My Background

Trenna Stout, BEd, BCEA, Fellow

Trenna earned her Bachelors in Science in Early Childhood Education with a concentration in English Literacy from Trenton State College, now The College of New Jersey. She has worked in both private and public education for over 20 years. Her experience includes:

• A General Education Teacher in the elementary school implementing a Banking System for self-monitoring behaviors within a sixth-grade classroom at Reynolds Middle School in Hamilton Township, NJ.
• A General Education Inclusion Teacher in Social Studies, developing and piloting the first social studies inclusion classroom and participating in the textbook selection for the district's sixth-grade curriculum in collaboration with special education teachers before implementing the model in the other middle schools in the Hamilton Township School District.
• A Founding Member of the CORE Team, providing crisis management and assistance to parents, students, teachers, and staff during crisis events within Reynolds Middle School.
• Creator and Supervisor of Peer Tutoring Thursdays.
• A Cooperating Teacher, mentoring student teachers enrolled in educational programs for teaching certification at local colleges.
• An Academic Achievement Literacy Instructor at Burlington Township Middle School at Springside, implementing small group guided reading lessons while supporting the general education teacher.
• A Basic Skills Math and Reading Teacher for grades 3-6 in Mansfield Elementary School, creating and implementing research-based strategies that bring struggling students closer to the current and always-moving grade level expectation.
• An Intervention and Referral Services (I&RS) Committee Member at Mansfield Township School District and an integral member of the team that reorganized the mission, vision, and structure of the committee while attending meetings to assist in the development of student improvement plans for support, strategies, interventions, and creative, positive behavioral experiences for our at-risk population.
• A member of multiple school-level planning committees in three districts over her career.
• The Chairperson of the "Read Across America Week” a yearly school-wide program in Mansfield Elementary School.
• A Praxis Series Test Reader for Educational Testing Services (ETS) scoring the Principles of Learning and Teaching: Early Childhood and Grades K-6 Tests evaluating short answers, essays, and portfolios measuring general pedagogical knowledge. Evaluator for the Praxis II Subject Assessment in Social Studies Content Knowledge. The Praxis Test Series measure a teacher candidate's knowledge and subject-specific content knowledge needed for teaching.
• The Former Director and Co-Founder of Pathways Rewired, LLC at Speech Path Services, a cognitive learning program for language-based disorders addressing self-esteem, self-advocacy, direct therapies, and compensatory strategies allowing children to succeed in their least restrictive environment and adults to function at their highest potential in everyday life.

A Freelance Author and Member of the Professional Writers Alliance:

• Cowrote "Did You Say Auditory Processing Disorders?" article, featured on page 13 of the NJ Pediatrician American Academy of Pediatrics, NJ Chapter Quarterly Publication-Fall 2012
• Contributed to the 2015 Press Release by the College of Optometrists in Vision Development.
• Published author of Calming Me Coping Strategies: A coloring book for kids ages 5-11 with 75 easy ways for children to self-regulate their bodies and emotions.She recently wrote an NSEAI Blog on Children's emotional regulation post-Covid.
•  She recently wrote an NSEAI Blog on children's emotional regulation post-Covid.

She has training in the following educational philosophies: 

• Fountas & Pinnell Guided Reading
• Lucy Caulkins Unit of Study Reading, Writing, and Classroom Libraries
• Teachers College Reading and Writing Project
• SpeakUp! A nonprofit 501(c)(3) public charity program dedicated to helping youth, educators, and parents develop supportive relationships through open, honest conversations about tough topics that lead to guidance, support, and stronger connections.
• Paper Clips Project, one teacher's idea to collect six million paper clips – one for each soul who perished in the Holocaust to teach mostly white, Christian children in the small rural town of Whitwel, Tennessee, who struggled to grasp the concept and enormity of the six million Jews who died during the Holocaust. This grew over several years, and in 2001, the school dedicated a Children's Holocaust Memorial, which included an authentic German railcar filled with a portion of the more than 30 million paper clips they eventually collected from all over the world.
• FISH Philosophy, for schools to build positive cultures and strengthen relationships, chronicled in a film and modeled after Seattle's Pike Place Market, where the fishmongers tossed salmon to each other as they interacted with the crowd who cheered at each spectacular catch transforming a fishmonger's cold, exhausting job into a joyful experience when they chose their attitude, was fully engaged with their coworkers, and made their customers’ day in simple ways.

