John Baldwin Elementary

An Admin TSA (Teacher on Special Assignment) plays a key role in supporting student success at John Baldwin. TSAs facilitate SST (Student Success Team) and IEP (Individualized Education Program) meetings to ensure that students receive the personalized support they need, and work closely with teacher to provide guidance on student behavior and academics. They lead sessions with grade-level teams to create effective academic intervention plans for students who may be struggling. Additionally, TSAs oversee intervention programs and manage intervention teachers, ensuring that extra support is in place. 

 

Credentialed Reading Specialists are trained in LETRS, overseeing our literacy intervention program. There are many facets to this position, including administering diagnostic assessments, analyzing data of all students, working with teachers to identify students performing below standard, delivering intervention in to students in small groups, progress monitoring, staff training, attending Student Success Team meetings, coordinating of the intervention schedule/master schedule, communicating with parent through emails and progress reports. Reading Specialists work with students on the following skills: phonemic awareness, phonics, syllabication, morphology, reading fluency and expression, and reading comprehension

 

Two instructional assistants deliver a variety of interventions to our students. Similar to Reading Specialists, their positions include: analyzing student data, assisting with assessments,  delivering small group instruction, supporting phonemic awareness, phonics, syllabication, morphology, reading fluency and expression, and reading comprehension

 

Joe has been teaching in the San Ramon Valley School District since 2019. He is also a longtime Bay Area guitarist, teacher, composer and recording artist (you can find his work on Spotify, Pandora, Itunes and other digital music outlets!). He has had a long career playing and teaching jazz, rock, blues, country and classical guitar and has performed in wedding bands, rock and blues bands, theater shows, fusion and jazz ensembles, acoustic duos, solo gigs and show bands. 

 

Joe studied guitar privately in New York and his teachers included Ernia Arti, Joe Monk and Howard Morgen. He’s a graduate of Cal State Hayward and a member of the National Business Honor Society. Additionally, Joe has written four books for advanced guitarists; “Complete Scale and Chord Theory for Guitar”, “Applications”, “How to Teach Guitar” and “Fingerstyle Arrangements for Solo Guitar” and his original music has been featured in the scores of many independent films and TV shows.

 

In addition to guitar, Joe plays and teaches banjo, mandolin, bass, ukulele, drums and piano. 

 

Lubna is responsible for weekly visits to the library for grades TK-4 and every other week for grade 5. The visit involves a pertinent read aloud, including activities for some read alouds. Lubna is responsible for having relevant books for designated months and facilitating the ‘check-in’ and ‘check-out’ process for students, among other activities during students’ visits. 

 

To upkeep the library, Lubna orders all supplies and curates books through different vendors which involves researching what is best and fits within the budget. She also catalogs the books and keeps inventory, discarding books that are damaged or obsolete, and trains library volunteers at the beginning of the school year. Additionally, Lubna opens the library during lunch hours and recess when possible, maintains the library website and meets with other district elementary library specialists to share best practices.

 

Nivedita facilitates the Rainbow Room program at John Baldwin. This program is a research based early intervention program that helps our students in a variety of areas, including developing social skills, fostering healthy self-concept, developing leadership skills, and assisting with life transitions. The Rainbow Program offers individualized and social skills programs such as: Primary Intervention Program (PIP) where students participate in non-directive play; Small Group Supports such as Second Step, Steps to Respect, PALS, and Get Ready for Middle School. In addition to these supports, Nivedita has assisted with supervision and staff training. Our Cougar Ed Fund supplements her district allocated hours, allowing her to support our students for 19.5 hours a week.