CanLearn Academy K-12th Grade

2006-2007 CAN LEARN SCHOOL CALL TODAY!
Preschool to Grade 12 - After School - BoostUp

Why did we start Can Learn Academy- A Nation at Risk

• Mission

• Philosophy

• Our Programs

• Non Graded School

• Behavior Education

• Social Education

• Academic Learning

Why did we start CanLearn Academy
A Nation At Risk

Seven years ago the U.S. National Commission on Literacy reported that "nearly half of all adult Americans read and write English so poorly that it is difficult for them to hold a decent job." It is estimated that 90 million adults cannot perform such basic tasks as calculating the difference in price between two items, completing a Social Security form, or understanding a bus schedule. During the last twenty years, there has been an explosion of children diagnosed as ADD (Attention Deficit Disorder), ADHD (Attention Deficit & Hyperactivity Disorder), or EBD (Emotional Behavior Disorder) in our classrooms. Between the increasing number of children growing up in conditions of poverty entering the school system and the increasing number of children "saved" by medical technology who come to school with developmental delays, there is an explosion in the number of students entering public education who need expensive, specialized services.

Historically, America's public education system has been a monopolistic franchise. Its "product" is children who can read and write well enough to be a contributing member of a democratic society. Given there is no true competition in public education, there are no rewards for teachers or schools who are successful in teaching students. Conversely, there is no accountability for producing 90 million Americans who are functionally illiterate; the "beat goes on". Certainly no other company could continue to do business in America with that rate of inferior product. It is true that the skills demanded of today's teachers go far beyond mere instruction. They have to fulfill numerous roles: health nurse, counselor, parent, social worker and teacher. Yet, children born in the most advanced nation on this globe should be guaranteed the right to learn how to read.

These trends paint a bleak picture for American education. If certain things do not change, the cycle of illiteracy will remain constant in our society. New Visions School (NVS), in Minnesota, believes it is time to disrupt this failing pattern, starting with our children. If we can teach them to read while they are young, adult illiteracy can be ended in one generation. We applaud President Clinton's goal of teaching all children in America to read by third grade. It will not be achieved, however, by doing more of what is already being done with such unsuccessful results.

  “Fall Through The Crack Kids”
are our favorite kind of kids!

There is a need for new, creative educational models, an opportunity for a truly competitive market, and accountability for producing children functionally literate and prepared to make informed choices in a democratic society. Recent school reform in America has included experiments such as alternative schools, magnet schools, site-based management, privatization, vouchers, and charter schools.

The Traditional Approach to Reading Problems

Approximately 10-15 percent of all children grow up with some type of learning disability. Once a child falls one year behind in reading, he/she qualifies for Title One services, which basically use the same unsuccessful classroom instructional methods but in a smaller setting. After a child falls two or more years behind, he/she qualifies for special education services, again the same unsuccessful classroom methods but in an even smaller setting. Traditional approaches to treating learning disabilities in the classroom include providing one-on-one tutoring or instructing the child to use other sensory pathways, e.g., ears. A learning-disabled child can be taught to "read" books by listening to "talking book" tapes, but the world does not operate by sound alone. Job application forms, street signs and telephone books must be read and understood. Illiteracy and other learning difficulties are nationwide problems that will persist unless appropriate early intervention is undertaken.

New Vision School model for CAN LEARN Academy

CAN LEARN Academy is modeled after New Vision School and A Chance To Grow in Minneapolis Minnesota. The history and evolution of New Vision’s is imperative to understand what we are duplicating here in Spokane.  New Vision School is a public charter school district of 200 children grades K-8.  Their students qualify as Title I (one year behind in reading), free lunch program and special education (2 or more years behind in reading and math) classes.  80% of the students are ‘inner city’ and poor social-economic backgrounds.  Social-economics is not the only cause for developmental delays, learning disabilities, or other disabilities or disorders; much of ACTG funding and grants focused on that population. 

New Vision students come from the bottom third of whatever classroom they were in prior to enrolling in New Visions. In spite of these obstacles, New Visions' students made an average reading gain of one year and five months. For six years of its short existence, NVS has applied the charter school principles of choice, entrepreneurial opportunities for teachers, and accountability for achievement to demonstrate that "disadvantaged" children can excel in the classroom.

