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A Brief History How It Started
What can be done? The students are enrolled. They have to attend school, and the school is responsible to educate them. Common choices for dealing with this dilemma include:
How It Worked A team approach at a local non-public school consisted of an administrator (disciplinary issues), an educational therapist (academic issues) and a health services professional (attentional issues and health needs). The team worked to design a service delivery system that acted as a "clearing house" for routing students to appropriate intervention resources and providing in house interventions when feasible. The team approach worked well. When supported, teachers triumphed in teaching children with whom it had seemed impossible to work. Students experienced academic success and, for many, began to work out of the black hole of failure they had formerly lived in every day. Parents found that there were things that could be done at home to enhance their child’s performance. Administration discovered that teachers were happier, a "team atmosphere" was fostered, and retention of already enrolled families was greater. Unfortunately, the team also discovered that by limiting their services to one school, that school’s rising reputation for meeting special needs made it a "magnet" school for special needs students. With an increase in the special needs population, the school noted a shift in faculty attention to students with special needs rather than remaining focused on the academic excellence previously sought. A new approach was needed. Tapping into five years of experience, our team developed Educational Special Needs Services (ESNS) as the alternative strategy, offering services to multiple schools rather than a single school. How It Evolved Having seen the incredible benefits to children, a collaborative effort was initiated to explore ways to impact the local school community with a referral service compatible with each school’s purposes, as well as to assist families in finding successful interventions for their children. Our team also desired to protect individual schools from becoming "special needs" magnet schools. Consequently, the team reformulated its structure and purpose statement to address this broader spectrum of mission and Educational Special Needs Services (ESNS) was officially established in May 2000. |
Historical Highlights May 17, 2000 June 1, 2000 January 15, 2001 January 15, 2001 October 11, 2001 June 1, 2002 June 30, 2004 April 15, 2005 |
During the past ten years, the special needs population within many school settings (non-public, charter, and home schools) has increased dramatically. Most of these settings are not equipped to meet the needs of these students—they do not have trained personnel and are unable to financially consider doing so.