Custom Curriculum Supports Students With Special Needs

In the past six months, 3-year-old Taylor Pennington has learned to drink from an open cup, climb stairs and ride a tricycle. All are major milestones for this little girl with a wide smile, captivating hazel eyes and Down syndrome.

“Other kids motivate her, and she wants to please them,” said Cindy Pennington about her only daughter and youngest child, a pixie in pigtails, who attended the .

A little more than 100 children were enrolled at the center, which ended its academic year in May. About a quarter of those students had disabilities, from profound to mild, including Taylor.

“We have children of all abilities,” said Nancy Stoverink, director of the Brentwood childhood center that accepts children beginning at age two. The center’s goal is to prepare all its preschoolers for kindergarten, and beyond.

But kids with developmental delays like Taylor need extra help.

“We want to provide as much early intervention as possible now, so they will need less support later,” Stoverink said.

That’s where the Special School District of St. Louis County and a federally-mandated, but state-operated program that creates individualized education plans (IEP) come into play.

An IEP is a legally-binding document that identifies what special education services a child with disabilities is to receive and why.

It allows parents, teachers (both general and special education), therapists and school administrators to come together to create a customized education plan.

“We talk about the child’s strengths, about areas of concerns that impact his or her ability to learn and parents' concerns,” said Laurie Corners, early childhood special education area coordinator with the Special School District.

An IEP must be developed annually, or more frequently, for any public school child who receives special education and related services. It can be developed for children as young as three. Just like Taylor.

“The IEP includes goals that have to be measurable and achievable,” Corners said. 

Goals drive the services that the Special School District provides to the child, and services determine placement.

Consequently, some parents and/or guardians approach their first IEP meeting with trepidation. The Penningtons were no different.  

“I was told by (friends) and was prepared to ‘fight for everything,’” said Craig Pennington, Taylor’s dad.

It wasn’t necessary: the experience turned out to be “awesome,” said Cindy Pennington, who is a retired cardiac nurse and present-day exercise physiologist. “It wasn’t an us-versus-them mentality,” she said.

At the first IEP meeting, “cold water gets thrown on your face,” Craig Pennington said. Not only does the IEP team identify areas of improvement, the team also identifies limitations of your child, like how far they could be expected to achieve.

The family's first meeting lasted almost two hours. “It wasn’t supposed to last that long,” said Cindy Pennington, “but I talk a lot.”

The family discovered that Taylor does not have the additional medical conditions that many with Down syndrome have, but that she would need physical therapy, speech therapy, behavioral therapy and occupational therapy.

Taylor had been receiving these therapies through another program at home, but now she would receive therapies at school. 

So on her third birthday, Taylor started preschool in an integrated, special education classroom at the Brentwood preschool. Half of her peers had disabilities; half did not.

It was not glorified babysitting as her father feared.

“It’s real school,” said Craig Pennington, with Taylor learning the same curriculum with some modifications as other students her age in a general education classroom.

And Taylor is learning self-help skills like hanging up her coat and putting things away. She is learning to follow directions and combine words to express thoughts.

Although she had done well, Taylor also has had meltdowns and will strike a yoga pose, to de-stress. “She just hung in there,” said Cindy Pennington of her daughter’s determination.

So far, 100 students have enrolled in Brentwood Early Childhood Center for the upcoming 2011-2012 academic year; 13 of those students have IEPs.

“We usually start with a low number of IEPs and are able to identify more children as the year progresses and concerns in development are noted,” Stoverink said.  

But IEPs are not a cause for alarm, said Corners. ‘They are cause for celebration” because they show growth. 

And that is what the Penningtons want.

Just like other parents, they have big hopes and dreams for their children that extend beyond the present.

Their more immediate plans are to have Taylor transition into a general education classroom at the Brentwood childhood center in the next two years, and then transfer to where her big brother, Drew, 9, attends. 

And then there is college.

“You will go to college,” Craig said to Taylor, who was curled in his lap with a book in her hands. “Go. Go,” repeated Taylor.

“Yes,” said Taylor's father. “You will go to college.”