Staff Profiles

Residential Counselor
Ivy Street School residential counselors work with brain-injured students after school and on weekends. Because students can find it hard to live away from home, residential counselors aim to make the residential floor a place where students feel safe and cared for. They check in with each student after school to talk about their day, and often do activities such as playing sports in the gym or board games in the recreation room. If the weather is nice they take the students outside for walks or to play basketball. One of the most important parts of each evening is “Community Meeting,” when students can ask each other for support and share their accomplishments of the day. Residential counselors eat dinner with the students, a great time to talk about movies, music and even help make weekend plans. On the weekends they take students out shopping, to the movies, museums and any local events that may be happening, striving to get the students off school grounds as much as possible to increase their time in the community. While residential counselors enjoy having fun with the students, they also monitor students’ behavior and take each moment as a teaching opportunity.

Special Needs Teacher
Classroom Teachers at Ivy Street work weekdays from 8:00-4:00. They each supervise one full time Teaching Assistant and between six and eight students in their classroom.  Our students have varied educational needs – some benefit from a functional life skills based curriculum, where others are working on passing the MCAS to earn their high school diploma. Teachers spend a good deal of time creating individualized curriculum materials that are challenging and appropriate for their students. After creating the materials, teachers are responsible for covering all academic subject areas (English Language Arts, Reading Instruction, Math, Science & History/Social Studies) as well as providing hands-on instruction in Life Skills and Vocational Skills. After school ends for the day, teachers attend meetings and plan for the upcoming day. A day in the life of an Ivy Street School teacher is very busy!