Pace Charter School is a school for students with significant physical and cognitive disabilities. Most of our students are in wheelchairs, are non-verbal with cognitive levels ranging from 2 months to 6 years of age. Our mission is to maximize our students’ potential in all areas. Our learners make progress because we address the unique needs of each individual student by looking at the whole child- motor skills, sensory processing, communication, medical issues as well as cognition. This is done through a collaborative effort from our teachers, teacher assistants, physical, occupational and speech therapists as well as our nurse. Thus the collaborative model of integrating therapy and education is imperative.
“Perhaps the professional’s single most important goal with children and adults who have severe disabilities is to encourage and develop their ability and motivation to communicate and relate to the world around them” (Turiansky and Bove from Korsten, Dunn, foss and Francke, 1993; Every Move Counts). This is the expectation for each one of our graduates. Giving our students a “voice” is vital for them to be able to be engaged in family and community. The students use a variety of ways to communicate including vocalizations, facial expressions, eye gaze, pointing, pictures and a variety of voice output devices. Through community based instruction the students are able to generalize their ability to engage and communicate with the general public and local businesses.
With disabilities being just another form of diversity, our students at Pace have a great deal they can teach society. The enormous challenges our students face on a daily basis can teach society the importance of perseverance, patience and how to live and love life on a daily basis.