A.W. Beattie prepares for school year 

A.W. Beattie Career Center’s staff prepared for the upcoming school year with an in-service day that covered a variety of topics. 

Instructors spent three hours engaging with Dr. Mariha Shields and Dr. Susan Griffith who focused on student engagement strategies, particularly with students who have IEPs. Dr. Shields, of ARIN Intermediate Unit 28, specializes in Special Education, Mental Health and Behavior Management and taught for more than 20 combined years in secondary and post-secondary education. Dr. Susan Griffith is the Director of Curriculum for ARIN Intermediate Unit 28 and has experience in Elementary Education, Special Education, and Higher Education. She also holds a Certificate in ELL 

“We were talking about engagement strategies and how to engage all students, specifically students with IEPs,” Dr. Shields said. “We dove into learning strategies to enhance lesson plans and provide quality teaching.” 

A.W. Beattie provided Dr. Shields and Dr. Griffith with multiple scenarios to cover. 

“We could have given generic training, but this was professional learning specific to what they wanted to learn about,” Dr. Griffith said. “Having those scenarios was very helpful in gauging where we went with the professional learning. We were able to go through scenarios given to us and were able to find themes of content, engagement and behavior. We based our sessions on those three components to tie them in, because that’s what they told us was meaningful through those scenarios.” 

Dr. Shields and Dr. Griffith praised the Career Center’s instructors following the training. 

“This is a great group of educators that really care about their students,” Dr. Shields said. “You can tell that from their engagement in wanting to discuss learning strategies to help their students.” 

“I walked in here and immediately felt it was so comforting,” Dr. Griffith said. “It’s a very warm and inviting, the type of environment you want to come back to.”