The Joy School Unlocking a Child's Learning Potential

Happy New (School) Year: "Kid's Do Your Best! Teacher's Work Your Magic!"

BY LAURA SPAULDING Staff Writer / Educational Consultant

In the words of Shara Bumgarner, our Head of School, "One of the best things about being an educator is that you get two fresh starts a year!" Our summer training and teacher in-services ended last week with a friendly staff house competition and a New Year's Eve Party in the Watt Activity Center. Staff gathered to ring in a new school year, complete with a countdown and balloon drop.

Then, yesterday afternoon, as teachers put last-minute touches on their classrooms, Rachel Williams, Dean of Faculty, emailed our team expressing her own first-day-of-school excitement just before her final first-day reminders. She said:

 

Indeed, shoes, uniforms, and backpacks looked better walking in the front door today than they will all year, but there is no doubt that the energy and smiles finally gracing our hallways and classrooms will only get bigger and brighter as the year goes on. How can we say that so confidently? Because that is what we do and who we are! Our mission guarantees it!

 

Safe and Supportive Environment

From day one, we set to work putting our mission into action, beginning with creating a safe and supportive environment. When kids are stressed, cortisol levels are high, and learning is stunted. We know that guaranteeing success for every student in an environment where they experience safety and belonging is the best chance at continued success in the future. Our highly trained teachers are insatiably curious problem solvers who see and notice everything. They are drawn to kids who struggle and are driven to find the key to unlock each child's potential. They are not easily frustrated or confounded by complicated learning profiles or the confusing social behaviors that show up in our classrooms. Still, they are energized by the challenge and reward of knowing and growing alongside their students. Willing to get their hands dirty and have their heartstrings pulled, we know and care about our students, which is the first and most crucial part of ensuring their success.

 

Remediation and Accommodation

Enabling our students to reach their social and academic potential begins with the environment. Then it unfolds as we set to work fixing what struggles can be fixed and then giving our students strategies for everything else. This describes the deliberate process of remediation and accommodation based on each student's specific learning profile, strengths, and weaknesses. We begin by filling academic holes and remediating academic and social weaknesses through direct instruction, individualized attention, and intensive remediation. We also offer support to address long-term weaknesses and limitations where ongoing strategies are needed for continued success. The strategies each student will need to succeed academically or socially are as diverse as the students themselves, but we have innumerable tools and resources to offer our students. We might still need to learn the key to every child's success, but we are determined to figure it out.

The Joy School's success exists in the relationships we build with our students and the flexibility we have to try different instructional strategies or do something slightly different in each classroom, depending on the kids' needs. The most significant accommodation we offer every student is our small class size, which is one-third the size of a typical classroom. We collaborate with one another and maintain tight and open communication with parents, therapists, or other outside professionals working with our students. We have a people-intensive, team approach to ensuring there are no cracks for any student to fall through. Not all staff members are experts on every diagnosis, curriculum, strategy, or therapy, but we are a team of experts with extensive experience in learning differences. After attending The Joy School, most of our students will read on grade level, write essays, solve multi-step math problems, engage in intentional and meaningful friendships, and learn appropriate school and classroom behaviors. Most of our students will return to traditional schools on grade level within 3-5 years.

 

Return to Traditional Classrooms

Facilitating each child's transition back into traditional classroom settings is a foundational aspect of our mission. The intimacy with which we know and care for our students ensures we remain invested in their lives and committed to their success and growth through the mainstreaming process and new school transition for a lifetime. The most compelling evidence of the value and impact of The Joy School is seen in the kids themselves. We successfully transition 30% of our students into mainstream settings every year. The average stay at The Joy School has been 3-5 years from the beginning. The schools where our students mainstream comment on how well prepared our students are academically (that is a given), but more importantly, they comment on their impressive self-awareness skills, independence, work ethic, ownership, and ability to advocate for themselves.

Today, we are thinking of and missing the third of our student body that has spread its wings and is starting to fly in their new schools over the next week. But we are as equally thrilled to welcome 33 new students to The Joy School family today. They will be sorted into their houses on August 21st, but for now, we are all settling into our classrooms and routines. In the words of our 8th grade House Heads Rafer and Marion, coming over the intercom during our school announcements this morning, "Kids, do your best! Teachers, work your magic!" And that we will do because that is who we are. Happy New (School) Year from The Joy School family to yours!

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