Further Professional Development

She has training/certifications in the following research-based programs, interventions, and compensatory strategies:

• The Responsive Classroom
• Response to Intervention (RTI)
• Mental Health First Aid USA for Adults Assisting Children and Youth
• Olweus Bullying Prevention Program
• Fountas & Pinnell's Leveled Literacy Intervention Reading Program (LLI), Wilson Reading Academy's Fundations and Just Words Program, The Great Leaps Reading Program, SRA Reading Laboratory, & Read 180
• Touch Math
• Self-adjusting web-based programs: Lexia, Read Naturally, & IXL
• Dyslexia, screening and identifying at-risk students using Dynamic Indicators of Basic Early Literacy Skills (DIBELS)
• Identifying Children with Aspergers and Autism, Exploring Who They Are, and How to Incorporate Their Strengths into Individualized Learning
• Defiance, Defense Mode & Depression
• Executive Functioning & Dysfunction in the Classroom
• Handwriting Without Tears, a proven program for teaching handwriting to children developed by OTs, using multisensory techniques to make writing fun.
• Middle School Bullying, Suicide, Violence & Gang Awareness & Prevention
• Child Trauma and Its Impact on Education
• Functional Vision, Identifying Red Flags & Assisting in Proper Identification and Remediation Through Vision Therapy, in collaboration with Dr. Gallaway and Dr. Beckett, in Marlton, NJ, a functional neurodevelopmental optometry practice dedicated to supporting the vision & learning connection.
• Building Community Through Diversity
• Executive Function Crash Course for Parents
• Scaffolding Better Behaviors, Self Confidence & Bedtimes (Parent Behavior Training Program)
• Socially Smarter (Social Skills Series)
• Sounding Out the Sight Words: An Alternative to Rote Memorization

She is a Multiple Grant Winner:

• Created the Bridging the Gap Program, a resource-to-home summer enrichment program that provides self-chosen books and math activities to students during the summer to combat the proven learning loss called the Summer Slide.
• Designed and assembled sensory hallways in the schools of Mansfield Township, NJ.
• Developed the first kinesthetic classroom in the Mansfield School District.

Presentations Given:

• A Fountas & Pinnell Reading Philosophy Workshop Presenter instructing teachers how to conduct reading benchmark assessments and analysis to use this data to guide individual and small group instruction while continuing to monitor growth through progress monitoring.
• Presented her book, Calming Me Coping Strategies, and advocacy practice, Wings to Learning to the Burlington County Children's Inter-Agency Coordinating Committee (CIACC). This coalition serves as the county mechanism to advise the DCF on the development and maintenance of a responsive, accessible, and integrated system of care for children, youth, and young adults with emotional and behavioral challenges and their families, through the involvement of parents, children, youth and young adults, child-serving agencies, and community representatives.
• The Burlington County Partnership for Youth Success (BCPYS), a collaborative partnership that has grown out of the Burlington County Juvenile Delinquency Prevention Planning Board, facilitated by the Walter Rand Institute with support from the New Jersey Attorney General's Office to help address juvenile delinquency by diverting students from entering the criminal justice system and helping those already in it.
• The Intellectual and Developmental Disabilities (I/DD), an arm of DCF, offering a wide range of services for children and youth with intellectual and developmental disabilities.

Trenna has navigated the confusing and frustrating world of special education as an advocate and parent to an exceptional learner diagnosed with ADHD, Sensory Integration Disorder, Anxiety, Convergence Insufficiency, Amblyopia, Binocular Vision Dysfunction, and Dysgraphia.

She believes she started her advocacy journey over a decade ago as a frazzled mom with some knowledge, and now through NSEAI's program, she’s become a confident Board Certified Educational Advocate.

Her most recent accomplishment is receiving her Human Rights Consultant Certification through the U.S. Institute of Diplomacy and Human Rights in Washington, D.C.

Mottos:

"Live life to the fullest. You have to color outside the lines once in a while if you want to make your life a masterpiece.”

- Albert Einstein

“Once social change begins, it cannot be reversed. You cannot un-educate the person who has learned to read. You cannot humiliate the person who feels pride. You cannot oppress the people who are not afraid anymore.”

- Cesar Chavez