From Our Program Director: An Update on Groupings

Dear Cotting Families & Caregivers:

I hope this note finds you well and enjoying the first weeks of spring. While we are in the throes of planning and celebrating our end-of-the-year events, we’re also well underway in planning for the upcoming school year. Currently, our Educational Leadership Team (Ed. Team), in collaboration with therapy departments, program levels and health services, is working to draft groupings for next year. We’d like to give you an overview of what that’s going to look like this year as well as when you can expect to hear from us.

Here’s a timeline of what the placement process will look like at Cotting this year.

  • April/Early May: Ed. Team gathers feedback from program level teams, program assistants and therapy departments, including individual student readiness to move program levels if they are grade/age eligible for consideration. Please email Program Director Valery Gransewicz if you have considerations or information you would like the team to include in their placement conversations.
  • Early May: Ed. Team uses the feedback gathered, as well as holistic information about students and programming, to develop an early draft of homeroom groupings.
  • Mid-May: Therapy team department leaders will join program level teachers and the Ed. Team to review the initial draft and make adjustments based on information shared by families, clinicians, program assistants and teachers.
  • End of May/Early June: Working drafts will be shared with faculty and we will consider to process admissions and scheduling factors for fall 2024. At this time, parents and caregivers of students who we will recommend move up a program level will be notified. Click here to view more information about each of our four program levels Program Level Parent Presentation- 2024-2025

We want to thank you for the trust you have in our collaborative, interdisciplinary teams to make informed, student-centered decisions about placement. Some of the factors we consider include how groupings might function with regards to academic peers and social and communication partnerships, as well as the group’s mobility, medical and dietary/feeding needs. As mentioned above in the timeline, if you have considerations or input you’d like our team to know as we move through this process, please email me at vgransewicz@cotting.org by Wednesday, May 14.

Val Gransewicz, Program Director