Teacher Cites Benefits on YouTube
Teachers at a Pennsylvania school district like AlertSeats so much that they have launched a fundraising effort to purchase more of them.
It’s called AlertSeat Campaign for Children and it’s getting exposure through a YouTube video produced by the Hatboro-Horsham School District in Montgomery County, Pennsylvania.
“AlertSeats allow them to be a little more free,” says Chelsea Dever, a special education teacher featured in the video, says of the device’s impact on her class of students with autism and attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder.
“It keeps them alert,” she says.
The Hatboro-Horsham School District enjoys a strong tax base, the support of parents and the communities it serves, and recognition from both the Pennsylvania Department of Education and the United States Department of Education for excellence in education.
Yet even Hatboro-Horsham faces difficult choices at budget time and has turned to fund raising, the province of private schools, to help meet some of its needs.
The school district’s use of AlertSeats and efforts to raise funds to pay for such equipment were featured in an AlertSeat email blast in 2015. At that time, Jeannie Hagan, Director of Outreach and Communications for the school district talked of focusing on large corporations headquartered in the district’s suburban Philadelphia location for funds to provide things that even this affluent district’s budget won’t cover.
“We’re trying to bring businesses into the schools to see what we do,” she said. “If businesses understand our needs they might help.”
At the district’s Pennypack Elementary School special education teacher Jeanette Pomeroy said that she sees benefits of the AlertSeatTM in her learning support class. However, she had just one. She would like more.
Stacy Lewandowski, Jeanette’s colleague at Pennypack, had a student who was always wandering around the classroom. An AlertSeat™ gaves him the movement he needs, she said, and ended his disruptive habit. She would welcome more of the devices in her classroom.
“Movement and cognition are closely related,” said Maria Kerr, a special education teacher at the Simmons Elementary School. For three students in her class of students with cognitive disabilities, AlertSeats™ allowed comfort and movement. She thinks that many more students would benefit if the district could purchase more of them.
Through the AlertSeat Campaign for Children they just might be able to do that.
To learn how school districts like Hatboro-Horsham and others throughout the country are using the AlertSeat™ and AlertDesk™ in regular and special education classrooms, visit our website at www.alertseat.com and select Product Reviews and Articles.
