Horned & Hidden Child: The Minotaur & Modern Opera

Picture a world in which stories never die. Just down the street is the Halfway House for the Mythically Challenged, where fairytale creatures learn how to prepare for job-interviews. This is the world of Pasiphae, a beautiful sorceress, queen, and former wife of the ancient King Minos. After millennia on her own, she enlists the help of her Greek Chorus to rescue her children from their respective prisons – first Ariadne from the island Naxos, and now the Minotaur from Daedalus’ labyrinth. Horned & Hidden Child is a contemporary opera with music by Mikeila McQueston and libretto by Nicole Yackley. It tells the story of Pasiphae, the Minotaur, and Ariadne as they repair their broken family amidst 21st century tensions. Horned & Hidden Child features a flexible cast of 10 characters with optional chorus which can be presented with either chamber orchestra (septet) or piano reduction. A partial workshop of the show was premiered in May 2022 by VolOpera and is the primary focus of this thesis. This document examines the artistic motivations behind retellings of ancient Greek mythology, particularly as they apply to the Minotaur, and explores the lengthy process of composing an extended stage work from a student perspective. Composing both as a student and for students within a collegiate setting poses different challenges and offers unique opportunities in comparison to an established opera composer working along a typical commission timeline. These differences will be explored within the context of producing Horned & Hidden Child

Supporting Mental Wellness in the Public Service Professions

The nature of the work of public service professionals – understood in the present context as including, but not limited to, police officers, firefighters, emergency medical technicians, paramedics, emergency dispatchers, and telecommunicators – exposes them to great amounts of suffering and trauma. Mental wellness is wavering for many in the field, and progressive, holistic support is needed. Public service professionals receive remarkable amounts of training to meet competencies within their role, but they are not provided with the same level of training to protect and serve themselves. Many factors contribute to decreased mental wellness in public service professionals, including the stoic culture, short staffing, low pay, and lack of public service resources. Against the argument that adequate and thorough mental health support is perceived to be expensive and a personal responsibility for individuals to seek if they need it, this paper argues that, given the staggering statistics regarding suicide, depression, and PTSD, the availability of resources, and the cost saving effects that promoting mental wellness and retaining employees has for companies, society’s approach to mental health must change. Moreover, the mental health of first responders in particular is a moral responsibility that must be supported through extensive education, community outreach, and the establishment and maintenance of a non-punitive culture

A Description of Parent Input in IEP Development Through Analysis of IEP Documents

Parent input in Individualized Education Program (IEP) development is the clear expectation in U.S. education law. Every IEP team must include parents, and their input must be equally considered when developing IEPs. The present study used content analysis of 88 IEPs of students with intellectual and developmental disabilities to explore team membership, concerns parents raised during IEP meetings, and evidence that parent concerns and priorities are reflected in IEP goals and supplementary aids and services. Findings reveal that while parents express a range of concerns and priorities, these are translated into goals or services only two-thirds of the time. We provide implications of these findings for research and practice

Types of Supplementary Aids and Services for Students with Significant Support Needs

Supplementary aids and services have been a provision in special education law since PL 94- 142, however, almost no guidance has been provided to help teams make decisions about their appropriate selection and use. In this exploratory study, we explore the types of supplementary aids and services selected for students with significant support needs using a conventional content analysis of Individual Education Program (IEPs) from 88 students in grades K-12. Results illustrate the wide variation in types of supplementary aids and services chosen for students overall. Curricular accommodations and personnel supports were the most commonly identified supports, while supports to assist students to communicate and make meaning of curriculum (e.g., curricular modifications) were less common, as were less intrusive supports such as peer assisted learning. Implications for policy, practice, and research are provided

Role of the New Jersey Core Curriculum Content Standards in the 4th grade classrooms of Salem County, NJ

The purpose of this project was to examine the role that the New Jersey Core Curriculum Content Standards are playing in the 4th grade classrooms of Salem County, New Jersey. Through surveying the teachers of Salem County, the researcher was able to assign a level of comfort and usage of the NJCCCS for each school district and compare that level with student achievement on the 2003 NJASK assessment. Additionally the issues of clarity and parsimony of the standards, alignment to the assessment and professional development opportunities available to teachers were also studied. The hypothesis of the study was that there is no relationship to student achievement on state administered standardized tests and the use of the NJCCCS in teachers\u27 lesson planning. This hypothesis was supported by the study. The study found that the majority of 4th grade teachers in Salem County were comfortable using the NJCCCS; however they were divided regarding the benefits of use