Special Education - Mrs. Greico

Mrs. Jennifer LoPresti, Teaching Assistant

Bishop Dunn Memorial School is a small private school located on the campus of Mount Saint Mary's College in Newburgh, New York.  The school has students in grades pre-kindergarten through eighth grade.  There is a special education program for students in grades 6-8 that provides a structured positive learning environment to meet the students' individual needs.

The special education program at Bishop Dunn is a state approved 12:1:1 program for children with learning needs. The students in the program have been identified by their districts as needing special education services  and each student has an IEP.  Related services are provided at Bishop Dunn with district approval.

The program at Bishop Dunn provides small group instruction in the core academic subjects of English, language arts and mathematics. The students are provided individual attention in the areas of need as well as instruction in grade level material that corresponds with the state mandates.  Focus is on reading and writing across the curriculum.  The students are provided support and encouragement to improve their skills and gain the independence and confidence that will be needed in the future.

The students are included with their grade group peers for the content area classes of social studies, science and religion.  The teacher or teacher assistant attends classses for note taking and general assistance to the content area teacher.  The students in the special education program attend all special classes and activities with their grade group peers per the daily schedule.

Mrs. Patricia Greico is the special education teacher for grades 6-8.  She is certified by New York State in special and elementary education.  In addition, she is certified to teach the blind and visually impaired.  Mrs. Greico attended a sixty hour training course in Orton Gillingham, which is a multi-sensory approach to reading.  Mrs. Jennifer LoPresti is the full time teaching assistant in the program.  She is currently completing her MBA in teaching at Mount Saint Mary's College.

Classroom News:

     Grade 8: Singer/Songwriter topic is due per Miss K's instructions (see middle school link).  All students have picked an artist and  started the research for the oral report.

Dates have been assigned; students are aware of the date they will be presenting their singer/songwriter .

Study guides are given for each chapter in science, social studies and religion.  Please ask your student about these. 

Grade6- The group is reading There's an Owl in the Shower by Jean Craighead George. Writing is related to vocabulary from the story as well as the weekly spelling/vocabuary words. In math we have been reviewing place and value as well calculations across all 4 operations.

Grade7- The group is reading From the Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler by EL Kingsbury.  Writing is focusing on choosing a topic and thinking of questions related to that topic to help expand paragraphs with details.  Math has been focusing on the review of reading, writing and rounding whole numbers and decimal numbers.  We will continue to review the use of exponents and writing numbers in scientific notation.

Grade 8-The group is reading The Watsons Go to Birmingham by Christopher Paul Curtis. They have been writing short essays on given topics in their WNB(writer's notebook) which is due once a week.  Eventually, they will write on topics of their choosing and submit 3 samples each week.  In math, we reviewed calculations with fractions across all 4 operations.  We will be reviewing the use of exponents, scientific notation and positive and negative integers before we move into algebraic equations.

  *******Boxes of tissues are always appreciated.*****

Please feel free to call if you have any questions.