School district broadens opportunities for learning

Suffering from blindness and other physical and mental disabilities that are the result of a stroke at birth, 14-year-old Oliver Miller experiences up to 100 seizures a day. So when Lawrence High School students high-five or bump fists with him during the school day, it means a lot to Oliver, said his mother, Missy.
“The time that is spent with some of the regular-education kids is one of Oliver’s biggest motivators,” she said. “He wants to do what they do. Similarly, the regular-education kids learn from kids like Oliver and other special-education kids. They learn that these people are in the world, and that just because they don’t look like them, or act or learn or speak like them, doesn’t mean they can’t be nice to them.”
Intensifying its efforts to broaden offerings to special-education students, the Lawrence School District has established programs to help them do better academically, increase their awareness of the diversity in the community and enhance their socialization skills.
Oliver has attended schools outside the district since he was 3, including a Nassau BOCES school in Massapequa that was an hour’s trip each way from his Atlantic Beach home. Over a year ago, Lawrence Superintendent Gary Schall and Missy discussed the possibility of Oliver’s attending school in his home district.
When she learned that each student in Life Skills classes is taught at his or her own pace, Missy became more open to the idea. Accommodations were made, including a special wheelchair that was donated by the Valley Stream Lions Club, and therapies were developed by teacher Diane Ronan. This year Oliver attended Lawrence High.

“If he was having an off day, I would just keep him home because he was so far way,” Missy said of her son’s previous travels to distant schools. “I cannot tell you how it warms my heart to watch as Oliver goes down the hallway at Lawrence High School with his nurse, and kid after kid is calling out and saying, ‘Hi Oliver,’ and fist-bumping him. It has enriched our lives tremendously.”
The Life Skills program serves students from 13 to 21, and its goal is to help them develop the skills they need to be as independent as possible. They receive academic instruction in the morning and vocational training in the afternoon. In partnership with career and educational coaches from the Amityville-based South Oaks Hospital and its Career and Educational Counseling center, upperclassmen are offered internships at local stores like Bagel Boss, Trader Joe’s and Stop & Shop.
Life Skills students reopened the high school store in 2012, and there they learn to run a business, pricing merchandise, keeping track of inventory and dealing with customers. This year, middle school special-education students were introduced to the school store, and eventually even elementary school students will have the opportunity to work there, said Teri Hughes, director of South Oaks’s vocational and school-based services.
“The purpose of this is to find where the kids are at, finding their strengths and getting them ready to work,” Hughes said. Twenty-four other schools in Nassau and Suffolk counties offer the Life Skills program, and a majority have school stores, she said. “It’s more experiential, more realistic and builds their confidence,” Hughes added. “There is financial literacy, learning math and the social etiquette we take for granted, such as saying hello to your boss and making eye contact is difficult for some.”
With 53 full-time employees dedicated to special education, Schall said, the district has the manpower to provide the needed services to students. In 2013-14, Lawrence spent nearly $17 million (the figure has yet to be finalized, officials said) on special education for 867 students — 518 in the district’s five schools and out-of-district schools, and 349 who attend private schools in the district. In 2012-13, the district spent $16.2 million educating 869 students, 326 of whom attended private schools.
Along with their academic individualized educational programs, the students also take art and music, and share classrooms with regular students. “Quite often, arts and music are areas … that [special-education] students will be mainstreamed for socialization purposes,” Schall said. “We’ve also identified many special-education students as gifted in art and music, and that’s an area we’ve developed.”
This year, the district established the Hebrew Culture Club, an after-school program offered to first- and fourth-graders at the Number Five School that included autistic children. It was led by Shira Hefter, a special-education teacher and a parent of a special-needs child. Using books, activities and traditional foods such as challah, Hefter taught the group about Jewish holidays.
When the new school year gets under way, the district will expand its cultural offerings to include Spanish and Italian clubs for the same age group, in addition to enrichment, focusing on English and math skills.
Prior to the creation of the Hebrew Club, Rabbi Yaakov Reisman, spiritual leader of the Agudath Israel of Long Island synagogue in Far Rockaway, had four sons with special needs attending Lawrence public schools. He said he appreciated the instruction his children received. “The teachers were extremely devoted to helping them thrive educationally and sensitive to the boys’ cultural needs as well,” the rabbi said.