Ruth Poage
I am very pleased to have the honor of presenting our nominee for Practitioner of the Year, Ruth Poage-Gaines. Ruth has been a school psychologist for the past 15 years and has as much energy today as when she first started. Ruth has always been very involved with the staff, students, and families in her buildings. She is always looking for ways to ensure that all students are receiving the best services and personally takes on responsibility for their progress. Ruth is very creative, organized, and looks for as many resources as she can to try and help meet the needs of her students.
Over the past three or four years, Ruth has been instrumental in bringing our District into the reality of Response to Intervention. From the beginning she has been following all the research and procedures that schools need to understand. Ruth was able to get her school approved to be the pilot school in our district to start the RtI process. She was responsible for developing the program, finding resources, presenting to the Board, staff development and training and communicating with parents. This was in addition to all her responsibilities as the building psychologist. Currently Ruth is now helping all the schools in our district to develop their RtI programs. She has had to help all of us to first understand RtI, develop a system for our buildings, and provide training to all the psychologists. Ruth has even helped in the development of our RtI program for our Limited English population, for which I would like to personally say thank you!
If this wasn’t enough for her to be working on, Ruth also decided to go back to school and complete her courses for the Type 75 certificate. She recently completed this task in November by successfully passing the state exam and completing her certificate.
Ruth was recently hired to become the supervisor of school psychologist for McHenry County. In this position she continues to provide leadership and training to not only the McHenry District 15 psychologist but for the entire county of McHenry. Ruth has stepped into this position with as much enthusiasm and commitment as all her previous endeavors. Ruth continues to provide us with updates in research and new information that is crucial to provide the best services to our buildings. She is definitely a leader in our area and really seems to enjoy sharing her information to help ensure that we all provide the best services to our school and especially to our students.
Congratulations Ruth!
Over the past three or four years, Ruth has been instrumental in bringing our District into the reality of Response to Intervention. From the beginning she has been following all the research and procedures that schools need to understand. Ruth was able to get her school approved to be the pilot school in our district to start the RtI process. She was responsible for developing the program, finding resources, presenting to the Board, staff development and training and communicating with parents. This was in addition to all her responsibilities as the building psychologist. Currently Ruth is now helping all the schools in our district to develop their RtI programs. She has had to help all of us to first understand RtI, develop a system for our buildings, and provide training to all the psychologists. Ruth has even helped in the development of our RtI program for our Limited English population, for which I would like to personally say thank you!
If this wasn’t enough for her to be working on, Ruth also decided to go back to school and complete her courses for the Type 75 certificate. She recently completed this task in November by successfully passing the state exam and completing her certificate.
Ruth was recently hired to become the supervisor of school psychologist for McHenry County. In this position she continues to provide leadership and training to not only the McHenry District 15 psychologist but for the entire county of McHenry. Ruth has stepped into this position with as much enthusiasm and commitment as all her previous endeavors. Ruth continues to provide us with updates in research and new information that is crucial to provide the best services to our buildings. She is definitely a leader in our area and really seems to enjoy sharing her information to help ensure that we all provide the best services to our school and especially to our students.
Congratulations Ruth!
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