'Child Find' Committee seeks children who need services

Members of the Blytheville School District’s Child Find Committee include (front, from left) Lisa Stovall, IDEA secretary/bookkeeper; Jean Cole, director of Behavior Support/Special Education; Nicole Turney, parent/special education teacher; (in back, from left) Patricia Smith, due process assistant; Hannah Rogers, speech therapist; Renee Craig, speech therapist; (not pictured) Tiffany Townsend, Candas Bivens, Sarah Russell, and Hannah Fulks, district nurses; Shirley Byrd, social worker; Melissa Moriarty, speech pathologist; Christie Kennedy, Michelle Hardy, and Reyna Cunningham, due process/behavior specialists; Julie Ponce and Joanna Mier, ELL tutors, and Allison Turner, district Community Development coordinator.

Child Find Committee members met Sept. 28 to discuss ways to find all children in the Blytheville area who may be in need of special services and can benefit from those services offered by the Blytheville School District. The committee’s purpose is to ensure that all children with disabilities who need special education and related services are located, identified, evaluated and provided with free and appropriate services.

Committee members will be distributing pamphlets and posters promoting the district’s special services and how the child’s overall social and educational opportunities can be improved by taking advantage of the services.

The Blytheville School District recognizes that all learners are individuals and must have a purpose for learning. It is the district’s mission to foster a caring and creative environment that emphasizes the social, emotional, physical and intellectual development of each learner, and the Child Find Committee works to do just that for its students in need of special services.

Any person who knows of a child living in the Blytheville area who may benefit from the special services offered, or if that person would like awareness posters or pamphlets for his or her business or home, is asked to contact Jean Cole at 870-762-2053.