Community Corner

School Officials Ready to Unveil New Special Ed Program

The school will be housed at Rockville High School.

School officials in Vernon are preparing to launch a new program for elementary school special needs children at Rockville High School. 

Its official name will be the Vernon Elementary School and it will be housed in a section of RHS at the old entrance at the traffic circle. At its June 24 meeting, the the Board of Education Approved $435,000 from out of district tuition accounts to fund the startup costs. 

The money will pay for conversion costs, staffing and programming as well as $128,052 for a required principal, Director of Pupil Personnel Services Patricia Buell said. The program will open for the 2013-14 academic year, she said. 

Buell said the program will be "hands-on … something our students deserve." 

Staffing will include two teachers, two para-educators and a counselor. On Monday, Superintendent of Schools Mary Conway named Sally Sherman, the supervisor of early childhood and special programs for the school system, as principal of the new program.  

"I am very excited to be named the principal of the Vernon Elementary School and to be in the position of creating this brand new program," Sherman said. "There are children in Vernon who require an alternative type learning environment in order to succeed and this program will provide that. The staff and I look forward to addressing children's social/emotional/behavioral needs as well as providing a rigorous project based approach to learning."

The school day is scheduled to begin at 8 a.m. and run to 2:30 p.m., different times from RHS. 

The program could begin paying for itself right away if five children currently attending special education programs out of the district return to Vernon, Buell said. It costs $37,747 to educate each student inside the district as opposed to $57,000 outside Vernon, Buell said. Buell said the program has drawn considerable interest from those students. 

The number of returning students could double, Buell said. It is also possible to draw special education students from outside the district to the new program Buell said. Out of town students would pay tuition, she said. 

The curriculum will include common-core basics, plus behavioral, speech, physical therapy and counseling programs, she said.


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