Vision Home and Community Program
P.O. Box 636, Paonia, CO  81428
Telephone:  (970) 527-8766  Email:  deltacovision@yahoo.com
www.visioncoalition.org
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Educator Booklet

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Dear Educators,

Thank you for taking an interest in the Home and Community Program.  This booklet includes information you need to get started as a Vision educator.   You might have more questions after reading it than you have now--please feel free to ask.  More information is also available at our website, www.visionhcp.org. 

            Educators have an important place in the Vision Home and Community Program.  Along with resource consultants and parents, they are learners’ role models.   Just as each leaner develops an individualized learning plan in Vision, each educator has the liberty to pursue teaching in the ways that he or she finds most productive and rewarding. 

            Educators work primarily with students/learners, but within that role, they also form relationships with families, resource consultants (RC’s) and others in the community.  At the beginning of the year, learners talk with their RC’s, families and educators to create learning plans, which they revisit and develop throughout the year.  Key components of the learning plans are the agreements that learners make with educators.  

            Vision educators are not hired directly by the program.  Rather, the Vision office provides services that aim to help families and educators connect.  It is the families’ responsibility to determine which educators meet their educational needs and to assess the quality of education being offered.

            Vision educators do not fit into one general description except in the fact that they work with learners in the program.  Some educators teach in class settings while others work only with individuals.  Some present subject matter in classes styled in a relatively traditional fashion while others choose to focus on a learner-centered approach.  There are classes that are basically tutorials within a class and there are classes whose syllabi change according to the consensus of the group as needs arise.  Many classes are set in classroom space at the old Paonia Middle School and many are at various places in the community including the park, restaurants, homes and the library.  (There are limits to group sizes when classes are held in homes.  See cooperative guidelines for more information.) Many educators may choose to be tutors as well as classroom teachers.  It is often a question of what the needs are in the Vision community of learners.

Anyone at the Vision office can answer questions for you, but if you would like to talk in depth about educator issues, you are welcome to contact someone from the educator advocate group. 

Thanks,
The Educator Advocates:
Moni                            
Claire                           
Tony                            
Carrie
Steve                                       
Jill                               
Prima