New public high school in North Salt Lake will serve needs of autistic students
According to an article in the Deseret News a new high school is under construction in North Salt Lake by the Spectrum Academy charter school. The new facility will provide a specialized public school environment and instruction for autistic high school students. 9th and 10th graders will be able to attend as early as next autumn with 11th and 12th grades available in 2011 and 2012 per the article's author, Elizabeth Stuart. The article goes on to discuss some of the issues that parents often face with placing their autistic children in mainstream environments and the positive effects that a specialized environment may have for autism spectrum students.
Current school district practice encourages hybrid model as well as other options
For many years, there's been a back and forth in the special needs community about what type of environment serves kids with special needs best. Many parents and educators argue for inclusiveness and providing assistance within a mainstream environment, others support a variety of specialized models or a hybrid approach. Increasingly over the last 30 years, more and more services have been provided within or alongside the mainstream environment. Many school districts provide classrooms within mainstream school buildings with a specialized focus: learning support, emotional support, autism support and so on. For autistic children, the idea is that they need support for part of the day to learn how coping skills, but are able to tolerate joining up with the mainstream classes for subjects like physical education, art and music and benefit from being included in recess alongside their peers. This is the model favored in the Tredyffrin/Easttown School District, for instance.
Every year, during the IEP process, children are evaluated for placement and depending on needs, may continue in a mainstream-with-support environment, or may be recommended for placement in a specialized school within the student's home district or outside of it. In Chester County, autistic children are often referred out to one of the Intermediate Unit's schools within the county, though some students are also placed in Devereux programs, at the Timothy School in Berwyn or other private schools near the district. Students in other counties around and within the city of Philadelphia have similar options provided, with the range of services dependent on the particular make up of each county and school district.
Mainstream vs. specalized environment: which is best for autistic kids?
The question that arises within Stuart's article is one that lies at the heart of the back and forth between the benefits of mainstream and the benefits of specialization. One student in the article is described as miserable in a mainstream environment and much happier in the charter school environment where he doesn't stick out as being different. His mainstream high school is also not appropriately equipped to handle some of his needs which can result in escapes from school and a high level of stress. While there are certainly many success stories for autistic children in the combined support-mainstream environment, is this model truly the best for most kids on the spectrum?
The level of acceptance while providing support as portrayed in the article is heartening: students at the Spectrum Academy are divided up according to ability levels rather than age, they may adopt whatever position is comfortable for them to learn in class, fiddling with objects is accepted as long as it doesn't interfere with learning. The school's principal, Jaime Christensen underscores the idea that the school is there to help the kids to succeed: "We have high expectations for our kids, but we give them the help they need to rise to those expectations."
Ultimately, the question of what's best can't really be answered by any one case, any one child's experiences, but the idea of providing additional options, including the specialized public option is one that is sound. Having a wealth of options available for students whose needs tend to follow certain trends, but are in the end, highly individual may help to ensure that as many spectrum kids as possible are able to reach their full potential.
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