Services at Reed School
- Individual counseling: Counseling services are available to Reed students on an as-needed basis. As young students are often less verbal than their older peers, it is recommended that students in need of long-term counseling might benefit from an outside provider who specializes in play therapy. The district school psychologist is happy to work with parents to make a referral to an outside provider.
- Support groups: The RUSD school psychologists run a number of support groups for students at Reed School. The most common goal of these groups is to provide extra support for students who are having a difficult time socially. At this age, groups usually contain three to six participants, and involve a mix of concrete conversation about social skills, emotions, and problem solving, as well as play time with peers with the psychologist present to facilitate. Groups tend to be single-sex, and are held for approximately 30 minutes once a week, for about 10 weeks. Efforts are made to schedule group times with classroom teachers in order to avoid interfering with academic work. Most students greatly enjoy the opportunity to participate in groups and ask if they can continue by the end of the 10 weeks.
- Educational assessment: As noted on the educational assessment page of this site, when students continue to struggle academically despite varied interventions in the classroom and despite extra support from school specialists, eligibility for Special Education services is sometimes considered. This process includes an educational assessment by the school psychologist and the school’s Resource Specialist. It is important to bear in mind with our youngest students, that early development is not always even, and that it occurs at different rates for different students. For this reason, we try not to rush to assessment with students until we have had ample time to see how they respond to general education interventions and their school experience.