Professional Learning Opportunities
Westmark School is proud to present or host occasional programs designed for educational professionals. These expert presentations often offer continuing education credit.
See below for upcoming and/or recent professional learning programs held on our campus.
Upcoming Programs
Educational Therapy Institute Presents A Day with Dr. Katie Hurley
Organized by Association of Educational Therapists
Saturday, January 31, 2026, 8:30 am–3:20 pm
Westmark School
CE credit available; learn more via the registration link below
The Association of Educational Therapists invites you to an exclusive workshop with Dr. Katie Hurley, renowned author and expert in child and adolescent mental health and development. Step into a day of fresh insight and practical inspiration as you develop impactful skills to enhance comprehensive child support across all settings. The day of four mini-workshops will delve into four areas:
- Childhood Stress and Anxiety
- Adolescents and Technology
- Breaking the Boy Code
- Girl Power!
As a result of these workshops, participants will work towards these learning outcomes:
- Explain the difference between stress and anxiety in children.
- Describe the considerations concerning stress and anxiety that should prompt intervention from a mental health professional.
- List three proactive strategies to curb technology use in teens.
- List and explain scripts and strategies for helping young and teenage boys improve their relationships and lives.
- Describe the steps that can improve social interaction skills and counter relational aggression among girls.
Recent Past Programs
RAVE-O Program Live Training
Organized by Crafting Minds Group
Thursday, November 13, 2025, 9:00 am–3:00 pm
Westmark School
RAVE-O is an innovative and strategic specialized program designed to build students’ reading fluency and comprehension. Developed by Maryanne Wolf, each lesson in RAVE-O teaches students strategies that develop skills in multiple aspects of reading, including phonics, vocabulary, syntax, and morphology. Appropriate for students working at the Grades 1–3 reading level.
In November, training in the RAVE-O program was held for educators in Greater Los Angeles. The training was organized into two parts: five hours of self-guided coursework completed in advance; and five hours of live, in-person instruction at Westmark School.
Reading Fluency: Origins, Instruction, and Future Directions
Presented by Westmark School
Thursday, November 13, 2025, 6:30–8:00 pm
Westmark School
During this author talk, scholar-educator and literacy advocate Maryanne Wolf and developmental psychologist Melissa Orkin explored the evolving meaning of reading fluency, tracing its roots in the brain, its instruction in classrooms, and its challenges in a digital age.
Drawing on Dr. Wolf’s esteemed publications Proust and the Squid and Reader, Come Home, the talk highlighted how reading reshapes cognition and how technology affects deep reading and empathy. The talk then focused on Dr. Orkin's newly published book, The Structured Literacy Playbook, offering educators evidence-based strategies to strengthen fluency and comprehension for today’s learners.
Orton-Gillingham Classroom Educator Course
Organized by Orton-Gillingham Academy and International Dyslexia Association–Los Angeles
Monday, July 14–Friday, July 18, 2025, 9:00 am–4:00 pm
Westmark School
This classroom educator training provided an understanding of structured literacy and the use of the Orton-Gillingham (OG) Approach based on the research about the science of reading. The five-day, in-person course offered the skills to teach beginning readers, struggling readers, and those who have dyslexia. Topics will include:
- The reading brain
- Dyslexia and reading disorders
- The rationale for structured literacy, in particular the OG Approach
- Phonology and phonological/phonemic awareness
- The motor component, the orthography of English, and the writing process
- Basic and Intermediate phonics for reading and spelling
- OG lesson plans and teaching materials
- General history of the English language and beginning morphology
- Informal assessment and diagnostic-prescriptive teaching
- Achieving accuracy, automaticity, and fluency in reading and spelling
The course was led by Vanessa Silver, M.S., BCET/AET, Fellow/OGA, C-SLDS/IDA, a board-certified educational therapist in private practice in Los Angeles for the past twenty-seven years.
Southern California Workshop for Educational Therapists 2025
Organized by Association of Educational Therapists
Saturday, February 22, 2025, 9:00 am–3:20 pm
Westmark School
Self-regulation—the ability to process information, weigh choices and consequences, and make adaptive decisions to pursue a goal—is critical for success in school. For children and young people, engaging in self-regulation can be particularly challenging, especially when learning is challenging. Supporting emotional and cognitive skills, and understanding how these skills relate to the behavior we observe, is equally important in fostering their development.
In this year's workshop—"The Science of Self-Regulation and How It Intersects with Clients' (and, Our Own) Daily Lives"—guest speaker Jennie Grammer, Ph.D., explored the neuroscience of cognitive and emotional development as it relates to self-regulation. Participants gained insight into how these processes are interconnected, their behavioral implications, and how these connections evolve from preschool to early adulthood. Following the introduction, the workshop delved into how insights from developmental and cognitive neuroscience can inform your work with children and youth.
Orton-Gillingham Classroom Educator Course
Organized by Orton-Gillingham Academy and International Dyslexia Association–Los Angeles
Monday, July 15–Friday, July 19, 2024, 8:30 am–4:00 pm
Westmark School
The Orton-Gillingham (OG) Approach is a structured, systematic, multisensory, and diagnostic-prescriptive approach for the teaching of language skills (including reading, spelling, and handwriting) for students with dyslexia. This course provided an introduction to the basics of the OG Approach within a classroom or small group. Completion of this course and a supervised practicum prepared the trainee to apply for OG Classroom Educator Certification through the Orton-Gillingham Academy. Thank you to the participants, pictured above on our Lower School Campus, where the training was held.
Southern California Workshop for Educational Therapists 2024
Organized by Association of Educational Therapists
Saturday, March 16, 2024, 8:30 am
Westmark School
This program featured the following expert presentations: "Auditory Processing Disorder and Listening Challenges: Strategies for Successful Intervention" by Lois Kam Heymann, M.A., CCC-SLP; and "Understanding the Dyslexia in Dyscalculia: How to Support Your Clients If You Don't 'Do' Math!" by Sandra T. Elliott, Ph.D.