A Proposed School for Children with Diverse Learning Needs
While the Westlake School is not yet operational,
the following proposal outlines the plan
for its mission and ultimate program.
The Westlake School
Celebrating Diversity
The Westlake School is conceived to meet the unique learning needs of elementary age children with learning differences. We believe that the potential of these students is often untapped and that by teaching to individual learning styles, building on students’ strengths, and remediating areas of weakness all students will have a solid foundation and the self esteem to allow them to achieve their loftiest goals.
Each child initially enters school with great enthusiasm and is filled with unlimited self-confidence! Westlake is dedicated to making sure that this enthusiasm never dims and that no student’s potential is disregarded or devalued.
The turn-of-the-century journalist, David Grayson, said that the “Commandment Number One of any truly civilized society is this: Let people be different.” The Westlake school celebrates the diversity of children. Westlake customizes learning to fit the student. There is no need for a child to fit a specified set of criteria to “qualify” for specific programs. The child receives whatever type of specialized instruction he or she needs.
Children are placed in classes according to age. Small classes of 8-10 students with caring and creative teachers who are trained in working with students with learning differences are keys to success at The Westlake School. Westlake believes in nurturing the whole child. While we recognize that reading, mathematics, and writing are the essentials tools for success, we also understand that these skills are best taught not in isolation, but as they relate to real life usage and in the context of social studies, science, physical education, and the fine arts. Westlake is also committed to teaching our students to be creative thinkers and problem solvers, independent inquirers, and life-long learners.
Curriculum
The Westlake School believes that one doesn’t really learn something unless there is a need to use it. Therefore, we do not teach subjects as discrete entities, but rather incorporate them into authentic contexts that reflect the nature of the world. We seek to integrate curriculum where ever possible, teaching basic skills through the medium of simulated and real-life experiences and thematic units. Students are actively involved in learning instead of passively listening. Visual, auditory, tactile, and kinesthetic activities are used to cement knowledge. We recognize that no one instructional method is equally effective for all kinds of tasks, or all kinds of students. Our balanced approach is geared to individual student needs and goals. It is designed to make learning exciting and fun and to instill in our students a desire to be life-long learners.
Reading: The basic reading program at Westlake features structured sequential multi-sensory instruction using an Orton-Gillingham approach. For students who have completed this training, or who do not need this approach, instruction may focus on topics such as the origins of the English language; Greek, Latin, and Anglo-Saxon word units; vocabulary development; and critical reading. Students are taught to recognize propaganda techniques, themes, and styles of writing in all genres. Comprehension strategies are an important part of the balanced literacy program for all students at Westlake. Reading skills are applied while reading and listening to literature and nonfiction text.
Language Arts: Written language is taught as a valuable communication tool. Writing fluency is emphasized and creativity valued. Students are instructed in many different forms of written communication, with the emphasis on utility. As with all subjects at Westlake, writing is used to fulfill real-life needs, as students communicate in letters and notes to make their ideas known, write research reports, and publish stories and poems. Children who need a framework for writing are instructed in various ways to map their ideas before writing. Handwriting and spelling are not ignored, but are rather taught through direct instruction.
Mathematics: Math instruction involves understanding the “Why?” as well as the “How?” of mathematics. Skills are developed using manipulatives, strategies, and activities. Students practice and apply their skills in real-life and simulated activities such as budgeting an allowance, shopping from a catalogue, measuring, managing a checkbook, stock market trading, adapting recipe amounts, graphing data from a science investigation, and figuring sports averages and percentages.
Social Studies: As with all subjects, social studies at Westlake is taught with multisensory methods, projects, and active involvement. Simulation and drama are used to make subjects relevant and alive. All disciplines are taught including where people live, how they organize and govern themselves, the history of mankind, social interaction, and economic interaction.
Science: The Westlake science curriculum balances scientific processes and science concepts. An inquiry approach is often used to teach students to think through a problem. Each student is required to do a yearly science project, which involves an investigation. Projects are geared to the age level of the students. Older students are explicitly taught how to complete each step of the project and guided through the process to completion.
Organization and Study Skills: Rather than penalize children for not having the organizational skills to manage homework, long-term projects, and the like, Westlake teachers explicitly teach organizational and study skills to our students.
Technology: In computer classes, students learn keyboarding and word processing skills to make written expression easier and more effective. Instruction also centers on how to do an effective web search, online safety, and online/email etiquette. Technology is also used in all subject areas to teach and reinforce concepts.
Social Skills Training and Fine Arts
Because Westlake believes in developing the whole child, teachers eat with their classes in a quiet dining room setting using lunch as an instructional time to teach manners, social graces, and conversational skills, while fostering relationships with their students in an informal setting. Specialists in art, physical education, music, and drama work with the students while the classroom teachers have time to plan and conference with individual students or parents. Teachers may opt to eat their lunch at this planning/conference time and enjoy a beverage during the classroom lunch period while they visit with their students. Drama classes and role-playing also reinforce social skills.
