Heather Muller

Cedar Bluffs Public School

Cedar Bluffs, NE
(402) 628-2080
heather.muller@cbwildcats.org

Grant: Funds for Teachers Grant

Funding: up to $10,000.00

SUMMARY

Funding would support the opportunity to attend the Learning and the Brain: Schooling Social
Brains Conference at the Sheraton New York Times Square Hotel, New York, NY (link for
conference below). Visiting this conference would allow the Special Education team at Cedar
Bluffs Public Schools (five teachers) the opportunity to expand our knowledge on social
development in the digital age. The conference will provide us with interventions to increase
social health for students of all ability level.

https://www.learningandthebrain.com/Event-381/Schooling-Social-Brains/Conference-Schedule

THE PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT PLAN

Schooling Social Brains is a three-day conference focusing on the implementation of social skills
and social development during a time of influx technological advances. The goal of this
conference is for my team to bring back ideas on how to strengthen our students’ social skills in
hopes of improving their academic and life-long experiences. Information from the conference
will be brought back and shared during our all staff professional development days prior to the
following school year. Implementation of strategies will then be put forth into our classrooms
beginning the 2019-2020 school year.

PROCEDURE

The conference will take place on May 3-5th at the Sheraton New York Times Square Hotel,
New York, NY. This three day conference will be attended by the Cedar Bluffs Public School
Special Education Team, consisting of five teachers. The hope is to gain knowledge on the study
of social skills interventions for all learners and increase the overall social and emotional well-
being of students at Cedar Bluffs.

PROFESSIONAL GOALS

This opportunity will push us towards my professional and educational goals. It will give our
Special Education team the ability to teach colleagues new strategies beneficial for students
whom lack the proper social skills in hopes that they grow positively within the classroom. In
doing research on the lack of social skills, it is a major cause of negative emotional out-looks,
negative peer interactions, and negative classroom behaviors. Our hope is to bring back useful
interventions and ideas that will help to diminish these negative implications throughout the
school.

OVERALL NEED

The need for this professional development opportunity is to find the right strategies for
classroom implementation in hopes of increasing students social and emotional health. Student
social and emotional health has an impact on their entire learning process. This conference will
guide us into learning how to increase our students social and emotional health so that they are
continuing to have a positive educational outlook. In going to this conference, our hope is to be
able to bring back interventions and knowledge that is applicable within the everyday classroom.
Teacher’s sometimes view social and emotional health as a difficult aspect to teach students. We
want to bring back materials, studies, and interventions that make the promotion of positive
social and emotional health simple for our colleagues to implement throughout their daily
curriculum.

CONTINUATION

The information acquired will be shared with all staff during professional development days
prior to the beginning of the 2019-2020 school year. The professional development will provide
colleagues with information on strategies to support positive social health within their classroom.
The more strategies that are easily implemented, the high positive social and emotional health
and behaviors we should have within our school. It takes a whole team to see a change and that
starts with the leaders of our staff. The implementation of these ideas and interventions will
continually be discussed throughout the school year at monthly staff meetings. During these
meetings, educators are able to share what is working for them within their individual
classrooms.

BUDGET

ITEM PER PERSON COST

Airfare $317 ea.
Conference $549 ea.
Pre-conference Workshops $199 ea.
Hotel $316 each night
Food $50 ea. daily
TOTAL COST FOR FIVE: $7,339