The curriculum and program content of New Visions School originated with A Chance to Grows’ summer program, Boost-Up, which began in l987. A Chance To Grow is a non-profit organization dedicated to accelerating the development of brain-injured, learning disabled and delayed children. Through Boost-Up, participating children attended a three-hour program, five days a week for seven weeks. Generally, Boost Up children were of average intelligence who were failing in reading. They participated in structured activities that stimulated their brain's processing capabilities and helped their brain learn how to receive information more efficiently. On average, Boost-Up students made an eight-month gain in reading over the seven-week period.

The first expansion of the Boost-Up model involved a four-year collaboration with Minneapolis Public Schools called the “A Chance to Learn Project”. In l987, when the joint project began, approximately 400 children were failing the kindergarten Benchmark Test annually in Minneapolis Public Schools. These students represented the bottom 10-12 percent in student achievement. Typically, they were required to repeat a full-day kindergarten program called Transition. While most "Transition graduates" passed the kindergarten "Benchmark Test", over half of these were failing in reading by the second grade.

When A Chance to Grow screened Transition students, we found that children from low-income homes had a higher than average frequency of developmental delays such as underdeveloped muscle skills, behavioral problems and visual difficulties.  Research confirmed our belief that children growing up under conditions of poverty are apt to develop reading and other learning problems. Such conditions include poorly heated homes, restricted play activities, lack of reading materials and lack of literate role models. While these children were chronologically ready for school, they were not able to take advantage of instruction as readily as their peers. Existing remedies, including tutoring, transition-type remedial instruction and even Head Start, apparently did not address these children’s developmental needs. Through the “A Chance to Learn Project”, children took part in activities which stimulated their development. Special games and other structured activities helped them develop fine motor skills, increased visual capabilities and improved brain processing functions. At the end of their participation in the “A Chance to Learn Project”, the students were reading at the 82nd to 89th percentile of Minneapolis students entering first grade.

Validation Studies

A program evaluation firm, Nelson, Whiteford and Associates, evaluated the A Chance to Learn Project. Their report answered several important questions:

1. Can a child's visual perceptual skills be improved?

2. Is there a relationship between a child's visual perceptual skills and classroom achievements?

3. Are the gains maintained over time?

The study showed that, after the project's 93 hours of curriculum, children demonstrated improvement in their visual perceptual skills. More importantly, it reported that children who improved their visual perceptual skills significantly improved their reading performance. In addition, the children maintained these gains through the second grade. This study confirms the importance of applying what is known about how the brain develops to the classroom environment. Hopefully, the new interest in the brain will encourage this application.

Expanding Horizons

A Chance to Grow published the “A Chance to Learn Curriculum” so a primary teacher could integrate the activities for thirty minutes a day throughout the school year. In the younger years (k, first and second grades) the curriculum can be used with the entire classroom serving a preventive function. In the middle years the curriculum can be implemented with more of a remedial emphasis. In this context, the curriculum can be used to instruct a group of students who may be identified as having specific learning problems.

Since the end of the Chance to Learn Project, the curriculum has been replicated in Minnesota, California, North Carolina, Georgia and Wisconsin. Over the last five years one hundred public school teachers from 16 different school districts in North Carolina attended New Visions' four-day training workshops. Drexel Elementary School in Drexel, North Carolina implemented the curriculum in all of its first and second grade classrooms. All nine of the first grade classes made an average reading gain of one year, nine months implementing the curriculum 30 minutes a day. The nine second grade classrooms made an average reading gain of one year five months, but they only implemented the curriculum through February.

These results are important for several reasons. First, the curriculum was implemented school wide with 250 students. This didn't involve large expenditures that would prohibit replication at other schools. Second, all of the children improved: the low students, the middle students and the high students. While New Visions School's mission is to serve the most disadvantaged children, the Drexel experience documents that the curriculum can be replicated effectively in traditional schools.

In Minnesota, New Visions has implemented the Chance to Learn Curriculum through Goals 2000 funding from the Department of Children, Families and Learning. The curriculum has been implemented in kindergarten and first grade classrooms in ten different metro, suburban and rural school settings. This is the fifth year of funding for this project. Comments from first grade teachers who receive children who had participated in the project as kindergartners include: "I've never had first graders like....they can color in the lines, cut on the lines, and are able to be quiet and focused on the instruction at hand".

The New Visions School represents an expansion and integration of the Chance to Learn formula into a full-day curriculum, first-through-eighth-grade. After operating as a contract alternative school for one year, New Visions became a charter school in the fall of l994. This report summarizes activities and results of the l999-2000 school year.

