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NCLD, NEA HONOR THREE EDUCATORS FOR SPECIAL ED EFFORTS

March 8, 2004

In separate award competitions recently, the National Center for Learning Disabilities and the National Education Association honored educators in California, Washington and Ohio for their work with kids with special needs. Brian Coffey, of Inglewood, Calif., received the NCLD's Bill Ellis Teacher Preparation Award, while the NEA Foundation selected Beth Spicer Jack, of Medina, Ohio, for a Learning & Leadership Grant and Mario Alberto Godoy-Gonzalez, of Royal City, Wash., for an Innovation Grant.

Coffey, a fifth grade teacher at William H. Kelso Elementary School in Inglewood, received the Bill Ellis Teacher Preparation Award for excellence in teaching and a commitment to all students, including those with learning disabilities. During the International Dyslexia Association's annual conference in November, the NCLD awarded Coffey $500, while Kurzweil Educational Systems added its Kurzweil 3000 software award, a package of computer software for addressing language and literacy difficulties.

Coffey has "done an extraordinary job under very tough conditions at his institution," NCLD spokesman Hal Stucker said. Nearly all of Kelso's students are free lunch eligible, and for more than 60 percent English is not their primary language, Stucker noted, "but the school and Mr. Coffey are 100 percent invested in using research-based reading instruction and making sure that all kids are readers."

Meanwhile, the NEA Foundation for the Improvement of Education recognizes educators from across the country three times per year for their efforts to implement and share with other educators successful or creative new learning projects. In its Winter 2004 round of awards, Royal High School 9-12 teacher Godoy-Gonzalez was one of 12 to receive the foundation's Innovation Award, valued at up to $5,000. Along with teaching partners Veronica Barrett, Sandra Finch and Sydney Ortega, Godoy-Gonzalez created "Opening Our Grandparents’ Memory Box," a project in which students interview members of their families and communities to learn more about the role immigrants played in the development of the United States. The project gives English language learners and students with special needs practice communicating in English with members of their community.

Jack and her kindergarten team at Heritage Elementary School was one of 15 to receive a $5,000 Leadership & Learning Grant. The group, including Laura Hough, Marge Kulbis, Anne Macys and Tracy Meech, works together to discover neurodevelopment and associated learning difficulties in their students, the NEA says. After creating a developmental learning profile for each student, the team assesses language comprehension, speech articulation, phonological awareness and other learning benchmarks and uses the data to create individual interventions and modify instructional approaches to strengthen brain development.

Both NEA grant programs are partly funded by the Staples Recycle for Education program.8