Anyone who visits Falk’s website will quickly learn that a Falk education is “defined by authentic learning experiences that address the social, emotional, and academic needs of each student.” 

At Falk, this commitment to holistic learning and addressing the diverse needs of each student isn’t just a saying that’s posted on the home page but forgotten about in practice. Instead, it’s a mission that drives everyday life. 

As a child-centered learning environment, Falk recognizes that each learner possesses a unique set of strengths, interests, and needs. This recognition has led to differentiating the instructional environment to ensure all students can make meaningful progress in learning. Occasionally, this progress requires even more targeted support, which is where Student Services comes in. 

History of Student Services

Student Services is a team of eight full-time faculty members committed to supporting students who encounter learning obstacles during their time at Falk. 

Dr. Joanna Newlin, Director of Student Services, says the team has grown and changed over time to fit the needs of Falk’s students. “It became an official team at the school around the time of the expansion to the building in 2010, when the school’s enrollment grew from 270 students to the almost 430 students we have today.” 

Prior to the expansion, Newlin says, the majority of Falk’s support services were provided by part-time specialists from the publicly funded Intermediate Unit (IU), with whom the school still shares a connection. 

Over time, Falk has also hired full-time, in-house faculty to complement the IU’s offerings. Today, Student Services includes three learning support specialists, one academic interventionist, two school counselors, one school nurse, and Newlin. 

Lindsey DePra, Falk’s first ever academic interventionist, started at Falk in August 2024 to fill a gap that the core learning support team was stretched too thin to fill. 

“There’s a good handful of kids that needed more individualized, really intensive supports because they might learn differently and think differently than their peers in the classroom,” DePra says. 

“My role is to really look at those individual kids and provide intensive instruction based on how they learn best, while working to close that gap—taking their strengths and using those to really accelerate their growth and keep targeting grade-level skills.” 

In January, the team will expand again to include a Behavioral Intervention Specialist, who will work closely with teachers, families, and Student Services to support identified students in developing and sustaining healthy behavior for learning and relationship-building. 

Academic support 

To foster students’ well-being, Student Services provides support on three levels—Tier 1, Tier 2, and Tier 3—based on the individual strengths and needs of the student. 

Tier 1 

Tier 1 academic support refers to the work done by classroom teachers for an entire class of students. These supports include flexible learning environments and core instruction based on evidence-based research. Just this year, Falk director Dr. Jill Sarada announced a targeted focus on Universal Design for Learning (UDL), a flexible learning practice that helps teachers plan accessible lessons for a wide range of students. 

UDL is a particularly important tool for Tier 1 support because its focus lies in proactive anticipation of student learning needs and ensuring ahead of time that lesson plans are accessible to all students in a classroom. 

According to Newlin, the phrase “Universal Design for Learning” comes from universal design as an architectural movement. “What guides any new construction or building is making it accessible to as many people as possible, which is why there are laws about having ramps and elevators and all of those things. That’s universal design—you're as welcoming to as many different people and as many different access points as possible. Universal design for learning is kind of that same philosophy but for learning.” 

To introduce the focus on UDL this year, faculty participated in a kick-off workshop and were given resources like unit templates that incorporate universal design components into the lesson planning process. 

Newlin says she hopes to experiment with even more UDL practices in the future, giving the example of “different novel groups for different reading levels [...] that are still based on the same theme”—a way of differentiating learning and promoting accessibility while also uniting a class behind a common conversation. 

Tier 2 

Tier 2 academic support is a collaborative approach involving a classroom teacher, a learning specialist, and, occasionally, support staff members from the Pittsburgh-Mt Oliver Intermediate Unit. 

Tier 2 support often occurs in targeted small groups and can be either “push-in,” where students remain in the classroom alongside their general education teacher and peers, or “pull-out,” where an individual or small group is pulled out of the classroom to receive focused lessons in a distraction-free environment.

In a math classroom, for example, Tier 2 support might involve working with a small group of students who need reteaching while the remainder of the class practices math skills or even works on enrichment opportunities.

The tier 2 support team at Falk currently includes three learning support specialists: Maggie Pothier (K–2), Danya Lang (3–5), and Gina Henderson (6–8). The three contribute to student learning in several critical ways, including small group and one-on-one literacy interventions, targeted math support, and push-in and pull-out blocks throughout the day.

Laura Greif, a fifth-grade teacher, calls the learning support team an endless source of knowledge and support. "I am beyond grateful for all of the ways they help me support the learners in my space," she says.

Tier 3 

Tier 3 academic support, referred to by Student Services as “intensive intervention,” provides individualized support for students experiencing significant difficulties in making academic progress. Lindsey DePra, Falk's academic interventionist, leads the majority of these sessions. 

