About the Jones Center

Mission

Through expertise and commitment, the Russell Jones Education Center provides a therapeutic learning environment to prepare each student with skills to enjoy success in life. 
 

Jones Center

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.