Progress Monitoring
Student progress is monitored continuously and the pace and method of instruction is adjusted to meet individual needs. Alternative assessment methods are used when appropriate, as well as traditional pencil and paper tests. Parents receive formal progress reports at three-week intervals and grades at six weeks.
Extended School Day
Westlake offers an extended school day providing an assortment of enrichment activities, classes, and clubs such as
Assessment
Prospective students at The Westlake School will need a comprehensive evaluation before acceptance to the school. This is so that teachers can understand the student’s individual strengths, needs, and learning styles and design an instructional program that will make learning effective and motivating. Testing must be done by a qualified educational diagnostician or psychologist and include a measure of the seven broad cognitive abilities as described by the Cattell-Horn Carrel (CHC) theory of intelligence. These are Comprehension-Knowledge, Long-Term Retrieval, Visual-Spatial thinking, Auditory Processing, Fluid Reasoning, Processing Speed, and Short-Term Memory. Tests that measure these areas include the Woodcock Johnson III Tests of Cognitive Abilities (WJ-III), the Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children, Fourth Edition (WISC-IV), and the Kaufman Assessment Battery for Children, Second Edition (KABC-II). Academic achievement must also be measured using instruments such as the Woodcock-Johnson III Tests of Achievement (WJ-III), The Wechsler Individual Achievement Test (WIAT), and the Kaufman Test of Educational Achievement (KTEA). If dyslexia is an issue, the student needs a good measure of oral reading fluency, such as the Gray Oral Reading Tests, Fourth Edition (GORT-4), and a good measure of phonological processing, e.g. the Comprehensive Test of Phonological Processing (CTOPP). This diagnostic test battery can be provided by diagnosticians associated with the Westlake School for an additional fee, or parents can choose their own provider. If parents would like the school to provide speech therapy or occupational therapy services at the campus, Westlake will also need the parents to provide a current assessment of the student’s needs and treatment plan. Speech and occupational therapy services are in addition to basic tuition. Learning styles, personality, and temperament measures, such as the Murphy Meisgeir Type Inventory for Children are administered to all age-appropriate students for no additional fee upon admittance.
Summer Enrichment Program
The Westlake School offers an enrichment summer program that is open to all children in the community and includes many of the after school programs noted above in addition to other courses of interest.
Head of School
Mrs. Sally Williams,
M.Ed., Special Education, University of Houston, 2004
Educational Diagnostician Certification, University of Houston, 2004
B.S., Elementary Education, University of Texas at Austin, 1966
Mrs. Williams is a licensed and registered educational diagnostician. She is a Neuhaus Education Center trained dyslexia specialist and worked as a dyslexia specialist in the Clear Creek Independent School District for seven years. Prior to that, she taught sixth grade at The Briarwood School in Houston, Texas for five years. Mrs. Williams began her career in education teaching with the University of Texas’s Project for Individualized Instruction at Matzke Elementary in the Cypress-Fairbanks I.S.D. and Brentwood Elementary in the Austin I.S.D. She also taught at Oak Hills Terrace Elementary in San Antonio’s Northside I.S.D. and Westwood Elementary in Friendswood I.S.D. Both of these schools specialized in individualized, prescriptive instruction. Additionally, Mrs. Williams taught for six years in Clear Creek I.S.D. before becoming a dyslexia specialist. Mrs. Williams has also taught preschool art at the Clear Lake Presbyterian Day School, served as a science consultant to the Gifted and Talent Program in Friendswood I.S.D., presented a hands-on science inservice to the Aldine I.S.D., and taught a social studies methods course to education majors at St. Mary’s University in San Antonio, Texas.
As the parent of a student with learning differences, Mrs. Williams is deeply committed to the belief that all children deserve the chance to maximize their God-given talents and gifts. The Westlake School exists to allow students to do more than meet the minimum standards on state mandated standardized testing. For some, this can only happen in a small-class environment with individual attention, and a specifically designed education plan.
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The Need for The Westlake School
The Westlake School is designed to meet the needs of children who have difficulty achieving their potential in their neighborhood public school. While special education (through IDEA) and dyslexia instruction (through Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973) can meet the needs of many public school students, others who need help do not meet qualification requirements for these programs.
One of the major thrusts of the reauthorization of IDEA in 2004 is the requirement that general education provide intense research based interventions to children before qualifying them for special education. While this goal is admirable, some schools and teachers are better able to provide these options than are others. Available resources, quality of teacher training, and number of personnel are just some of the reasons a child might not be achieving as expected. Often, valuable time is wasted before testing identifies a student’s needs and he or she qualifies for expert help. Some children never meet qualification requirements, or are never recommended for testing.
