When Higher Functioning Follows Form: Special-Needs Students Flourish in Sensory-Designed Schools
August 15, 2018
By: Beth Hawkins
Source: The 74
Like other superintendents throughout the country, Connie Hayes has spent recent years puzzling over two related trends: Students in her district’s schools require special education services at younger and younger ages, and their needs are increasingly complex.
Along with the challenges presented by autism, cognitive disabilities, and behavioral disorders, even very young students in Hayes’s classrooms were coming to school with unmet mental health issues. A rise in the amount of physical aggression meant more staff injuries.
“What we were starting to notice is that a traditionally designed facility was making it hard to serve these students well,” says Hayes. “Those long hallways with classrooms on either side — staff would move students out of the classroom to try to de-escalate things. If they weren’t successful, then it would affect other classrooms.”