A number of people have asked me what I think about Gov. Christie's plan to create regional, public schools for children with autism in order to consolidate resources. Right now, too many individual school districts are trying to set up their own programs. These programs are often poorly run, and all those local programs creates a lot of redundancy of services.
It's hard to tell, if Christie's plan is a good one or not. I like the idea of regional schools for autism, but it really depends on whether Christie properly funds these schools. They could end up as a dumping ground for kids that nobody else wants to deal with.
I've been thinking about what my dream school for autism would look like. Ignoring political and financial constraints, what would this school look like?
- I like putting autistic kids in special programs for autistic education, rather than blending them in with the regular special education population. Autistics kids are too different from the typical special education population.
- Because there aren't that many autistic kids in one particular town, any autistic program has to pull in kids from a large geographic region.
- I don't think that any special education kids should be isolated in their own schools. It's good for the regular population to understand that people are different. It's good for the special education kids to emulate behavior of regular kids. It's good for society to not stick one sector of the population away in hidden buildings.
- Therefore, these schools, which should have their own governance structure, should be attached physically to regular public education program.
- The autism school should share some resources with the regular school, such as reading specialists and clubs.
- High functioning kids should be mainstreamed with the regular kids as much as possible. Lower functioning kids should attend the same assemblies and eat in the same cafeteria.
- The autistic program should not be simply about training the autistic kids to fit into a regular education setting. They should work with the unique autistic mind to educate them in an environment that is conducive for learning.
- There should be vocational training big time, especially in the high school years.
- The autistic kids should have the same opportunities for after-care facilities and clubs as any regular kid. There should be no discrimination. If an activity exists for the regular kids, then a similar activity should exist for the special ed kids.
- Opportunities should exist at the school for parental training, extended family training, sibling support, and so on.
- Funding for these programs should come directly from the state and the federal government. Parents shouldn't have to fight their towns in order to have their child attend this program.
Apt. 11d 
I think you’d have to build in safeguards to make certain districts aren’t using them as dumping grounds for kids-who-aren’t-autistic-but-disruptive. If each town had a right to send a certain number of students to the school each year, it would be very tempting for the districts to use the slots to get rid of the kids they didn’t want around.
One big advantage of such schools would be the provision of a talented, educated faculty. Teachers who are dedicated to teaching the autistic, not teachers who’ve taken a weekend professional development course.
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Joanne Jacobs had a link to this 2009 story a while back, which is about the creation of a public high school in Utah specializing in autism:
http://www.deseretnews.com/article/705354696/New-help-for-autism.html?pg=2
At the time of the article, the high school didn’t exist yet, but Spectrum Academy already served K-8.
Here are a few snippets.
“”They just have different learning styles,” Higbee said. “It is difficult for children with autism to learn by observation, which is a teaching method a lot of public schools are built around. There’s no prototype of a person with autism, so, to be effective, teaching needs to be pretty customized.””
“With small class sizes and a full staff of teachers certified in special education, a custom education is exactly what Spectrum Academy hopes to provide for autistic teens. There’s a teacher’s aid in every classroom and full-time occupational and speech therapists, too.”
“The high school will offer vocational training as well as traditional and special education diplomas. Students on a college track can take concurrent enrollment classes.”
“Spectrum Academy’s curriculum is tailored for the autistic mind and children are divided into grade levels, not by age, but by ability.”
“Toys are OK as long as students fiddle under their desks and keep their eyes on the teacher. Sitting up straight is optional; students kneel on chairs, slouch down, twist, twirl and kick. Some children trade traditional seats for big, bouncy exercise balls.”
“Children, many of whom struggle to connect to peers, get a minimum of 30 minutes of social training a day.”
“”I don’t get stressed out as much at this school,” he said. “If things seem loud to me and I get a headache, the teacher lets me take a short break so I can come back and pay attention better.””
It will be interesting to see how the high school turns out.
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I was looking at the Spectrum Academy web page. The JR/SR high events list looked good.
http://www.spectrumcharter.org/jr-high-high-school/upcoming-events/
They have a workshop for siblings and six weeks of summer camp that’s open to non-Spectrum students.
It’s a charter school and the news article said that they have heavy fundraising to cover the expense of running such a labor-intensive program. The news article didn’t give much of a sense of how the school approaches academic content, but this may be one of the rare examples where an individualized approach actually is individualized.
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