Overlake's Learning Specialists - Cheering on our Students

You might consider them the cheer squad for our students. Overlake’s learning specialists are the ones who are working alongside our students ensuring their learning environment is as best suited to each student as possible.

“Our particular passion and focus is student facing. That’s where we are putting most of the eggs in our basket in order to direct help to our students and direct change for them,” explains Crissy Stemkowski, the newest member of the team. This year, Stemkowski joined Susan Lin as a learning specialist, and also teammates Susan Essex and Pauline Salgado, Overlake’s personal counselors, who together make up the Student Support department at the school.

Stemkowski and Lin oversee what is called an SST or Student Support Team meeting. “It’s us calling a meeting with all the teachers of a particular student and coming together to see what the concerns are and then to offer up strategies,” explains Lin.

And as easy as that sounds, getting a bunch of teachers, coaches and advisors together during a busy school day is no easy task. It shows the commitment adults in our community have to helping students, as well as the confidence in the direction that the learning specialists will take following the meeting.

The SST meetings are short; maybe 15 or 20 minutes in length. During the meeting you’ll find all the adults who interact with a particular student. That could be their advisor, various teachers, and coaches. During the sessions, strategies are discussed by everyone in an effort to support and lift up the student during a difficult time in their learning. That might be having more check-ins with the student, setting up smaller, bite-sized tasks rather than one large assignment. It’s truly tailored to that particular student’s needs and abilities.

“What’s really great about these meetings is that we collect the data of what we’re trying and it’s tracked throughout the year, so then we have more data to give to the family or if they want to take it for a neuropsych eval, then they would know what we have been working on and what we have tried,” says Lin.

Sometimes the meetings are for a student who is on a 504 accommodation. Sometimes it’s for a student who is struggling with something temporary, like a concussion or is in a cast. Lin was recently helping scribe notes for a student during exams who had their writing arm in a cast.

When Lin and Stemkowski aren’t acting as scribes or holding SST meetings, they’re meeting one-on-one with students who literally walk through their doors in the library. “Any student can come and meet with us. You don’t need a reason,” explains Stemkowski. “We’re open for homework center and we want to meet with all learners. You don’t have to have a learning difference to come and meet with a learning specialist, because you are a different learner from the others around you. And you have something to give and bring and maybe something to work on, so that’s what we’re here for - build your strengths, leverage your strengths, and maybe also learn how to mitigate those other areas.”

This week the learning specialists partnered with the personal counselors to hold a self-care week among the community as part of Mental Health Week. The idea of self-care is to promote ways you can build yourself up, refuel, or thrive.