You may have heard some rather negative press coverage of independent study charter schools, like the former Inspire Charter School network. Was there mismanagement? Yes, there was. But there were many students and their families that were trying to find a place that worked for them for many different reasons. Slower processing times and other learning differences. Anxiety Disorders. Neurodiversity needs. Twice exceptional students that worked on college level concepts, but need help writing a single word. Students that wanted to move quickly into more interesting topics. It is these reasons why we continue to support alternative public school environments! We’re working hard to overcome the past problems to broaden the options that families have while ensuring accountability. Our advocacy with the charter schools encourages students to participate in State Testing, working to meet state standards, and encouraging students to lead their own learning period conferences. We encourage you to find out more how independent study schools develop more accountability to meeting students needs and expecting progress than some of the more traditional options!
As a vendor for these schools, we sign a vendor contract that stipulates how we will be reimbursed for services we provide. This is part of our total transparency. You’ll see our prices right on our website so there are no surprises. We’re challenging other institutions to do this as well. We’re not out to be competitive with our pricing, but to be accessible to as many students as possible (which does make us competitively priced, especially with private schools!).
Since many of our students are in Special Education, it comes as no surprise that we attend IEP meetings. While we come as a child’s advocate, we know that building relationships is much more than finding wrongs and demanding they be corrected. It’s about building the long term relationship to better the experience over time and trying to empower the school with new ideas to find success not only for our own clients, but the school and community at large.
One of the ending accomplishments of this is to save us money. Yes, us. Special Education settlements can cost school districts hundreds of thousands of dollars to settle. Even more if it results in a residential placement in a school in Utah where we fly the staff and families back in forth. Our local relationship building keeps monies where they should be: servicing students locally with effective supports to make our communities even better! We look to be win-win, For the Future!