Public schools may not consider a child for special programs unless they feel there is an educational need for these programs. This is where school officials and parents sometimes disagree. No parent wants to allow their child to fail just to prove that they really need help. Many parents, therefore, find themselves turning to private tutors or commercial educational companies in an effort to help their child keep up with the curriculum and, perhaps more importantly, keep their self-esteem intact and their belief in themselves alive. They know that failure breeds failure for some, just as success breeds success for the fortunate.
Education case law has found that public schools are required to provide a free appropriate public education (FAPE) for children, but this does not mean that they are required to help a child maximize his or her potential. This is where schools like The Westlake School can help. Some children need much smaller classes than what is typically found in public schools. Others need teaching techniques tailored to their learning styles and cognitive strengths. These children may struggle to meet minimum standards on state mandated criterion referenced tests and to maintain grades of which they can be proud and which accurately reflect their true knowledge and abilities. They often spend an inordinate amount of time on homework and outside tutoring, to the exclusion of developing their other gifts and talents. The Westlake School offers an alternative for these students. Here learning is maximized by individual attention and diversity is honored and celebrated.
Westlake, of course, does not discriminate on the basis of sex, race, color, religion, national or ethnic origin.
A personal message from Sally Williams
The Clear Lake area has long needed the options that The Westlake School offers. The only other school in the Houston area with a program similar to the one proposed by Westlake is The Briarwood School. Briarwood is located in west Houston and involves an hour commute each way from Clear Lake. Few Bay Area parents are privileged to have the time necessary to make this commitment. I know some who have made extreme sacrifices, even quitting their job or moving to the other side of town, to allow their child to attend Briarwood. Eighteen years ago, when my son was a student at Briarwood, I begged Yvonne Streit, Briarwood’s founder, to open a satellite Briarwood campus in the Clear Lake area. I’ll never forget her words. She said, “I’ve already done it. You do it!” I told her that “I just might!” Countless numbers of parents who I have met as I tested or tutored their children have encouraged me, sometimes tearfully, to give them this option. I have nurtured this dream for eighteen years and feel that the time to act is now.
“I believe that the Westlake School will make a tremendous difference for children with learning differences and that such school can be a model for what special education can be. Ms. Sally Williams has a very special vision that encourages and assists children to achieve to their potential…She has my unwavering support for her mission.”
Rita Coombs Richardson, Ph.D.
Professor, School of Education
University of St. Thomas, Houston
“I have been familiar with the work of Sally Williams for many years, and know she has the educational background, credentials in diagnostic assessment, and dedication to successfully lead this project. Also, I have reviewed the plan and am impressed that it includes proven, best practices to motivate and meet the needs for all types of learners. In the last twenty years, educational research has provided a wealth of knowledge, largely unapplied in public schools, to best facilitate learning. This plan is based on the best of these findings.”
Nolie B. Mayo, Ed.D.
Professor Emeritus
University of Houston Clear Lake
“There is a great need for a school in the Clear Lake area, like the proposed Westlake School, that will provide children with different learning styles and abilities an opportunity to learn, be challenged, and succeed so that each child can reach their true potential. I look forward to the potential future of Westlake School and the opportunities that will be provided for each child.”
Susan A. Zapf, MA, OTR, ATP, CTRS
Should Preserved in Time be successful in acquiring the Jim West Mansion property for restoration, The Westlake School will be a part of the Preserved in Time education plan and will be located on the site.
Additional Benefits of the Westlake School Being Located at the Jim West Mansion Property
Outreach
Because of its proximity to NASA’s Manned Spacecraft Center, the Westlake School stands to attract national and international visitors who are concerned about the future of education. We welcome the opportunity to showcase what students with learning differences are capable of accomplishing through programs such as ours.
The Lake
The freshwater lake on the West property offers an excellent venue for elementary and middle school students to explore the lost art of fishing. In this day of high-tech video games and organized youth sports, the ability to sit still and wait, while enjoying the sounds and sights of nature is often lacking. In the last few years, some elementary schools in the Clear Creek ISD have been providing fishing field trips for their students to a lake quite a few miles to the west of League City. This is usually the highlight of the year and younger students eagerly await their opportunity to participate in this outing. Our lake would be easily accessible to a number of nearby school districts. A fishing field trip could provide an opportunity for students to explore a myriad of topics ranging from biology to ecology, natural habitats, environmental awareness, mathematics, art., nutrition, recreation, and leisure time use. We can envision children making Japanese fish rubbings from their fish, identifying and classifying the types of animals they see, measuring and comparing their catches, studying the structures and functions of animal organs, even cooking and eating their catches back at the school.