The Russell Jones Education Center offers educational
programs to identified special education students within the Park Hill School District from kindergarten through the
twelfth grade who have emotional and behavioral concerns. All students serviced
have an individualized education plan (IEP), it is the decision of the IEP team
that a child should receive educational services, in most cases it is because
the student has exhausted the continuum of services available at their home
schools, and the interventions were found to be unsuccessful in meeting the
child’s needs. We are a structured alternative learning community that provides
a therapeutic component to the educational programing that enhances safety and
success in school. Our goal is to facilitate transition back to a student’s
home school environment by preparing students behaviorally, emotionally, and
academically for this transition when they are ready.
We help our students be college, career and life ready
by: providing small group student focused instruction, we access and utilize the
district curriculum and interventions, we have a low student to staff ratio to
allow for a more personalized learning approach to target specific skill
deficits using data based decision making. We have high expectations for our
students and we want teachers who will hold them accountable, even when we know
it may cause behaviors, so they can learn to self-regulate and manage big and
overwhelming feelings in the moment. We all work to develop a positive
relationship with the students and their families, we provide structure,
consistency and routine, we value continuous improvement and are reflective of
our practice.
We ensure success for all of our students by going on
home visits to strengthen the connection between home and school. We provide a
connection to resources for families, we give grace, second chances and
forgiveness. We teach replacement behaviors, provide tools and strategies for
students to help them be successful in their home school environments. All of
our students have behavior intervention plans that outline our consistent
responses to student behaviors.
We empower our students by making them stronger and more
confident by providing a therapeutic component to their instructional
programming. Students receive counseling, individual therapy, recreational
therapy, team planning and embed social skills instruction throughout their
school day. Many of our students have experienced trauma in their lives and we
work every day to help them rewrite their narrative.