North County Consortium Helping Hands Preschool
principal info

Ginger Dale

Principal

The fall of 2009 starts North County Consortium’s third year of serving preschool children with special needs in the Helping Hands Preschool Programs and our first year of serving students with special needs in grades 6 to age 22 in the Bridges Community-Based School. In the past Sonoma County Office of Education provided special education for students. Seven school districts: Alexander Valley Union; Cloverdale Unified; Geyserville Unified; Healdsburg Unified; Kashia; West Side Union; and Windsor Unified, form the North County Consortium in order to serve our students in the local community. Windsor Unified is the lead education agency in the consortium and takes responsibility for the Helping Hands Preschool programs and the Bridges Community-Based School. As the principal for the North County Consortium I am very fortunate to benefit from the expertise of the experienced staff members who came from the county program and other special education settings. The students and their families benefit from the dedicated, competent, caring and hard working staff recruited for both the Helping Hands Preschool and the Bridges Community Based School.

It is very important to me to connect with families and community agencies as well as staff at all the school sites in the consortium in order to best serve our students. I appreciate the support North County Consortium programs receive from North Bay Regional Center, Sonoma County Office of Education, Head Start, Becoming Independent, Matrix, Easter Seals, Redwood Pedriatric Therapy Associates, local businesses such as Round Table Pizza, and local service clubs such as Windsor Rotary. I plan to continue to find community resources for our students with special needs and their families.