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Annual Report FY14 Board of Directors Eve Pratt Hoar, Chair Sarah Beal Will Billings Students Leslie Watson Botjer 759 Suzanne Cronkite Chris Economou Christopher R. Gannon Ruthann Hackett Katie D. Halsey Cynthia K. Hoehl, D.H.L. School District Contracts Ellie Kenworthy, M.Ed. 18 G. Reid Lyon, Ph.D. Justin Molson Jon Pizzagalli Blanche Podhajski, Ph.D. Maureen Post BUILDING BLOCKS Stephen Richards 421 Educators Carol Stone Brian Till Sara Trimmer Cynthia K. Hoehl Honorary Board of Directors Participants 2,446 Bernice Stern, Chair Eugene Cenci Governor Howard Dean, M.D. Governor James Douglas Lewis First, M.D. Website Sessions Sarah Gray Gund 93,000 John Hoehl Arthur Kreizel Governor Madeleine Kunin Senator Patrick Leahy Eugene Richards III Governor Peter Shumlin Scholarships Ann Smallwood 110 Barbara Snelling Peter Stern, M.D. David Stifler, M.D. Barry Stone Elizabeth Wallman President’s Message October 16, 2014 Dear Friends, FY14 marked our thirtieth anniversary, a deserved reason to celebrate and grow. Thirty years certainly reflects organizational maturity and change to sustain. A lot has happened over three decades in the world of learning. The most remarkable changes have been in terms of brain science and its impact on how we teach and learn. These changes have propelled our Vision to serve all learners and reduce the stigma on those whose learning differences present educational challenges. The Stern Center in 2044 will be an even greater beneficiary of neuroscience discoveries and our goal is to assure sustainability for this amazing organization over the next 30 years. You will notice a new look to our Annual Report this year. What you will read in these pages not only summarizes the year across our core services of evaluations, instruction, professional learning, communication services and research but also highlights special projects that merit a spotlight. Informed change considers currency, collaboration, and science. We feel fortunate to have had a year that embraced both celebration and sustainability to assure that the Stern Center’s mission to make magic happen for all kinds of learners continues. We were pleased to end the year balancing revenues with expenses, yielding an increase of $20K in net assets. This outcome was especially welcome given that FY14 posed challenges for service revenues. Development, key to our nonprofit sustenance, once again procured donor support for operations, scholarships and endowment. A decline in program grants was offset by a federal grant from NSF for $204K and a cultivated indirect gift of $27K for professional learning through the Cynthia K. Hoehl Institute for Excellence. FY14 saw the completion of our BUILDING BLOCKS national expansion plan to meet the needs of millions of children in child care throughout the United States. We are grateful to an anonymous foundation and the Purple Crayon Project for supporting the development of this $22.8 million project with not just dollars but passion and advocacy. The next step is working on funding opportunities to enable the plan to become a reality so that it can reach the 4 million children targeted for literacy preparation over the next 4 years. The Cynthia K. Hoehl Institute for Excellence shone this year, championing outstanding professional learning opportunities for educators at all levels. Its significant growth in FY14 included major initiatives such as the extension of a robust professional learning project at Orange North Supervisory Union, a multi-year plan for Mater Christi School, which includes both comprehensive staff development and onsite services, and the design of a collaborative language consultation program at Greenwood School for middle and high school boys with dyslexia. Also in the spotlight is our partnership grant with Dartmouth College from the National Science Foundation – Electrophysiological Measures of Neuroplasticity with Reading Intervention. This three year project will study 8- and 9-year old children’s responses to Stern Center reading instruction using electrophysiological recording techniques. Not only will this project extend our research knowledge about brain changes in reading but it will also document the effects of Stern Center best practices. Another way to share the science of instruction with educators is through our new relationship with MindPlay® Virtual Reading Coach. We coauthored Companion and Comprehensive Courses, which began development during FY14. The Companion, a basic course in literacy best practices for teachers, will debut this fall. The Comprehensive Course for preservice and inservice education will be completed in 2015. These products introduce a third revenue stream to the Stern Center. We thank all of you who have played such important roles at the