Hello speech students and parents at Cascade High School!

Welcome to your online portal for speech and language information. The SLPs are working hard to find and create activities you can use to encourage language development in a variety of areas while school is on hiatus. I have created Google classrooms for all of my Resource and speech-only students where I will be adding suggestions just for them. To get to your Google classroom, sign in to Google using your school account, then go to "classroom" on the waffle, or type in classroom.google.com into the address bar. You will see a tile for your speech classroom. 

House points are continuing during the hiatus! Every time you email me, comment in your google classroom, or complete an activity I send, you will be earning points for your house. Check out the points counter here: https://sites.google.com/a/apps.everettsd.org/house-cup/house-points

Mrs. Waddington and I put together some awesome prizes for all resource and extended resource speech students! They are available for pick-up at the school. If you didn't get your prize, please email me and I'll arrange a time for pick-up.

I will also be involved in class Zoom sessions for Mr. Taylor and Mrs. Warden's classes. If your student is in Mr. Taylor's class, please check his Canvas course for communication activities from me. If your student is in Mrs. Warden's class, please go to classroom.google.com and join the "speech" classroom for information from me.

About me: I am a Pacific Northwest native. I've always loved linguistics and languages, studying both Spanish and German in high school and continuing into college. I got my undergraduate degree in Linguistics from Seattle Pacific University, and my Master's degree in Speech and Hearing Sciences from the University of Washington. I started my career as a Speech-Language Pathologist in Everett School District over 20 years ago, and have been here ever since, serving all ages from preschool through age 21. Several years ago, after starting my family, I went down to part-time and landed at Cascade High School. It didn't take long for me to fall in love with this age group! My students at Cascade are awesome, and I love to see them learn and grow in confidence as they grasp new skills.

Personally, I am married to a librarian, and we have two teenagers of our own, along with a cockapoo named Jango Pet, and a new goldendoodle puppy named Rowan (pics on my puppy page)! We love all things nerdy in our family, especially Star Wars and Marvel. I can hold my own in geek talk with teenage boys on these subjects. Conversations about DnD and anime will be referred to my colleague, Tiffany Waddington.

How to reach me:

Email at gorsillo@everettsd.org is the best way to reach me during the hiatus. I check my email several times each workday, and I promise to get back to you within 24 hours (excluding weekends and Spring Break). If you would like me to call you, please include the best phone number and time for the call, and I will contact you by the next business day. My office hours for contacting parents will be 9-10 am Mon-Wed, Thursdays 1-2 pm, and 2:45-3:30 on Mondays.

I miss you all and hope we can be back together soon. Stay healthy and I'll see you next school year!