Mack Belson still impacts the lives of other children

By Linda Zlatkin, September 26th, 2012

Mackenzie Reed Belson never had a chance to make his mark in the world on his own. His young life was tragically cut short on July 16, 2006 when he died in a drowning accident at the age of four. So his parents, Gail Mendelman and David Belson, decided to create something special to keep his memory alive.
“This is the most horrible thing that can happen to parents and we wanted to honour our son,” said Mendelman. “We were so afraid that people wouldn't remember Mack so we decided to give him a legacy.”
When it was earlier discovered that Mack had an auditory processing disorder, Mendelman said she and David were very aggressive in getting him the help he needed. Also parents to Ruby, almost 14, Mendelman and her husband decided they wanted to help other children flourish as well. So when Mendelman heard about the Early Intervention Program implemented by the Bronfman Jewish Education Centre (BJEC) at Jewish elementary schools, she went to them with an idea and that first year, $32,000 was raised through a bingo fundraiser. This year they held their third annual poker tournament.
Now, through the Early Intervention Program, hundreds of kindergarten children are assessed each school year at no charge to their families. The goal is to find out which children are in need and then take steps to provide them and their teachers with the proper tools and support to achieve academic success.
The program has since been renamed The Mack Belson Early Academic Intervention Program, with major funding coming from the Mack Belson Foundation and Federation CJA (Combined Jewish Appeal). For children below grade level in their reading skills, they offer an intensive three-week summer reading program (administered by BJEC early academic intervention consultant, Aviva Segal) called the Mack Belson Reading Camp.
And new this year, Dr. Carly Rosenzweig, a special education consultant at BJEC, has introduced the Response to Intervention Method (RTL) to schools. This preventative model is widely used throughout the U.S. and the current 2012-2013 pilot study includes five elementary schools. 
“The concept of Response to Intervention follows a three-tiered model,” explained Dr. Karen Gazith, director of educational services at BJEC.
“Starting in kindergarten, we conduct universal screening. You want to make sure the child is hitting targets, specifically in reading.  For those children who are not hitting benchmarks, we do something called progress monitoring. If we see they are not progressing, we move them into Tier 2, and if necessary into Tier 3 to intensify the support.”
The teachers collaborate with specialists and the interventions are targeted to individual needs. All this is done with the goals of catching students early so they can get help the they need.
For more information visit, www.themackbelsonfoundation.org
lindazlatkin@gmail.com