Wauseon’s New Horizon Academy is Teaching Children with Special Needs

Wauseon’s New Horizon Academy is Teaching Children with Special Needs

Article published Thursday, February 27, 2014 by the Defiance Crescent

By TIM McDONOUGH @cnmcdonough

WAUSEON — New Horizons Academy in Wauseon is bringing hope and getting results for many families who have children with special learning needs. The non-charter school, located at 220 Lawrence Ave., that services students in pre-K through grade 12, was established two years ago as part of Sara’s Garden and has quickly grown from two to 40 students.

According to principal David Burkholder, the school that teaches children with special needs that include attention deficit disorders, intellectual disabilities, developmental delays, physical disabilities, vision/hearing impairment, seizure disorders, speech and language disorders and autism/PDD (pervasive developmental disorders), is thriving.

“We started with two kids and by the end of that first year we had six kids. By the beginning of this year we started with 24 and now we’re up to 40, including 37 full-time and three part-time,” stated Burkholder, who served as a school administrator for 31 years in the Wauseon school district before moving to New Horizons. “The kids who come here all come on IEPs (individualized education programs for kids with delayed skills or other disabilities), and with a wide range of challenges.”

Burkholder explained that the staff is certified, and technology devices such as Smartboards and iPads are used to help the children not only learn, but communicate. Because of its non-charter status, which means the school does not receive state funding, the curriculum is tailored to the specific needs of each student. New Horizons offers autism intervention, conductive education and sensory integration services.

“There are kids here that are autistic, that are non-verbal and have severe behaviors, but our specialist has worked with them, gotten ahead of the behaviors and they are excelling,” said Burkholder. “We have older children here that are thriving and overcoming challenges, and we have a group of kids that specifically come here for conductive education, kids with brain injuries, cerebral palsy, you name it.”

The conductors are trained to work with children with neuromotor disabilities on fine motor, gross motor and communication goals. Conductors mold physical activities with cognitive tasks and emphasize communication to stimulate the students’ senses and body on multiple levels, which maximizes active learning and functionality.

New Horizons Academy became an off-shoot of Sara’s Garden in Wauseon thanks to the vision of CEO Matt Rychener. Sara’s Garden was established in 2004 by the Burkholder and Rychener families to honor Sara Burkholder and help her son, Jackson, who was born with cerebral palsy. Sara died shortly after giving birth to Jackson due to unknown causes.

The facility that is named in Sara’s honor offers several services to clients of all ages.

Those services include: hyperbaric oxygen therapy, conductive education, autism intervention and sensory integration services. What started out as a facility that treated only children with cerebral palsy, has grown to include clients of all ages and conditions such as: ALS, autism, burns, cancer, cerebral palsy, Lyme disease, migraines, multiple sclerosis, RSD, seizure disorders, sports injury, stroke, traumatic brain injury and wound healing.

After being asked to start the school, Rychener took on the challenge and New Horizons Academy was founded. The school serves families from the area, with students from 10 different school districts currently enrolled. The school also offers a summer camp in July to children with special needs from all over the country. Since July, three families have moved to the area from Mississippi, Alabama and Virginia to send their children to the school.

“We had always talked about having a school for kids with special needs because of our own experience with Jackson … it’s simply difficult to meet the needs of those children in the public school system,” Rychener said. “Public schools have great programs, don’t get me wrong, but when you have classrooms with 25-30 kids or more, it’s difficult to stop what you’re doing to meet the needs of kids with special needs.”

That realization helped New Horizons to become a reality.

“We knew the need was there, we had just never gone down that road,” Rychener said. “Two years ago we had two families tell us they weren’t getting their needs met from the school systems where they were sending their kids, and asked us if they could send their kids here. We told them we weren’t a school and they asked us to start one. That got the ball rolling and before we knew it, we established New Horizons and now we’re off and running.”

Many of the same services offered at Sara’s Garden are offered at New Horizons. Because of its rapid growth, the school will break ground in March on an addition that will double its size, add nine new classrooms and allow up to 80 students to attend. Construction is slated to be finished by Aug. 1.

Most students who attend the school do so on the Autism Scholarship or the Jon Peterson Special Needs Scholarship. Any student who has been identified by their school district as a child with autism, and for whom the district has created an IEP, qualifies for the Autism Scholarship. For a student to be eligible for the Jon Peterson Scholarship, an IEP must also have been drawn up for the student, and funding is based on the disability.

“It’s important to us to let families know that they have options,” concluded Rychener. “If you have a child with autism, the family can apply for the Autism Scholarship any day of the year. However, if you have a child with other special needs, there are only certain times to apply for the Jon Peterson Scholarship. If someone would like their child to attend school here by the start of the 2014-15 school year on that scholarship, the deadline to apply is April 15.”