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School Accomplishments
  Congratulations Garrett Gomez One of our fifth grade students, Garrett Gomez, has been honored with the Every Student Achieving Award from the Association of California School Administrators! Garrett started at Nuffer when he was only three years of age and was initially enrolled in a preschool class with Ms. Bonnie James. He has had numerous educational challenges as a result of his multiple disabilities. The extent of his disabilities has made it necessary to utilize the services of Mr. Omar Barboza, a healthcare Para educator to assist with Garrett’s ADL (activities of daily living) while at school. For the past two years Garrett has been enrolled in a Special Day Class receiving specialized academic instruction from his teacher, Karl M Simmons. Garrett’s primary educational challenge has been his inability to communicate verbally because of his disabilities. This has imposed significant hardship upon his family and service providers at school in attempting to ferret out Garrett’s particular educational strengths, interests, and preferences. This has been no easy task. Over the years the IEP team has discussed and implemented numerous strategies that have enabled Garrett to better understand the world around him and communicate that understanding to others. With the help of his service providers and parents, Garrett has learned to communicate receptively and expressively through the use of sign language in ways that would not have been expected, given the severity of his disabilities. Garrett has developed sufficient sign language mastery to communicate most basic needs. But the most amazing thing is his creativity in communicating needs, wants, and desires when he is lacking in his sign language vocabulary. For example, when Garrett desires a particular book and does not know how to sign the book title, he will describe what he wants using descriptors for that book other than the title. He may, for instance, sign that he wants the red book. If that doesn’t get the desired response, he may add something to the mix, say, giving the sign for any images on the book cover. Garrett’s burgeoning expressive skills have been bolstered by strong receptive abilities, enabling his service providers to work more efficiently with him. Another impressive characteristic of Garrett is his deep sense of empathy when he witnesses his classmates suffering in any way. Garrett has experienced a number of physically painful experiences as a result of his disabilities; consequently, whenever a classmate exhibits severe pain, Garrett has exhibited a seemingly natural compassion toward that student. It truly is a beautiful scene to witness. |
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14821 South Jersey Avenue, Norwalk, CA 90650 Phone: (562) 868-3788 - Fax: (562) 868-5167 |
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