2024-2025 Back to School Information
Welcome Elizabeth Academy Families!
Summer is still sizzling, but fall will be here soon so prepare yourselves for the brightest school year yet! All of our leaders; including administrators, lead teachers and interventionists, have been busily at work this summer, preparing an exciting and engaging year of learning for you at Elizabeth Academy.
Last year we came together as a whole school, two campuses, united as one in our efforts to create a complete scope-and-sequence, inclusive Montessori curriculum, Infant-12th grade. I have been utterly amazed and overjoyed at the progress our leaders and lead staff have made in this collaborative process! Along the way, we have seen more change than we had anticipated this past year, as a few of our beloved leaders and staff have transitioned to other schools. Gratefully they have left us in a better place than they found us, and as we have all grown together in this journey of inclusion at Elizabeth Academy, we have a wealth of strong and capable people who remain with us and have added new leaders who will strengthen us even more. They have already done so this summer.
As founder of Elizabeth Academy, I will once again be taking the lead as Executive Director, ensuring that our school stays on track to fulfill its ultimate mission and vision, maintaining its cultural values, especially in regard to inclusion. Nathan Abbott will take the lead as Principal of the Primary school, with support from our wonderful new Assistant Principal, Jessica Grabe. Sofia Rigolon will take the reins of Principal at the Secondary school, supported by Christine Strubell as the School Counselor.
Finally, we have added an important new position at the school, which we believe will strengthen our inclusive program significantly. Lindsay Baird has taken the position of Special Education Director at Elizabeth Academy. Her responsibilities include directing special educators and interventionists at both campuses, guiding them in their work to level lessons, create and maintain SSPs, and collaborate with therapists, teachers, and other leaders in this interdisciplinary, individualized educational program. If this work sounds daunting, I would say that it is, and it might be impossible, except for the expertise that Lindsay brings to the table and for the incredible strength of the other aforementioned leaders, teachers, interventionists and therapists who have been all been working collaboratively this summer already and who will continue to do so throughout the school year to make this magic work!
All we need is you. Icing on the cake at the end of a hot summer.
Cool is coming,
Gail S. Williamsen
Executive Director, Elizabeth Academy
Elizabeth Academy APP!
We are excited to announce that the Elizabeth Academy App is now available. Available in both the Apple App Store and Android App Store. Just search for Elizabeth Academy and look for our logo. It is a free app that connects you with the calendar, updates, supply lists, attendance reporting, the school store and MORE!!
Please enable push notifications when you download the app to get reminders about upcoming events and important notices.
Elizabeth Academy Leaders attend Honors in Education Gala
The Honors in Education Gala is put on yearly by Utah’s First Lady, Abby Cox, and recognizes select educators who have made a real difference in education. This year, a few of our leaders, Gail Williamsen, Sofia Rigolon, Jessica Grabe, and Lindsay Baird, attended this lovely event and were delighted to discover that one of our former Elizabeth Academy teachers was honored with an award! Chelsi Ostergaard, who was one of our first teachers to take Montessori training and teach in our early childhood classroom (a few years co-teaching with Jess Ruud), was not only an honoree, but was also featured as the highlighted award winner in an article written in the Deseret News about the event! Check out this link to read the whole article.
Elizabeth Academy also had an incredible showing (with a booth) at another event the following day. Our Primary School Principal, Nate Abbott “showed up” with a stellar cast of representatives from Elizabeth Academy, Lindsay Baird, Jess Ruud and Danielle Rehmann, at the Show Up for Teachers event, dazzling attendees with Elizabeth Academy magic. This event was a conference for teachers, showering them with love and appreciation, workshops and all kinds of goodies. Sharing what our program is all about was a treat for them and a boon for us, as we made the acquaintance of many other fine educators in Utah and were able to expose them to the fine art of inclusive Montessori at Elizabeth Academy.
Supply Lists
Be prepared for the first day of school with the supply list provided. You can view the supply lists by level by clicking the link below.
Meet our Special Education Director, Lindsay Baird
Elizabeth Academy Families,
My name is Lindsay Baird and I started as the Special Education Director at Elizabeth Academy in April 2024. Since then, I have been observing and learning the current special education frameworks and processes that have been established. Elizabeth Academy has done an excellent job in getting to know each individual student, proactively seeking out interventions that will help students succeed and providing high-quality services for your children.
I am looking forward to contributing to the already great structures that are in place. That being said, with new leadership comes change. Moving forward, we will be putting more focused emphasis on making programming decisions based on student data (informal and formal assessments, teacher observations, parent input). The human brain is deep and complex. There are so many cognitive processes that we can leverage to help students build on their strengths and guide them to overcome their challenges. Our teachers need to know what those cognitive processes are and how they apply to each individual student identified as having a disability.
This will look like:
- Providing teachers with direct and embedded training on cognitive functions and different types of disabilities.
- Providing more structure around the Student Study (formerly known as SST) process, informal and formal assessments, and Student Support Plans (SSP)
- Provide training to help teachers to understand student behavior, how to apply behavioral interventions, and the reasons why.
- Implement curricula that are intended for students with disabilities that can be embedded in their day, giving them explicit instruction and multiple opportunities to respond.
Changes you will see:
- SSP meetings will be held one time per year with the entire SSP team. An SSP team includes the student (depending on age and items discussed), parents, teachers, interventionists, therapists, and school administration. (The SSP team can meet more than one time per year as needed or if concerns arise.) This provides more individualization and more conversations being held.
- During this meeting, progress will be reviewed, the school team will report on the student’s present levels of performance, annual goals will be proposed, and the amount of service time the student needs will be discussed.
- Parents will receive progress reports on students’ progress toward their SSP goals every term.
- Formal and informal evaluations will be conducted more often. If you have had a private psychologist conduct an assessment of your child, that would be incredibly helpful to our team. Please provide the school with a copy.
Action Items:
- We will be going through each child’s evaluation and determining if we need additional information.
- We will be going through each child’s current SSP to see what goals need to be updated. Then we will be calendaring SSP meetings throughout the school year. Goals that the student is still working on will be carried over to this next school year. If goals need to be updated or changed, we will do this at the beginning of the year with the assumption that later in the year we will meet again to create the SSP that will be updated on the anniversary date.
Having a group of individuals who love and care for your child, who are provided with individual-specific information, annual goals, and support is MAGICAL! Meeting, as a team, to discuss where your child is, where we want them to go, and how we are going to support them in getting there is POWERFUL. It is just one of the reasons I love special education!
If you have any questions or concerns, please reach out!
Lindsay Baird
SPED Director
Elizabeth Academy
