Speaker: Kristin Selby, JOB_TITLE, COMPANY_NAME
Tell us about your experiences and stories doing home visits with your students and their families.
Kristin Selby: Hi, my name is Kristen Selby and I'm a special education teacher at the Steamboat Springs Middle School in Steamboat Springs, Colorado. I work with sixth graders. I have been doing home visits for two years now and I totally believe in them. Some of my fun stories from, this year was one household, We went and had a tea party complete with cookies and good china and everything else. We got to hold bunnies. I got to hold chickens. I got to meet cows and pigs since we're a rural area. And that was really fun. One of the things that we have done this year at our school with the Home Visit Partnerships is we used the the home visits for transition purposes. So I work with sixth grade and I have a special education and ELL students who are transitioning at the end of this year from fifth grade to sixth in the fall in August. And so we worked with the elementary school with both Strawberry Park Elementary and Soda Creek Elementary to find kids that might benefit from a home visit as part of the transition to feel better about coming to the middle school. So we did this in partnership and some of the visits I had an elementary school teacher with me. And we got to meet our new students for next year and they got to ask questions about our school and about what we do and how is it different from elementary school? And the result of that has been amazing. Like first of all, the kids have at least one trusted adult coming to the middle school next year, they know who I am. They can come ask me questions. They're going to feel comfortable from day one with me, which is great. And I got to know them, I got to know all about their families where they come from, how they learn what things they really like, what their goals and aspirations are, what their hopes and dreams are. And I think that's really important. So in doing that, we've kind of set it up for success for next year. So I'm really happy with the home visits. I'm really excited about them. I totally believe in them. My students who I have visited at home that are on my caseload or other people's caseload. I've seen positive behavior out of them after visits. I've seen them speak to me more and to open up to me more. I've seen them ask for help more. I just think it's terrific. So, that's what I wanted to share with you today. Thank you so much for your time.
