The first full week of March is designated as Classified Employee Appreciation Week. At Clackamas ESD alone, we have more than 50 types of classified jobs. These are people who touch every corner of our agency’s work and the districts we support, from providing hands-on help to teachers, children and families, to filling endless behind-the-scenes roles to keep buildings and teams safe, cared for and high-functioning.
This Classified Employee Appreciation Week, we’re highlighting five of our more than 200 classified staff members and contractors, to provide a peek into the diverse ways this large group of employees lives our mission of service. We appreciate our entire classified team and the meaningful work they do.
Leona French is a collaborative problem solving coach in our early intervention and early childhood special education (EI/ECSE) department that supports young children who exhibit delays or disabilities that affect learning.
In this role, Leona works directly with children to demonstrate to preschool teachers and parents how to use Collaborative Problem Solving® (CPS) to address challenging behaviors. Those who practice CPS build relationships with children to identify what’s causing disruptive behaviors, like a child not being able to sit with classmates at circle time, and then help children build skills to improve those behaviors.
“When children are not able to meet an expectation it’s not because they don’t want to do it, or they’re trying to get out of doing it, it’s that there is a lagging skill that’s getting in the way of them being able to do it. It’s skill versus will,” Leona summarizes.
Leona says the CPS approach is so effective because “all different types of skills are being built just having a conversation. And six months down the road, parents are able to say ‘it’s not as hard for my child to do that now.’”
Leona’s work adding the evidence-based CPS approach to preschool teachers’ and parents’ tool kits helps include more children with behavioral challenges in mainstream classrooms by building the skills they need to minimize disruptive behaviors.
“We do not have to keep people with different abilities separate,” Leona believes. “We can help them develop and grow together, but at different rates, and that’s okay.”
Leona’s journey to becoming a collaborative problem solving coach began with substitute teaching in Clackamas ESD’s early education and Life Enrichment Education Program (LEEP) classrooms in 2013. After demonstrating her ability, she was offered a long-term substitute position before ultimately being hired full-time and given the opportunity to become certified in CPS.
“I have to do a shout-out for the ESD because of its ability and its desire to grow within,” Leona says.
