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College
Home > Centennial School > Parents Corner  REFERRALS Students in need of special education services are referred to Centennial School by resident school districts. Centennial School is licensed by the Pennsylvania Department of Education to serve students who are classified as emotionally disturbed or autistic. Centennial School serves nearly 40 school districts in the Lehigh Valley. Parents and guardians who wish to explore the possibility of enrolling their child in the Centennial School program should contact their home district for more information. DEVELOPING PARTNERSHIPS WITH PARENTS AND FRIENDS Communication is the key to productive working relationships. The faculty and staff of Centennial School welcome open communication with our students' parents and guardians. Parents and guardians' first line of communication is the program coordinator of their child's program. This is especially important during school hours when teachers are busily teaching classes and working with students. The program coordinator has much knowledge about the child's educational progress at school as he or she is in constant communication with the classroom teachers, and in fact, spends much time in the classrooms assisting with the child's instructional programs. In addition to communicating with the program coordinator, there are many other avenues by which parents and guardians may communicate with the school. Some of these are described below. POINT SHEETS The point sheet is sent home everyday with every student, except those students identified as having life skills needs, and serves as a daily progress note to parents and guardians. The point sheet contains a space for teachers to write brief notes to parents and guardians about their child's day at school and another space for parents and guardians to respond to school staff. We encourage parents and guardians to use the point sheet as a communication device with school staff. Students who return their point sheet to school the next day are awarded with bonus points that can be exchanged at the school store and if they return the point sheet with a parent or guardian's comment and signature, they receive even more bonus points. COMMUNICATION BOOKS For our population of students with life skills needs, teachers use communication books to share information with parents and guardians on a daily basis. The communication book is just what the name implies, a notebook that is sent home every day from the classroom teacher or case manager and is returned to school the following morning by parents and guardians. The communication book is used for sharing important information between home and school: a student's day at school and events from home that may affect his or her performance at school. REPORT CARDS Report Cards are another way for school staff to communicate with parents about the child's progress at school. Report cards are sent home four times a year. At Centennial School, a student's grade is composed of four factors, weighed as follows: in-class assignments completed to criteria account for 30% of a pupil's grade; participation in class for 30%, quizzes for 30% of the grade, and homework for 10%. For students to achieve success in school, we ask that they attend school daily, work hard to complete their daily assignments, and hand in their homework every day. INDIVIDUALIZED EDUCATION PROGRAM MEETINGS Individualized Education Program (IEP) meetings are held at a minimum of one time every year, but for many students the team meets multiple times during the year. The IEP meeting allows the team to review and discuss the pupil's progress and to set goals for the future, along with identifying the resources or accommodations to be made to reach those goals. Parents are important members of our IEP meetings, and we value their contributions to these planning sessions. PARENT CONFERENCES Conferences are another means for parents and guardians to communicate with the faculty and staff of Centennial School. Conferences provide for face-to-face interactions with teachers and staff who are involved with your child at school and can lay the groundwork for a productive relationship between you and our staff. Sometimes, conferences may turn into IEP meetings, due to revisions of a pupil's educational program but generally they provide opportunities to share information on a variety of topics, including updates on a child's progress. OPEN HOUSE Centennial School hosts two Open House events each year:
TELEPHONE CONTACTS Centennial School teachers telephone the parents and guardians of their students quite frequently, sometimes on a weekly basis. Parents and guardians may also expect phone calls from our attendance administrator whenever their child is absent from school and from the personnel from our Partial Hospitalization Program whenever the need arises. Our goal is to work together with parents and guardians on all the important decisions regarding their children. Students at Centennial are permitted to use telephones in the school offices to contact home during the school day but only if they have written permission from their teacher to do so. ADVISORY COUNCIL Every year, Centennial School seeks volunteers from among our parents and guardians to serve on the Advisory Council.
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Visitors are welcome at Centennial School. Guests are encouraged to make appointments in order to minimize any disruptions to the ongoing education program. Moreover, we ask that visitors report to the front office upon arrival, sign in and obtain a visitor's badge before entering the main building. For former students of Centennial School who wish to visit teachers and staff, we ask that they do so after 2:45 p.m. so as not to interrupt classes that are in progress during the school day. SOME IMPORTANT THINGS TO KNOW Certain policies and procedures are in place to insure that students are ready and able to benefit fully from their day at school. Our goal is to make Centennial School a place where students, parents, faculty and staff want to be and where our students can learn new skills for leading productive lives. By working together with our parents and guardians and by everyone adhering to the policies and procedures we have in place, we believe we can make this happen.