Stern Center in the past thirty years. Programs we have achieved together have taken advantage of advances in neuroscience. We can only imagine what the next thirty years will hold. The Executive Team has begun brainstorming as we consider a three year strategic planning process towards that end. We look forward to your evolving with us as we journey forward addressing the needs of beautiful brains and changing lives! Warm regards, Blanche Podhajski, Ph.D. President Building Blocks FOR LITERACY ® Expansion Plan Phase 1 4 Years 4 Million Children $22,874,075 Only $5.94/Child All Children Ready to Read This project has been made possible in part by funding and consultation from an anonymous foundation and the Purple Crayon Project. 4 Evaluations 262 Total Evaluations Our evaluation program continues to offer multidisciplinary services to all kinds of learners. Working with individuals, parents, and school teams, evaluators customize instructional and social opportunities to maximize learner strengths and address educational needs. 154 Comprehensive We were pleased to welcome Eileen Harris, Psy.D, NCSP to serve as Program Manager. Dr. Harris is on a sabbatical from her position as a school psychologist, evaluator, and consultant on matching learners to curriculum and academic outcomes. 30 Neuropsychological 13 & Psychological We welcomed Jessica O’Neil, M.D. and Feyza Basoglu, M.D., 8 to our Adolescent Psychiatry Fellowship Program, a partnership Child and with the University of Vermont College of Medicine Department of Adolescent Psychiatry. These Fellows gained valuable training about students experiencing significant challenges in school settings under the direction of Julia Molson, Psy.D., Licensed Psychologist. 8 Speech/Language 3 15 Referral Sources Canada New Hampshire 10 215 87 School/Educator Autism Vermont 12 70 Family/Friend New York 36 Physician/FAHC 7 18 Stern Center Staff/Board Social Cognition 10 Psychologist/Psychiatrist 1 Virginia 10 Website 1 6 UVM/VT Law School 21 Connecticut Academic 6 Voc Rehab/Case 3 2 Attorney 3 New Jersey Massachusetts 2 Media/Word-of-Mouth 11 1 Other Delaware 5 Public School Partnerships Orange Center School Orange North Supervisory Union is now in year 3 of a robust professional learning initiative. We began developing a common language for structured literacy with our T•I•M•E for Teachers™ course for the K-3rd grade teachers in all three elementary schools in the district. Washington Village School In addition to our presence as a School Williamstown Elementary School Improvement Coach within one school, we worked with the middle – high school teachers to apply universal strategic application across content areas. We provided the Orton-Gillingham Classroom Educator program this summer and will be mentoring throughout the school Williamstown Middle/High School year. Finally, we developed a structured summer course for special educators to expand their collaboration with general education teachers. Kudos to the leadership and dedicated teachers who dedicated themselves to such a robust and integrated program of study. Stern Center West Lebanon, NH Instruction 363 Total Students 246 Individual Students 16 Students with multiple instructors 3 Multi-Hour 13 Most referrals for instruction are the Academic Coaching result of word of mouth, our website, or indirect advertising through articles 3 Med-Ed/Radiology in the Burlington Free Press and Valley News. One special success story was 2 that a multi-hour student was able Diagnostic Instruction to fully return to his home school environment. 117 Supplemental Educational Services 17 Schools 7 Electrophysiological Measures of Neuroplasticity with Reading Interventions & National Science Foundation Three year research Grant in collaboration with Dartmouth College to investigate brain changes following 500 hours of intensive intervention over 10 weeks Dr. Donna Coch Dr. Blanche Podhajski Michelle Szabo Dartmouth Stern Center Stern Center Principle Investigator Project Director Project Coordinator 8 Communication 134 Services Total Children Adults The number of Communication Services students seen this year, 134 in all, includes a record number of participants in our summer Camp Compass program. This figure of 41 students more than doubles last year’s 18 students. As a consequence, we added two additional sites 21 20 beyond the lovely home in Burlington where the program originated. Individual Social Cognitive Development Referral Sources 25 Family/Friend 3 Howard Center 13 60 ® 14 School 3 Website Social Thinking Groups 5 Stern Center Staff/Board 6 Voc Rehab/Case 4 Therapist 12 6 Speech-Language 2 Telepractice 92 Total Participants 34 Social Cognition I Dr. Nancy Cotton instructs a workshop in Social Thinking® at the Cynthia K. Hoehl
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