Calm Classrooms™ Outcomes & Impact
PROGRAM OUTCOMES
- Improve student academic achievement and responsibility by equipping parents to teach at home, partner with educators and advocate for their children.
- Improve student performance, classroom discipline and educator retention by equipping teachers to transform distracting students into leaders.
- Improve student skills development and reduce litigation during the IEP process by strengthening trust-based partnerships between schools and families.
- Reduce the number of students requiring special education by 25% through early prevention and intervention.
- Reduce escalating special education costs by 30% through strong, science-based instructional practices in regular education classrooms, eliminating the need for costly special education services.
5 CHALLENGES AND SOLUTIONS FOR PARENTS AND EDUCATORS
In order to determine your most critical needs, we commissioned a study involving 1,587 general and special education teachers and parents. Based on this research and data from the U.S. Office of Special Education Programs (OSEP), we have identified five challenges and science-based solutions that significantly impact schools.
Challenge No. 1: Ensure Parents Are Actively Involved in Education
Research has demonstrated that students with involved parents earn higher grades, attend school regularly, show improved behavior and are less likely to require special education. Yet parents often feel intimidated and relinquish their responsibilities as primary educators to the professional educators.
Solution No. 1: Equip Parents to Prepare their Children for Success in School
One of the advantages of our program is that we have experience working directly with both parents and educators. This is important because parents have a significant impact on their child’s performance. We provide practical strategies to help parents:
A. Provide order, structure and positive discipline at home.
B. Make homework time less stressful and encourage curiosity.
C. Create a stress-free morning routine with proper nutrition so their children arrive at school prepared to learn.
D. Transfer responsibility for behavior and academics to their children.
E. Confidently partner with teachers and advocate for their children.
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Challenge No. 2: Reduce Classroom Distractions to Focus on All Students
Most educators face the challenge of teaching at least five children with ADD, ADHD, Sensory Integration Disorder, Aspergers, Autism or other disabilities. If not reached effectively, these students can drain important instruction time away from other pupils. Most teachers simply need to better understand how our kids think and react.
Solution No. 2: Equip Teachers to Transform Distractions into Leaders
We can improve student performance, classroom discipline and educator retention by transforming distracting students into leaders using classroom-based approaches. We use proactive strategies to effectively channel energy and emotion into constructive purposes, utilize our kids’ unique gifts and talents, and increase retention using multi-sensory stimulation. These strategies benefit all students.
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Challenge No. 3: Improve the IEP Process and Prevent Disputes
The current system is driven by complex regulations, excessive paperwork and increasing administrative demands. The growing threats of litigation and disputes create an adversarial atmosphere that wastes valuable time, resources and energy that could otherwise be used to educate children.
Solution No. 3: Focus on Student Achievement, Not Process
We help schools enact proactive processes for conflict avoidance to reach win-win agreements on IEPs. This diminishes the number of disagreements and the associated expenditures of time and money, and enables educators to pursue their true passion: teaching. We help parents understand the challenges educators face, and build bridges of cooperation using a collaborative, rather than confrontational, approach. Importantly, we focus on helping students self-advocate.
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Challenge No. 4: Reduce Students Requiring Special Education
The current system uses an antiquated model that waits for a child to fail, instead of a model based on prevention and intervention. The result is an unnecessary increase in the number of special education students.
Solution No. 4: Use Early Identification, Prevention and Intervention
Research sponsored by OSEP validates our results: early intervention can prevent disabilities or lessen their impact in many children at risk for emotional and behavioral difficulties. We can reduce by 25% the number of students requiring special education through early prevention and intervention methods in regular education classrooms.
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Challenge No. 5: Reduce Special Education Costs
Growing special education needs, tight budgets and teacher shortages are causing significant strains on every school district in America. Total spending used to educate the average student with a disability is an estimated $12,474. This amount includes $8,080 per pupil on special education services and $4,394 on regular education services.
Solution No. 5: Equip Regular Education Teachers to Meet Special Needs First
We can reduce special education costs by 30% by implementing strong, science-based instructional practices in regular education classrooms. By combining unparalleled insight into emotional needs and learning styles with research-based teaching strategies, we proactively meet special instructional needs with regular education first. Special education should be reserved for those who do not respond to general education.
FINANCIAL IMPACT—$200,000 Per School Annually
The average incremental cost of providing special education for one student exceeds $8,000 and requires countless hours of paperwork, not to mention human resources. Conservatively speaking, we can proactively create $200,000 in annual savings for most schools. Now multiply those savings by an entire district.
Using early intervention to prevent just three children in one school from needing special education services yields annual savings of approximately $25,000 each year.
Equipping regular education teachers with research-based instructional methods to reduce special education needs for just one child per classroom saves $8,000. Multiply this amount by 20 classrooms and the savings approach $160,000 annually.
Proactively resolving even two IEP disputes saves countless hours and emotional energy, not to mention tens of thousands of dollars in legal and administrative costs.
EDUCATIONAL IMPACT
Educators and parents will enjoy more cooperative relationships and better performing students. All students will benefit from reinvigorated instruction and classrooms without distractions.
Students with exceptional needs will have the resources necessary to make progress. Students with borderline issues will have their needs met in regular education classrooms.
CONTACT US NOW
If you are ready to transform your classrooms, improve performance for all students, reinvigorate classrooms and save tens of thousands of dollars, please contact us now.
Call either Executive Director Kirk Martin or Education Director Edward Hallsey, Ph.D. at 703-508-7909 for more information. You may also contact us via email at ADHDcamps@aol.com.