The birth of CAN LEARN Academy

CAN LEARN Therapeutic Center was started in 1998 providing neurodevelopment evaluations, designing individualized in-home programs and training parent’s to implement the program. At that time, all of the children evaluated came to us with Leaning Disabilities, Dyslexia and/or ADD/HD struggles. 

In 1999, my journey and life changed when I met Jodee Kulp on a home-schooling special-needs-children listserv.  Jodee was struggling to home school Liz, her adopted 13 year old daughter living with Fetal Alcohol Effect (FAE).  Progress was very slow and frustrating.  We met and I evaluated Liz’s central nervous system (CNS) to discover although she had 20/20 vision she couldn’t see to learn; nor could she listen to learn and her short-term memory was that of a three-year old.  Liz was overly sensitive to surface touch yet unable to feel her own internal sensations add this to vision and auditory sensitivities… no wonder she struggled to learn.

Liz jumped from a third grade level to that of a fifth grader within the first four months of program… Mom was ecstatic and told others!  Today, I have the privilege to work with 25 children, between the ages of 6 months -18 years, prenatally exposed to alcohol and/or drugs in four states!  Our expertise is also with Mentally Retarded, Developmentally Delayed, Hyperactive, Impulsive, ‘fall through the crack kids”, Brain Injured, Learning Disabled, Dyslexia, Behavior issues, Short-attention span, perceptual delays, oral-motor delays, tactile defensive, Distractible, Cerebral Palsy, visual and auditory processing disorders, and Down Syndrome.

As CAN LEARN grew the need for a center was obvious and opened December 1, 2001.  During the summer we introduced our BOOST-UP program and in September (2002) the Academy.  In the fall of 2002 CAN LEARN became a non-profit 501-3 © foundation.

Can Learn Christian Academy is a private school with expertise with disabled and struggling learners with all types of labels from Fall Through the Crack Kids, Learning Disabled, Dyslexia, Short Attention Span, Perceptual Delays, Slow Learner, ADD/HD; to those with Brain Damage such as Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorder (AKA Fetal Alcohol Syndrome/Effects), Moebius Syndrome, Down Syndrome, Cerebral Palsy, Autism and Mentally Retarded; to those with behavior struggles such as Oppositional Defiance Disorder (ODD), Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD), Attachment Disorder (AD or RAD), and adopted/Foster Care emotional roller coaster.

Our small staff has degrees in Psychology, Education and Certifications in Neurodevelopment, Oral Motor, Feeding, different neuroeducation subjects, Attachment, grief/ loss and trauma, and Continuing Education Credits.

What makes us different?

An INEP (Individual Neurodevelopment-Education Plan) is written for each student, even the non-struggling, after given a Neurodevelopment evaluation to assess the functional levels of the CNS (central nervous system).  A new evaluation and INEP is done once each semester and the therapeutic program modified and adjusted as the brain reorganizes itself.

Each day our students have a brain workout stimulating the lower levels of the brain helping it reorganize itself, creating new neural pathways/connections eliminating or improving learning, attending, behavior, attachment struggles and many disabilities.

Class sizes are small so students aren’t distracted or over stimulated as easily.  We ‘teach to the brain’ with proven multi-sensory techniques and individual attention.  Students are individuals; if one method doesn’t work we have plenty of tricks ‘up our sleeve.

Non-graded school  

Traditional grades 1-3 are our ‘lower elementary’ level and grades 4-6 ‘upper elementary’.  Expectations are high yet obtainable to each child.  Our curriculum is proven to give struggling learner’s success being multi-sensory and multi-level allowing a child to move into the next level as they master the different levels.  We invite parent assistance as much as possible and will gladly give ideas to use at home.

Our students struggle to be successful in the classroom.  Letter grades grade compare students success with everyone in the classroom.  At CAN LEARN Academy we grade on the students achievement and effort by using a rubric.

A rubric is a scoring guide that seeks to evaluate a student’s work based on a full range of criteria rather than a single numerical score.  A rubric is an authentic assessment tool used to measure student’s work.  It is a working guide for students and teachers, handed out before the assignment begins, allowing students to understand the criteria on which their work will be judged.

Why use rubrics?

