social and emotional development
. Provide individual accommodations and support
. Educate students in the least restrictive environment
. Promote independence and self-advocacy
. Maintain high expectations for all students
. Empower parents and students by engaging them as partners in                            the educational process
Types of ESE Services Offered:
. Academic support for students with learning disabilities
. Speech and Language therapies
. Challenge Program




Academic Support
The ESE educators and therapists at Trinity School for Children firmly believe that every child has the ability to achieve academic success. We understand that teaching students with different learning styles demands implementing different teaching styles. We are committed to helping students develop the skills they need in order to become strong critical thinkers, problem solvers, independent learners, and advocates of their own needs. Through careful observation and collaboration, our multidisciplinary team is able to identify which strategies and accommodations best suit each individual child's learning style in order to make him/her successful while fully participating in Trinity's rigorous core curriculum.

Speech and Language
Speech and Language acquisition is an integral part of a child's overall developmental process. Having enhancement programs that monitor children's speech and language development is imperative in assuring a child's success within the learning environment. Individualized and specialized interventions are offered to those children whose speech and/or language abilities are deemed delayed or disordered.
Interventions at Trinity are offered in a variety of ways to meet each child's unique needs:
. Individual therapy outside the general education classroom
. Small group therapy outside the general education program
. Large group therapy within the general education classroom


Challenge Program
Trinity School for Children examines students that exhibit certain potentials for growth in a specific interest, skill set, or curricular area. From that, we create opportunities that challenge and support their development toward reaching maximum potential in the areas that they seem to demonstrate talent.

We differentiate instruction through the development of thematic units, problem solving techniques, integration of technology and other opportunities to encourage the use of multiple intelligences.

Although our overall educational programs provide for differentiation of instruction, some students require additional extension opportunities.

Through the challenge program, we strive to provide a rigorous academic environment specifically designed to meet the intellectual, creative, social, and emotional needs of gifted and talented students to produce self-directed life-long learners who will become productive citizens.