Last week, the Winslow Unified School District Governing Board met to hear a presentation from the elementary school principals concerning their focus zones.
Focus zones were put in place at the start of this school year to provide a safe place for students to decompress during their school day and to address the social and emotional needs of all K-6 students. Each elementary school site in Winslow has implemented these spaces.
According to Jefferson Elementary School Principal Amber Martinez, “We had a comprehensive needs assessment performed and we found we needed to focus on developing a social/emotional plan for all of our students.”
As Bonnie Brennan Principal Larisssa Richards added, “We have students that are required to check in throughout the day, that makes up about 75% of our check ins. However, the remaining 25% are students who are in need of regulating their emotions or just having a tough time. For example, we had a student who had a death in their family recently and they were able to come into the focus zone and talk to the staff member there and find some coping tools and talk out the issues they were having. We aim to continue training our staff on these tools and making sure our aides and other supervisors in the space are skilled in helping these students.”
All the elementary principals spoke about the success of the focus zones and mentioned that the idea is to become proactive. Richards added, “We have seen many children able to have positive interactions with their peers because of our proactivity and our implementation of focus zones and other programs like our lunch bunch. We are seeing kids that wouldn’t normally interact with each other do so in these groups and in very positive ways.”
The focus zones are rooms that are staffed with skilled aides and filled with sensory stimulating and soothing activities, toys and furniture. According to Washington Principal Amanda Leonard, the rooms are focused on the neurological health of students and offer opportunities to expend energy and sooth students in tense situations. They offer structure and a periodic ‘time out,’ from daily stresses of family and school life.
In other business and in the absence of Board President Joseph Hartnett, the governing board:
* Approved the appointment of Jocelyn Andrews as a paraprofessional.
* Approved the resignation of Winslow High School softball coach Megan Lymer-Reynoso.
* Approved volunteer wrestling coaches Kendal Ybarra, Trey Hardy, Quinton Begody, Carlos Zamora and Norwood Foy.
* Approved extra duty stipends to Venton Nelson, Stephanie Nelson, Ricardo Villanueva, Ferlin Nez, Jerron Jordon, Erick Petronovich, Janeen Barton, Jennifer Yazzie, Tom Breeze, Jeff Hartman and Bryan Larson for winter sports.
* Approved the Arizona School Board Association Policy Advisories regarding public information requests and immunizations for students.
* Approved a routine memorandum of agreement with the Navajo County Superintendent of Schools for mileage reimbursement for students in unorganized territories.
* Approved the adoption of the school calendar for the 2023-24 and 2024-25 school years which moves spring break to March 11-15 to coincide with the Northland Pioneer College schedule to accommodate students participating in TALON (Technology to Advance Learning Outcomes at Northland) and NAVIT (Northern Arizona Vocational Institute of Technology) programs.
The next meeting of the WUSD governing board will be held at 6 p.m. on Wednesday, Nov. 2 in the board meeting room, located at 800 N. Apache Ave.