DePra says her time with students involves “looking at the whole child and really addressing the deep core of where they’re struggling and helping them overcome that by giving them the tools and the strategies necessary for success.” 

This year, DePra is working with fifteen students on a regular basis, some for five days a week and some just two or three times. The schedule, DePra says, depends on individual student needs, caregiver input, and any other learning services that the student is already receiving outside of Tier 3 support. 

The ultimate goal, she adds, is to get her students to a point where they no longer need individual support and can start transitioning to less intensive, push-in intervention with the learning support team. 

When asked what a typical session looks like with her students, DePra emphasized the flexible and individualized nature of her work. Certified in the Orton Gillingham approach, DePra weaves this multisensory instruction into all of her interventions. She also uses resources like the Wilson Language system, an intensive structured literacy intervention curriculum. 

Where the Wilson method typically pushes one full lesson per day, DePra says she has the flexibility to go at each student’s pace and integrate additional interventions and activities based on a student’s individual needs. 

“The nice part is that, instead of just pushing a kid through the Wilson system, I have all these other tools that I can take from my repertoire and integrate with [the program], so kids are getting even deeper of an intervention.” 

Many of the tools DePra uses—sand trays, Magna Doodle, and popsicle sticks, to name a few—align with the Orton-Gillingham approach, which combines multi-sensory learning and systematic instruction on math and literacy. DePra says she loves to pull these tactile learning tools out as an additional way of activating a learner’s brain and solidifying new skills. 

DePra also says her time with a student typically consists of 90% mastered skills review and 10% new skills work. This layout creates an atmosphere of encouragement and success for students who may feel self-conscious or anxious about the progress they’re making in comparison to their peers. 

In addition to the one-on-one learning component, DePra’s role as academic interventionist also involves data analysis and research. 

At the beginning of the year, DePra says, “I will do a more thorough, deeper evaluation of a student, for concrete data to determine where a learner’s strengths and needs are, and then my intervention is individualized based on this data. I then do the same assessment at the end of the year to see how much growth they’ve had.” 

These formal assessments are helpful not only for measuring growth but also as a guideline for assessing when additional support might be necessary outside of school. 

DePra says she also hopes to work with Falk’s research coordinator, Katrina Bartow Jacobs, and the School of Education to evaluate her data and work toward integrating statistically successful intervention tools into the teacher prep programs at the University of Pittsburgh. 

Social-emotional support 

In addition to academic support, Student Services also offers counseling and behavioral services. The school’s full-time counseling team consists of Kali Stull, K-5 Counselor, and Sarah Faulx, Middle School Counselor. This year, Falk is also hosting a Master of Social Work (MSW) intern working toward a certificate in mental health, and a full-time Behavior Intervention Specialist will join the team in January 2025. 

“The counseling department is one way that we’re trying to show up for the whole child,” Stull says, “knowing that their social-emotional and mental wellbeing are as important as the academics, and they’re inextricably linked.” 

Stull says she views the school counselor role as a “weaver of different people who care about the child,” working collaboratively with students, families, classroom teachers, and administrators to nurture healthy friendships, emotional literacy, coping and regulation skills, and school and classroom culture. 

Tier 1 

Throughout the year, Stull and Faulx visit Falk classrooms as often as once a week to present lessons on grade-level-specific topics. As with academic services, these large group lessons fall under the Tier 1 support category. 

In the past, lessons for younger students have included body boundaries, identifying and expressing emotions, and “I feel” statements, while fifth graders learn about crushes, personal strengths and values, and different ways of being smart. 

At the middle school level, Faulx teaches lessons like “How to be a Middle Schooler” and “Happiness Lab: the Science of Mental Well-being.” She also provides support and guidance for middle school students and their families as they navigate the application and planning process for high school. 

While the backbone of the social-emotional curriculum is planned out ahead of time, Stull says it’s also important to be responsive. If third-grade students are having issues with teasing, for instance, that's something that can and should be addressed even if it wasn’t part of their original curriculum. 

At times, counselor lessons also include interactive elements to help students engage with more abstract concepts. Just recently, Stull brought hula hoops into second grade to teach “the circle of control,” a strategy that helps students manage their anxiety about the world around them by separating themselves from things that are out of their control. 

Tier 2 

Tier 2 social-emotional supports are typically administered in small groups and can be either “push-in” or “pull-out.” 

“Say there’s been some peer conflict with a number of students in a class,” Newlin says. “A counselor might go in with a very targeted focus for the class—so they might push into a classroom at Tier 2—with the idea of solving these problems that do come up [for everyone] but have [just] come up for very specific kids.” Alternatively, a counselor might meet with a small group of students outside of class—a “pull-out” intervention—for conflict resolution. 

