The Power of Self-Advocacy; Amy Plante, Assistant Principal

As we are entering the second month of the new year, it is important to reflect upon the values here at LPS. We thrive on providing students with the skills necessary to succeed beyond our school doors. These skills are highlighted in our “Senior Toolbox,” which encompasses our vision of self-determination.  During senior year, students are working on various strategies with their Speech/Language Pathologists, Occupational Therapists, Counselors, and the Transition Department to build their self-awareness and self-advocacy skills. Tools that are created for their “Senior Toolbox” may include Thinking Maps about their accommodations or learning style, an "elevator script" about their disability, and templates for emails to send to professors in college when needing assistance. This “Toolbox” also includes other resources, like information about the ADA law, their resume, sample cover letters and job applications, a copy of their IEP, pdfs of PLEP A/B from their IEP, and a Summary of Student Performance.  The “Senior Toolbox” is shared with the student's personal email address so they will have access to it after high school. We believe an integral step to self-advocacy is student recognition of their learning disability and its accompanying accommodations.

Talking with students about their disabilities provides an opportunity to understand the areas that present a challenge and strategies to overcome them. Research demonstrates a link between student self-advocacy regarding their disability’s accommodations and higher success rates in post-secondary endeavors (Roper, 2018). We believe open dialogue can encourage students to be their own proponents of change.

LPS recognizes the diverse needs of our students and the varying preferred learning styles. It is important that our students identify the way they learn best and apply it to their everyday lives. I have the utmost confidence that our students will continue to show their resilience and motivation to succeed by being curious and open-minded.