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Polk County News 8A Polk County Itemizer-Observer • February 8, 2017 Central helps kids connect Woman OK after heating pad fire ‘Be GLAD’ program focuses on providing access to students in classrooms Itemizer-Observer staff report DALLAS — Dallas Fire & EMS responded to a house fire in the 500 block of Southwest Levens Street at about 6 a.m. on Feb. 1. Dallas Police Department was the first to arrive. Officers helped the female occupant out of her house. The fire was contained to a bedroom in the residence. Fire crews were able to extinguish the fire within 20 min- utes of arrival. The female reported that she woke up coughing and found her heating pad had caught fire. EMS personnel evaluated her for possible smoke inhalation, but she was not transported. It was discovered the house did not have working smoke alarms. Dallas Fire & EMS spokeswoman April Welsh stresses the importance of working smoke alarms in every home. “Most house fire deaths happen between the hours of 11 p.m. and 7 a.m., when people are asleep,”she said in a press release. “Keep your family safe by installing smoke alarms and testing them monthly to make sure they work. For more information: 503-831-3533. McCandless takes over as Polk VSO By Jolene Guzman The Itemizer-Observer POLK COUNTY — Marie McCandless, the former assis- tant to Polk County’s new Veterans Service Officer, has taken over the post as a VSO-in-training. McCandless takes over for former VSO Erin Osgood, who was hired to start the program at the beginning of this year. “That was her goal in life to be a VSO,” said Polk County Administrator Greg Hansen said of McCandless. McCandless, a U.S. Army veteran, will work in coordina- tion with the Oregon Department of Veteran’s Affairs Office in Salem until she completes training. She’s already begun to take classes, Hansen said. “She can do everything a VSO can do except sign official forms,” Hansen said That will be handled with the Salem office temporarily. Polk County VSO office opened in January and will be holding an open house on Feb. 15 from 3 to 6 p.m. at 240 SW Washington St. in Dallas. For more infor mation, 503-623-9188 or torres.stephanie@co.polk.or.us. By Emily Mentzer The Itemizer-Observer MONMOUTH/INDEPEN- DENCE — All elementary school classroom teachers in the Central School Dis- trict have been trained and certified in a national pro- gram, Be GLAD. That makes a difference for students in kindergarten through fifth grade, said Dorie Vickery, director of curriculum. “It’s all about language,” Vickery said. “So what the teachers do when they meet in the training, they take their science standards, their social studies standards, their English language arts standards, look for com- monalities and start to look for their themes, what we call integrated units.” The end result is teachers making more connections for kids, Vickery said. One class just finished up an integrated unit on com- munities and traditions, she said. “They tied in the Hop Fes- tival, so they included things that would be unique to the Monmouth-Independence community, making it real for students,” Vickery said. GLAD, which stands for Guided Language Acquisi- tion Design, is a model that has been around for decades, designed by the U.S. Department of Educa- tion in the early 1990s. “Basically, it’s about pro- viding access to students,” Vickery said. “So if you have a second-language learner in your classroom, what are you doing instructionally as Be GLAD Training/ for the Itemizer-Observer Anisa Arain, a national trainer for the Be GLAD program, teaches in a classroom you deliver core content? What are those strategies that are going to help that student understand?” Elementary school teach- ers were the focus of the GLAD training, in part be- cause they have a more complex job: Teaching stu- dents all subjects, meeting all the required standards, Vickery said. High school and middle school teachers tend to focus on one or two topics, such as social studies or math. “They (elementary school teachers) have a ton of stan- dards that they have to ad- dress,” Vickery said. “They could have a wide range of reading levels. A fourth- grade classroom with 32 stu- dents could have students reading at kindergarten-first grade level to seventh-grade level, so how do you address that and meet the needs of all kids?” By improving the connec- tions, the Be GLAD program helps the whole classroom, not only those who are Eng- lish language learners, Vick- ery said. But the additional help to EL students is timely. Central School District was recently named a “transfor- mation district” by the Ore- gon Department of Educa- tion. “We’re being asked to make more gains for our EL students,” Vickery said. “We haven’t in a long time. We did this time, although they don’t count because we’re moving from No Child Left Behind to Every Student Succeeds Act.” The district has seen a de- crease in the number of sec- ond-language students. Vickery said she thinks that reflects a change in student demographics. “I think we have more truly bilingual children com- ing in,” she said. “So you have a child who speaks two languages who’s 6 years old.” For more information about the Be GLAD pro- gram: www.BeGLADtrain- ing.com. Valentine’s Day is Feb. 14th! Get Home Safe, Call Your D.D. Order now. We deliver! mes e it co .” r e h “W a rt the he from Flowers ~ Plants ~ Balloons Plush ~ Cards ~ Candy ~ Gifts Merlin D. Berkey 503-831-1410 Heartstrings Florist & Artisans 137 SW Court St, Dallas • www.heartstringsonline.net Now Open Daily at 7 am! 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