Many experts believe that rubrics improve students’ end products, and ultimately result in increased learning.  When teachers evaluate papers or projects, they know beforehand what makes a good final product and why.  Since students receive the rubrics before the assignment begins, the student understands how they will be evaluated and can prepare accordingly.  This framework allows students to improve the quality of their work and increase their knowledge.

Advantages:

• Teachers increase the quality of their instruction since the expectations for the final assessment is preset.

• Helps teachers to be accurate, unbiased and consistent in scoring projects and assessments.

• Students have explicit guidelines regarding their teacher’s expectations.

• Empowers students to critically evaluate their own work.

• Powerful communications tool for parents that shares concrete and observable progress.

All grades will be represented by a number.  The number grades will be as follows:

The school’s curriculum is very hands-on and experiential in nature, providing students with a plethora of experiments, field trips, and fascinating guest speakers from all walks of life.

Testing is individualized based on each student’s ability and interests, and testing is done in a variety of ways, including verbal, written, and project-based evaluations.

Can Learn Academy offer structure and accountability, but is friendly, caring and versatile allowing students to develop physically, mentally, developmentally, cognitively, and emotionally.

Academic learning

All of our students have significant delays in reading, writing, spelling and math.  Their struggles are due to inefficiencies in how they receive and/or process information through their sensory system making them ‘right brain’ learners or hands-on learners.  By eliminating the inefficiencies academic progress improve by leaps and bounds.  Each student academics is at the level of performance not grade level. Currently, we are so small the academy is more like the old fashion one room school house!  Students are taught brain researched methods and given the confidence needed to succeed!  The new level of confidence creates a desire to want to come to school and learning becomes fun!

Behavior education

Many of our children start our school with significant behavior problems and little or no social skills.  Society is extremely sensitive to behavior.  We are simply intolerant of bad manners and place a high degree of acceptance and importance on good.  For example, we will accept a very obvious physical handicap, yet we are generally unwilling to cope with even a small behavior problem. 

Behavior education is an essential ingredient necessary for children to become well-mannered productive adults.  Many of our children have experienced abuse and/or neglect or multiple out-of-home placements so to protect themselves from more rejection have ‘closed their feeling heart’.  Facilitating these children heal and others learn emotional communication discussing how to communicate emotions, how to release excess energy appropriately, build confidence and self-esteem, to ‘read’ body language and facial expressions, acceptable social skills and manners, alternatives to arguing, to cooperate with others, and help children think positively and realistically.  We do this by changing the brain, discussions and role-playing. Changes CAN’T be permanent unless the brain is changed. 

Social learning

If a student isn’t aware of where their body is in space, where their body starts and stops, over sensitive to touch yet unable to feel their internal sensations, unable to make sense of information seen and/or heard, unable to feel comfortable sitting in a chair, uncomfortable wearing the clothes touching his/her body, and worrying that you are getting too close and/or will harm them… how on earth can they have social skills? They can’t!

Our staff spends a great deal of time daily teaching students how to handle life. The words they need to say in different situations. What is a friend?  Develop friendship skills.  Learn the difference between friendly joking from teasing/bullying. How to problem solve situations as they pop up during the day.  Develop organizational skills.  Respect and responsibility so they can be fun to be with!  Like behaviors social skill can’t change without changing the brain.

End of the Promotion and Right of Passage to the next grade

Since promotion isn’t based on academic grades the student advances to the next sequential skill level after mastery.  A yearly right of passage celebration will end the school year.  Graduation will formally be recognized in sixth, eighth and twelfth grades.

We invite your visit to see our school for yourself.  Many of our children don’t adjust to changes easily and an unexpected visit may cause behavior problems; for this reason we ask you call ahead to let us prepare the children. 

For more information or to register your child in CAN LEARN Academy call 509-624-3109

Curriculum Goals
Programming

The Academy’s curriculum is very hands-on and experiential in nature, providing students with plethora of experiments, field trips, and fascinating guest speakers from all walks of life. Can Learn Christian Academy invests’ its time and resources on educational programs addressing learning styles and multiple intelligences.

Testing at Can Learn Christian Academy is individualized based on each student’s ability and interests, and testing is done in a variety of ways, including verbal, written, and project-based evaluations.

English:

• Equip every student with the skills necessary for good writing, including spelling, grammar, style, clarity, etc.

• Put a major emphasis on good writing by requiring the students to write often and correctly in each subject area.

• Encourage clear thinking by the students through requiring clear writing.

