Blog

In 2025, Virginia State Senators Stella Pekarsky and Ghazala Hashmi co-sponsored a bill to designate the first week in October as an annual Specialized Education School Week. The week was created to honor and bring awareness to the VAISEF-accredited schools that serve students with social, emotional, and learning needs. Keswick School is a proud member of this community, and we remain committed to our mission of providing students and their families with the resources and support necessary to achieve sustained success for a lifetime. 

This year, Keswick School celebrated the event in the best ways we know how - through community and education. Headmaster Jody Berkey showed her appreciation for students and staff by welcoming our time-honored favorite onto campus: the Charlottesville Kona Ice truck. There were smiles all around as the community came together to enjoy the sweet treat. 

Senator Creigh Deeds visited campus to mark the occasion. He witnessed one of our famous, heartwarming community meetings, at which he was presented with a hand-turned pen. One of our hardworking students crafted the pen using a beautiful, yet notoriously challenging-to-work-with burl wood. The pen represents our students’ commitment to their journeys in the Keswick School program. After the meeting, Senator Deeds toured the school, and met with our staff to learn about the magic of Keswick. The visit highlighted the value of collaboration beyond the school setting, including strong relationships and clear communication among local public safety partners and state licensing and regulatory agencies. 

Our social media team led the charge on education, creating a week’s worth of content elucidating our Social Emotional Curriculum (SEC). At Keswick School, healthy developmental and positive behavioral change are nurtured through structured and repetitive practice of essential developmental skills. The SEC outlines these skill sets, and consists of four components: 

Thinking and Processing

• Thinking and processing skills include any skill that has to do with how a person uses their mind to understand, manage, plan, adjust, and interact with the world around them. 
• Some skills you might recognize include: planning, goal setting, attention, organization, emotional control, shifting, and time management 

Collaboration

• Collaboration skills are the core of how someone works with others to achieve success. Collaboration involves how a person advocates for themselves while navigating the expectations of the world around them. 
• Some skills you might recognize are: working with others, respect, asking for help, problem solving, and community engagement 

Competence

• Competence is the sense of ability one has. It’s their perception of their own responsibility, ownership, success, and agency. 
• Some skills you might recognize are: initiative, ownership, risk-taking, self-care, self-awareness, and independence. 

Social and Relationship

• Social and relationship skills help students successfully interact with the people around them 
• Some skills you might recognize are: friendship, including others, managing conflict, conversation, role modeling, recognizing others’ thoughts and feelings.