Student support services
Recent milestones in student support services at Gordon:
Spring 2018: Gordon's Strategic Vision establishes a goal: “Build up Pathways and our middle school academic support services to more adequately support the neurodiversity of all learners.”
Fall 2021: Assistant Head of School for Teaching and Learning expands goal beyond Pathways and academic support to focus on building a comprehensive student support services strategy
Spring 2022: Thanks for the feedback! The education committee of the Board of Trustees launches a survey to elicit feedback from the parent and caregiver community about our social and emotional and academic support services at Gordon. We received one hundred and forty-six responses—a record-breaking numbe and only beaten by the lunch survey given the same year!—and this data, along with feedback from faculty, staff and alumni, informed priorities that guide the student support services team today.
Spring 2022: School hires Gordon’s first fulltime School Counselor and reinstates the Early Childhood Director position, both of whom begin their tenure in the fall of 2022.
Spring 2023: Gordon restructures the Student Support Services department to include three divisional learning support coordinators, two of whom begin their tenures in the fall of 2023.
School counselor
Hallie Riggs is Gordon's full-time counselor, collaborating with students, families, faculty and staff, as well as a consulting psychologist, to support the social and emotional wellbeing of students across all grades.
Ages and Stages
These informal, discussion-based meetings are led by the school counselor and division director with a focus on the developmental stages that children experience at each grade level. Meetings are held by grade level, and they are an opportunity for families to strengthen their connection with the division directors and with the families of their child’s peers.
Academic support
Gordon uses a comprehensive team model that includes learning support coordinators in each division and a math specialist as well as a school counselor.
Learn more about the Pathways Program, an intensive early intervention program designed to help Kindergarten, first, second, and third grade children acquire early literacy skills.
Canine comfort
Denver the therapy dog provides daily on-campus support: easing anxiety, helping students learn to read, and making hard conversations easier simply with his presence.
Denver’s career began with eighteen months of training in Colorado and Tennessee before being matched with his owner, a rising Gordon third grader, in 2019. After two years as a diabetes alert dog, Denver expanded his services to all students and staff as an on-campus support animal. In his free time, Denver loves to play fetch and is always up for a good game of tug-of-war.