Welcome Back to School!

by Cindy Williams
NDVS/SB Coordinator of Student Programs

Welcome back to the 2024-2025 school year and welcome to Student Short-Term Programs at NDVS/SB! I am honored to be the Coordinator of Student Programs and am looking forward to this school year and working with you and your child/student. Our Short-Term Programs (STP) are designed to offer individual and small class instruction through collaboration with families and local schools. While attending our STPs, students share similar experiences unique to the world of visual impairment and take away self-awareness and confidence through this shared experience.

I would like to provide information and expectations for the process of attending and registering for our Short-Term Programs (STP). Our STPs generally take place on-site at our campus in Grand Forks with occasional programs occurring off-site. Our Elementary and Middle School Programs will typically run Sunday evening through Thursday, while our High School Programs may run longer (through Friday or Saturday), depending on the program. A report is disseminated to parties involved following our program. Specific information for each STP will be emailed out about a month prior to the STP occurring. Please refer to our Program Calendar for more information.

Our programs feature training sessions in the Expanded Core Curriculum or ECC. The ECC is a specialized set of vision-related skills for students who are blind or visually impaired and include the following:

• Compensatory Skills: These critical skills include concept development and organizational skills, as well as communication skills, such as speaking and listening, sign language, tactile symbols, braille or print reading and writing, and accessing recorded materials.
• Orientation and Mobility: Skills to help an individual know where they are in space and to move safely, independently, and efficiently in their environment.
• Social Interaction: Skills needed to participate actively and appropriately in social situations.
• Independent Living: Skills of daily living needed to care for oneself independently, including personal hygiene, food preparation, cleaning, clothing care, and money management.
• Recreation and Leisure: Skills to promote the enjoyment of leisure activities, including learning new leisure activities and making choices about how to spend leisure time.
• Sensory Efficiency: Skills that help students use all their senses, including functional vision, hearing, touch, taste, smell.
• Assistive Technology: Skills to use computers and other electronic equipment to function independently and effectively at school, home, or work.
• Career Education: Skills that encourage students to explore career options and learn about the world of work.
• Self-Determination: Skills that enable students to become effective advocates for themselves based on their own needs and goals.

I communicate with educators and families mainly through email; however, information and forms can be mailed to educators/families upon request. Forms and information will be sent through email and are available on our website in printable or fillable form at https://www.ndvisionservices.com/programs/registration-forms.

Please feel free to contact me via email or phone with any questions or concerns as we work together to schedule your child/student for our Short-Term Programs at NDVS/SB. Also, please let me know if there is anyone to add to my email list or remove from it. My contact info is [email protected] and 701-795-2704.

I hope your school year is off to a great start, and all of us at NDVS/SB look forward to being a part of child/student's educational team!