The Gap School, Sarasota, Florida_Positive Changes Magazine

Recently Printed in Positive Changes Magazine, Mary 2007
By Amy F. Weinberger, CEO/President of The GAP School &
Yvette Portillo, Parent with a Child at The GAP School

Two families from different worlds, backgrounds and religions, but one uniting factor – sons with special needs. Having a child in a special needs school was not necessarily the dream that either of us had when we were each pregnant with our sons. Like most of us, we dreamed of a child that would be best at everything or most everything. That was not the case...

We each spent many years researching, talking to doctors, interviewing schools, reading books, and conversing with other parents to try to cope and find help to address our sons’ needs academically, cognitively, developmentally, emotionally, and socially. Because each of us believed that if we were given a child with special needs, there had to exist a special solution.

Probably the most emotional component of raising a special needs kid is the lack of support that you personally feel from society in general. When you are just getting started on this road, it is lonely. “Socially, I would feel self-conscious when asked what grade my son was in or when I would hear comments about how weird my son is,” says Yvette Portillo, mother of Max (diagnosis of autism). Then, through another parent, I found The GAP School three years ago.

Portillo comments, “After telling Amy F. Weinberger, the Founder and current CEO/President of The GAP School, about another kid calling my son weird, she told me that all of our kids are a little weird. All of the adults that she knows are a little weird. Weird can be good because it helps you create new solutions. It is all about perspective, Amy says.”

Perspective is just one of the many reasons that The GAP School, a 501(c)(3) organization was born. After 14 years of intervention work at The Thinking Center, it was our perspective that intervention for students could happen in a full day of school so families could have a life after school. Parents of special needs children are always driving somewhere for a service because we keep looking for answers. So, The GAP School created a one-stop shop environment where daily interventions are available. They include occupational therapy, language and reading intervention, auditory processing training, cognitive and social training, as well as, the sciences and humanities. Three years later, The GAP School has evolved into a place where children succeed, parents and students see progress, and personal learning goals are reached. Children are actively involved in retraining, refocusing, and reconnecting themselves with their own learning potentials. It is a remarkable intervention school that places children back into public schools, as well as, private schools after an average two year stay.

The GAP School population is currently made up of 25% emotionally disabled students, 25% developmental delayed students, 17.5% high functioning autistic or Asperger’s spectrum students, 20% with an AD/HD diagnosis which includes children with high I.Q.’s and slow brain processors, 7% who have CAPD (Central Auditory ProcessingDisorder) and 5% who are truly dyslexic. These percentages represent a primary concern, however, it is very common, for example, for a dyslexic student to experience a tremendous amount of anxiety which is an emotional or psychological disorder.

The GAP School is about positive change from many perspectives. Students who star with disorder, disorganization, disorientation, immaturity and a range of unstable emotions end with order, organization, reorientation, maturity and stable emotions. A primary goal is to start each school year with the end in mind – shifting perspectives of the students and the parents or caregivers from negative outcomes to positive ones.

The daily challenge of parents, teachers, and other caregivers is to offer the students the appropriate structure and intervention so that they can experience breakthroughs in their learning. The GAP School staff knows and understands a student’s strength versus weakness. The key to a student’s success is being able to give a student the time to solve
their problems from his own perspective. “The learning process cannot be reactive but proactive for our students and our parents,” says Weinberger.

The philosophies of The GAP School are embedded in Howard Gardner’s Multiple Intelligence model and Dr. Mel Levine’s Neurodevelopmental Construct Model. When the teaching team, students and families understand the student’s strengths and challenges, the outcomes are more realistic. At The GAP School students start out with a multi-talented label instead of a learning disability label.

So, there is a special place, finally, for a kid with special learning needs from an academically, cognitively, developmentally, emotionally, and socially perspective. “The school has not only enhanced my son's life but mine as well. Because of the work that is done on a daily basis at The GAP School, I can have conversations with my son that I had given up on having,”reports Yvette. “I have seen results in other kids that I've known that I never thought were possible but the staff at The GAP School makes it happen.”

You can support the work of The GAP School in the following ways: purchasing remarkable note cards or artwork made by the students, attending the upcoming “An Evening with Mark Twain ‘Round the CampFire” at Myakka State Park on April 12, 2007 or by making a tax-deductible donation directly to the school.

If you have a story or experience with a child who has learning disabilities and needs to experience healing and positive changes from a different perspective, perhaps you will consider making an appointment with The GAP School Director, Lori Stephens, M.A. Re-enrollment for the 2007-2008 year is upon us. The GAP School is a McKay Scholarship recipient school. We can help get your child and your family back on track.

Amy F. Weinberger is the CEO/President of The GAP School. For more information, go
to www.thegapschool.org or call 941.924.6373.

"The GAP School does not discriminate in any way on the basis of race, religion,
or creed with respect to admissions, student privileges, facultyor scholarships."
The GAP School is a 501(c)(3) organization.
The GAP School is a McKay Scholarship participant in the state of Florida.

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