• Introduce the students to many styles of writing using high quality literature.

Reading:  

• Build the auditory system and auditory short term memory to allow efficient memory and recall.  Both are foundations for a good reader.

• Build and/or strengthen the visual perceptual areas necessary to reading.

• Use phonics as the primary building blocks for teaching students to read.

• Encourage the students to high quality children literature as soon as possible, through a good literature program.

•  Carefully monitor the student’s reading abilities to ensure he is at a reasonable level, comprehends adequately and is reading fluently, both orally and silently.  This includes proper use of word-attack skills.

• Foster a life-long love of reading and high quality literature, after being taught to recognize the characteristics of such literature.

Mathematics:

• Develop and strengthen abstract thinking in each student making learning math even possible.

•  Teach and reinforce mathematical facts and concepts both using the visual and auditory systems

• Ensure that the students have a thorough mastery of basic mathematical functions and tables using as many multi-sensory methods possible.

• Teach and strengthen visualization skills enabling the student to perform mental math using multiple functions.

• Put an emphasis on conceptual, as well as practical understanding of math through the frequent use of story problems.

• Provide an understanding of money, budgets, interests, credit, investments and basic daily expenses in life.

History/Geography: 

• Make history and geography ‘come alive’ for the students through the use of many forms of information and research using biographies, illustrations, field trips, guest speakers, music, art, foods, architecture, and videos.

• Broaden the students understanding of maps and map skills, government structure and function, officials, agencies, and institutions, citizenship, key US documents, geographical features and regions, important places and spaces and human geography.

• Broaden the students understanding of World History through major ears and events, places and organizations, Ancient History, Medieval and Modern history.

• Broaden the students understanding of World Geography of geographical features, regions, important places and spaces, human geography, map tools and resources, directions and locations, and finding information of maps and globes.

Science:

• Develop in the students an increasing appreciation of the orderly and wondrous design of the universe, and the laws, which govern it.

•  Impart to the students the grammar of Physics, Biology, Earth Science, and Chemistry through the method of doing science.

• Teach the students the scientific process by practicing it numerous times in each grade, so that by the time the students enter secondary-level science they will be very familiar with the scientific method.

• Encourage students to think, to question, and to test their own theories.

• Develop the students’ skill ob observation and abilities to record and analyze information.

• Encourage the students to apply their scientific knowledge to daily life.

• Develop the students’ appreciation and knowledge of great scientists.

• Use many forms of instruction to teach scientific concepts and methods using a variety of experiments, demonstrations, research projects, illustrations, field trips, and guest speakers.

 Music and Art: 

• Develop an appreciation of all the Arts including style, methods, medians, composers and artists.
• Encourage students to select an area of music, vocal or instrumental, to pursue on their own.
• Encourage students to select an area of the arts to pursue as a hobby.

Physical Education: 

• Teach basic exercises and game skills such as throwing, hitting, kicking, catching, etc.

• In cooperation with the families, encourage the students to knowledgeably establish and maintain good health, wellness and nutritional habits early in life.

• Develop social skills requiring coordination, teamwork, good sportsmanship, and responsibility of own actions and words.

Mental and Emotional communication: 

• Teach self-regulating techniques

• Encourage each student to learn to evaluate his behavior.

• Encourage each student to express his emotional needs and be able to express internal feelings with words.

• To provide experiences for each student to develop a balanced emotional state.

Developmental: 

• Evaluate the functional levels of the CNS through a neurodevelopment evaluation.

• Design an Individual Neurodevelopment-Education Plan for each student, including average and non-struggling students.

• Encourage each student to participate in the Boost-Up Therapeutic Program which addresses their individual neurodevelopment needs. (Sensory, visual and auditory perception, primitive reflexes, fine and gross motor skills, short and long term memory, abstract thinking, logical thinking and problem solving).

• Re-evaluate each student every 4-5 months to modify and adjust the program as the brain reorganizes itself.

• Encourage each student will participate in a 25 minute AVE (Auditory-Visual Enhancement) neuro-feedback program

Electives:

• Provide a wide variety of experiences in food preparation, menu planning, measuring, purchasing, and storage including gardening, canning and freezing.

• Provide experience to learn foreign languages including American Sign Language and Braille.

• Provide experiences building with wood, electronics, and small machinery.

• Develop a giving heart with community service for all grade levels.

• Develop computer literacy.