Lakeland: School for Autistic in the Works

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[AutismRecoveryNetwork] School for Autistic in the Works

Published Monday, January 1, 2007

School for Autistic in the Works

State approval would convert program at Crossroads Lakeland into charter school.By Robin The Ledger

LAKELAND - Children and young adults with autism in Polk County can expect their choices to increase next year as a result of a $700,000 Florida Department of Education grant to create an autism center.Florida Autism Center of Excellence will have its headquarters in Hillsborough County, but it intends to have charter schools for autistic students in Polk and other counties, which include neighboring Hillsborough and Pasco, along with Pinellas, Sarasota and Manatee.Educational Services of America, which provides special and alternative education programs nationally, will manage the program.Early next year, Nashville-based Educational Services of America will ask a state board overseeing charter schools for approval to operate its autism programs as charter schools in those counties.Locally, choosing a site was easy. ESA already has a special-education school, Crossroads Lakeland, that operates as a private school.A small number of students with autism or related conditions are among its students, said Mark Claypool, ESA's president and chief executive officer. The autism program would convert to charter school status, if state approval is granted, making it easier for students to be admitted. The rest of Crossroads, at 2001 N. Crystal Lake Drive, would remain private, he said.One autism program would be Spectrum, which Claypool said is a nationally recognized program for children ages 3 to 22 who have moderate to severe autism. It has an individual, language-focused, outcomes-based approach to help. Students transfer newly acquired skills to daily life, he said.Students who become able to attend college during that time could go to local colleges, he said, but the Florida Autism Center of Excellence would continue giving them training and assistance.Numbers weren't available Friday for how many autistic students are enrolled in Polk County schools.Florida had 7,918 cases of autism in students from 6 years old to 21, making it sixth largest in the nation. Autism affects an estimated 1 in 166 children born now, ESA said, quoting U.S. Department of Health figures.Parents of children with autism, who often disagree with the public school system on how those children are taught under its exceptional student education rules, have mixed reactions to the idea of an expanded, separate autism program.While glad to see more places to choose among, they're disappointed that they're needed.Comments from two who were interviewed recently illustrate disagreements among parents on whether the best program for their children is an improved, separate program or a mixture of placement in regular classes with special assistance and adaptations geared to their strengths and weaknesses.Dawn Van Meter's son, Cory, joined Crossroads in late November after his parents became frustrated with the frequent changes in his public-school teachers and some methods they used. She sees the private program as giving him much more individualized education."I was trying to give the public schools more time but it wasn't working," she said. "They just don't have the funding for the training of the teachers."Teaching techniques at Crossroads include using pictures to help students visually understand the tasks they're assigned and applied behavior techniques that let the teachers promote better behavior or extinguish bad behavior, she said.Cory wanted to go to school again, she said, and he is able to concentrate on projects much longer than before. While welcoming news of the grant, she said she hopes the program won't become so crowded it affects his training.Terry Millican, who has similar frustrations with the public schools' ability to teach autistic students, nevertheless wants her son, Ian, to remain in them.But she and her husband don't want him in separate "self-contained" classrooms for children with autism.They want Ian, who has autism and is mentally handicapped, attending classes with students who don't have those disabilities so that he can be "immersed" in the type of world he needs to live in. He does that at Lake Gibson High School, which she said was the only Lakeland-area high school the family contacted that seemed willing to make the adjustments necessary to include him in regular classes, such as assigning a paraprofessional to him.Even there, however, she said they encounter resistance from some teachers who say he shouldn't be in their classes."We fight daily for my son to get services in the schools," she said.Complaints about the education available for autistic children in financially challenged public schools, which have an overall teacher shortage, are one reason why the Florida Department of Education is looking for alternative models like those the autism center will provide.Van Meter, who has a mixture of good and bad memories about Cory's experiences in public elementary and middle schools, said he needs teachers who know how to work with autistic children and are given the time - and small classes - to do that. Cory's class had four different teachers in sixth grade, she said.At Crossroads, she said, he benefits from a school designed for and specializing in children who have special needs. She expects it to be more stable for him.Millican said the approach at Crossroads appears better than she sees in many self-contained classrooms in public schools, but she has problems with isolating autistic students from the mainstream of school life.Doing that, she said, perpetuates a harmful belief that "damaged kids need to be segregated."Robin can be reached at or robin.adamstheledger.

http://www.theledger.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20070101/NEWS/701010329/1134