Officers outdoors AIMS Annex to P.S. 6, L-R: Mabel Sarduy, Stamo Karalazarides Rosenberg, Superintendent District 17 Shenean Lindsay, Council Member Rita Joseph, UFT Rep. Rick King and Rose Graham.
Photograph by Nelson A. King
Metropolis Council Member Rita Joseph and faculty directors had been current on Thursday, Sept. 4, for the disclosing of an AIMS faculty on the annex to P.S. 6 on Flatbush Avenue in Brooklyn.
The AIMS faculty is the primary of its type in Central Brooklyn.
The AIMS program (Acquisition, Integration, Significant Communication, and Social Expertise) is a specialised early childhood initiative inside New York Metropolis Public Faculties designed for autistic college students in kindergarten by second grade. It operates in choose faculties throughout districts.
The AIMS faculty, on the annex to P.S. 6, is the imaginative and prescient of Joseph, the Haitian-born consultant for the 40th Council District in Brooklyn, the place the college is situated, and who can also be the chair of the Schooling Committee within the Metropolis Council.
“I’m proud to welcome the opening of the historic AIMS program proper right here in Flatbush,” Joseph, a former public faculty trainer in Brooklyn, instructed Caribbean Life solely.
“Each baby deserves the chance to be taught in an setting that meets their distinctive wants, and AIMS is an ideal step ahead in guaranteeing true fairness for our college students,” she added. “With small class sizes, individualized helps, and a concentrate on communication and every day residing expertise, this program will open doorways for particular schooling college students to thrive each inside and out of doors of the classroom.
“That is the form of funding in our kids’s future that strengthens our complete neighborhood,” Joseph continued.
Superintendent Lindsay Shenean Lindsay mentioned she was additionally “proud to have a good time the opening of P.S. 6, our all-inclusive mannequin faculty right here in Central Brooklyn.
“It’s important that households have entry to high-quality faculties of their neighborhoods that meet the various wants of their kids, whereas additionally having the liberty to decide on the tutorial setting that finest helps them,” she mentioned.
Lindsay mentioned the launch of AIMS in District 17 “displays the form of help our households each want and deserve.
“I’m deeply grateful for the management of New York Metropolis Public Faculties and the steadfast partnership of Metropolis Council Schooling Chair Rita Joseph in bringing this imaginative and prescient to life,” she added. “Collectively, we’re guaranteeing that our kids not solely have alternatives, but additionally the instruments to actually shine.”
Rose Graham, the Jamaican-born neighborhood faculty district director of attendance and neighborhood affairs in Central Brooklyn, mentioned she was “grateful to have been in attendance for the opening and introduction of AIMS to Central Brooklyn.
“This marked the start of a brand new chapter targeted on nurturing, educating, and empowering our youngest learners,” she mentioned. “A particular and honest thanks to Councilmember and Schooling Chair, the Hon. Rita Joseph. Your unwavering imaginative and prescient, management, and dedication to early childhood schooling have been instrumental in bringing this dream to life.
“It’s due to champions such as you that communities like Central Brooklyn achieve entry to the assets, help, and alternatives our kids so richly deserve,” Graham added. “Thanks for believing within the energy of early schooling and for serving to us plant the seeds of success for generations to return.”
Judith Marius, the Haitian-born assistant principal, Norma Adams Clemons Academy at P.S. 6, mentioned: “On the Inclusive Early Childhood Heart, we welcome and have a good time all learners.”
She mentioned the packages embrace Basic Schooling 3K and Pre-Ok, Particular schooling 3K and PreK, and two Kindergarten AIMS lessons.
“We offer a full vary of associated companies,” mentioned Marius, stating that they embrace speech, occupational remedy, bodily remedy, and all mandated Individualized Academic Plan (IEP) helps, “to satisfy the wants of each baby.
“As the primary neighborhood faculty to supply an inclusive setting for our youngest learners, we take delight in creating lecture rooms the place college students of all talents be taught, develop, and thrive collectively,” she added.
P.S. 6 is beneath the management of principal Dr. Sharon Porter.
Graham mentioned key options of the AIMS program are small class dimension, educational strategy, curriculum instruments and therapeutic setting.
She mentioned every classroom serves as much as six college students, supported by a particular schooling trainer, a speech-language pathologist, and a paraprofessional.
Graham mentioned this system makes use of Utilized Conduct Evaluation (ABA) and Verbal Conduct (VB) methods to construct communication, social, and tutorial expertise.
She mentioned instruction is guided by the Evaluation of Fundamental Language and Studying Expertise (ABLLS), tailor-made to every pupil’s IEP.
As well as, Graham mentioned lecture rooms are “sensory-friendly” and embrace visible schedules, communication helps and collaborative companies, like speech, occupational, and bodily remedy.
“The AIMS program is designed to present younger autistic learners a robust basis for fulfillment at school and past,” she mentioned