When Centennial School is closed due to inclement weather, announcements are made on the radio and television. Parents and guardians may listen to any one of the radio stations listed below when weather conditions make the opening of school suspect. Centennial School closes whenever the Bethlehem Area School District is closed due to weather conditions. If the student's resident district closes due to poor weather conditions and Centennial School remains open, the child will not have transportation to Centennial School that day, and will be marked as an excused absence. Sometimes the opening of school is delayed because of weather. Buses will be delayed on those days but school will be open. Radio Stations - To find up-to-the minute weather information in our area:
When students are ill, they are excused from school. Parents and guardians are encouraged to allow their sick children to remain at home to recover. Doing so will prevent the spread of disease to other students and faculty. When students become ill at school, Centennial School staff make every effort to contact parents and guardians by telephone. If it appears that a child is too ill to remain at school, we will ask that you assist your child by coming to school and taking the child home. A list of conditions that may cause us to contact you and ask that you take the child home include, but are not limited to, the following:
The relationship between Centennial School faculty, staff and students should be one of mutual cooperation, understanding, and respect. Every Centennial faculty and staff has the responsibility to provide an atmosphere conducive to learning and one that motivates our students to perform to their potential. Students should show the same respect and courtesy to faculty and staff that they have the right to demand for themselves. HOMEWORK Homework is an important element of success in school. At Centennial School, teachers of academic classes usually assign homework everyday. Students are provided a study hall during school hours to begin work on their homework assignments with assistance from the teachers. Work that is unfinished becomes the homework assignment for that evening. We encourage our parents and guardians to check with their child in the evenings to remind him or her of their homework obligations. The faculty and staff are always willing to speak with parents and guardians and help them to develop strategies for working with their children to insure homework completion. RESOURCES FOR PARENTS AND GUARDIANS Parents with children who are classified as having either mental retardation or emotional disturbance are entitled under the Pennsylvania Mental Health and Mental Retardation Act of 1966 and the Pennsylvania Mental Health Procedures Act of 1976 to have their child receive the services of a local Mental Health/Mental Retardation Center for an independent medical, psychological, and educational evaluation to be performed by a state certified professional at no cost. For your convenience, we have listed below the names, addresses, and phone numbers of the county units that serve Centennial School. 633 Court St. 15th Floor Reading, PA 19601 (610) 478-3271 (610) 236-0530 (crisis) Bucks County Division of Human Services 55 E. Court St. Reading, PA 18960 (215) 348-6000 Carbon County 20l North 1st Street Lehighton, Pa. 18235 (215) 377-0773 Lehigh County 17 South 7th Street Allentown, PA 18102 (610) 782-3952 (610) 782-3200 Monroe County 720 Plillip St. Stoudsburg, PA 18360 (570) 420-1900 Montgomery County 364 Kings Street Pottstown, Pa. 19464 (610) 326-7510 Northampton County 520 E. Broad St. Bethlehem, Pa. 18018 (610) 974-7555 Warren County Catholic Charities (908) 454-2074 There are many other resources that parents and guardians might find helpful in parenting their children. We have included contact information for a number of these agencies below: Online Disability Resource for Pennsylvanians www.accessiblepa.state.pa.us Advocacy Alliance 570-342-7762 877-315-6855 Autism Society of America 7910 Woodmont Ave., Suite 300 Bethesda, MD 20814-3015 1-800-3Autism www.autism-society.org Local Chapters: Lehigh Valley: 610-778-9212 Berks County: 610-736-3739 Bucks County Crisis Intervention 1-800-499-7455 Lehigh County Crisis Intervention 610-782-3127 Northampton County Crisis Intervention 610-252-9060 Bureau of Special Education Consultline: 1-800-879-2301 Connect Information Services: 1-800-692-7288 (TT Accessible) Education Law Center of Pennsylvania 801 Arch Street Suite 610 Philadelphia, PA 19107 215-238-6970 Local Chapter of the Pennsylvania Association for Retarded Citizens 1036 North Godfrey Street Allentown, PA 18013 610-434-8076 Parents Involved Network of Pennsylvania Mental Health Association of Southeastern Pennsylvania 1211 Chestnut Street 11th floor Philadelphia, Pennsylvania 19107 www.pinofpa.org 215-751-1800 Parent to Parent of Pennsylvania 1-800-986-4550 www.parenttoparent.org Parent Education Network 1-800-522-5827 1-800-441-5028 (Spanish) The Special Kids Network www.health.state.pa.us/skn 570-829-0519 Pennsylvania Bar Association Box 186 Harrisburg, PA 17108 Pennsylvania Department of Education Bureau of Special Education 333 Market Street, 7th Floor Harrisburg, PA 17126 Pennsylvania Special Education Mediation Services 1-800-992-4334 Pennsylvania Training and Technical Assistance Network (PaTTAN) www.pattan.k12.pa.us U.S. Department of Education Office of Special Education and Rehabilitative Services Office of Special Education Programs 1-800-USA-LEARN (1-800-872-5327) Valley Youth House 610-691-1200 If you can't find what you are looking for on our website, please don't hesitate to call us at 610-266-6500 and we will do what we can to assist you. |
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