Another pull-out service at Falk is regularly occurring student groups with targeted focuses like friendships or social skills. This year, one such group includes neurodiverse students and allies in fifth grade. At meetings, Stull says, “our three goals are connection, focusing on strengths, and building strategies for advocacy and thriving, even when things feel tough.” 

Tier 3 

Counseling support is also offered on a Tier 3 level. “Students are really good at advocating for themselves and asking to spend time with us,” Stull says, “and we want to honor that, so we do spend a lot of time one-on-one or in conflict resolution with maybe two people or a small group.” 

These individual sessions provide students from all grade levels with a safe, calm space to discuss their feelings and experiences. According to the Student Services Handbook, they are also an opportunity for students to receive mediation and advocacy from their counselors. 

Collaboration with Pittsburgh Mt. Oliver Intermediate Unit 2 (PMOIU) 

In addition to services administered by in-house faculty, Falk has a long-standing relationship with the Pittsburgh Mt. Oliver Intermediate Unit (PMOIU). 

Each year, the PMOIU sends part-time specialists to Falk for math, reading, and speech and language intervention programs. The goal of these weekly programs is to increase student proficiency in grade-level math and reading skills and to assist identified students in reaching targeted speech/language goals.  

“So [IU specialists] are here for Tier 2 support, and it’s really for short-term remediation to try and help give a little boost,” Newlin says. “Sometimes it’s push-in, but for the most part, it’s small groups, and it’s all during the school day.” 

Falk’s collaboration with the PMOIU also includes a school psychologist who can perform evaluations for students. "[A comprehensive evaluation] would be done when we’re noticing that a student needs a significant level of support, and we need to get more information about how the student learns,” Newlin says, adding that the support needed could be academic, behavioral, social-emotional, or, most commonly, a combination. 

Finally, the PMOIU conducts English Language Learning (ELL) assessments for students whose first language is one other than English. Results from these assessments can help teachers and caregivers set appropriate learning goals for language development. 

Additional services 

As part of the commitment to developing the best plan of action for all students in need, Student Services also coordinates accommodations for short-term illness and injury, on-site occupational therapy sessions, and referrals to outside services on an as-needed basis. 

Newlin says injury accommodations vary based on circumstances but are always made in conjunction with a healthcare provider’s input. A student who has a concussion, for example, might receive a reduced workload or listen to audiobooks instead of reading.  

For students who experience difficulties with fine motor tasks, a licensed occupational therapist from Associated Occupational Therapists (AOT) is available for regular small group sessions at Falk. 

Students needing mobile therapy, medical professionals, intensive outpatient services, or other additional services can also work with Student Services to receive the support they need, either through wraparound services or by a referral to an outside agency. “It’s really our role to connect them to other professionals and resources while still remaining in their lives and working collaboratively,” counselor Kali Stull says. 

Identifying Student Needs 

Newlin says most students respond well to schoolwide supports or minor classroom accommodations, but “when families or teachers have more significant concerns, a team will be formed to collaborate on a student support plan for the individual student. The plan will be created with the input of the entire team and will include an evaluation from a school psychologist from the IU or an outside agency chosen by the family.” 

Typically, a student’s support plan team also consists of parents/caregivers, the student’s classroom teacher, a learning specialist and/or counselor, and other specialists who work with the student. 

The students themselves, regardless of age, are also involved in the process, and all support plans are created to capitalize on their strengths and opportunities for growth. 

“If there’s a student who’s having trouble engaging in classwork,” Newlin says, “our counselor might meet with that student to try and identify what’s getting in the way and maybe identify some strategies that the student thinks could work to help. So we’re trying to get them involved in the process so they have some agency in their own learning.” 

“They wouldn’t necessarily be sitting down and writing a plan with the family,” she adds, “but there would be points where we definitely want to know what they’re interested in, we definitely want to know what they think their strengths are, what are they good at, and where do they struggle.” 

“Kids often have really good ideas and can reflect on those things, even young kids, so we try to get them involved as much as possible.” 

In addition to families and teachers raising their concerns to the Student Services team, student needs can also be identified through Falk’s screening assessments, which currently include the Acadience Reading assessment for early identification of students at risk for reading difficulties, the Universal Screeners for Number Sense (USNS) for identification of mathematical readiness and growth areas, and the Measures of Academic Progress (MAP) Growth Assessment for identification of strengths and growth areas in math and literacy skills. 

Regardless of how support needs are identified, “We’re trying to do it with them, not to them,” says Newlin. “We ask, ‘how are we going to come together and work on this?’ And partly it’s out of respect for them as humans, but it’s also because they’re going to be more motivated if they feel like they have some control and agency. And so if we want to actually be effective, we need to figure out what’s going to work together.”