New school aims to support students with special needs

Lara Scott was willing to try anything to find the right school for her daughter, Greta.

Greta has epilepsy, auditory processing and sensory disorders, as well as attention and vision issues, her mother said. It’s difficult to find an education institution that could support all of those needs.

“Anything” included leasing a second home in the Phoenix area to enroll Greta at a school she and a special education consultant found.

“We felt that it was something we would regret if we didn’t try,” the mother said. They were encouraged when Greta started showing improvement.

Now Scott, who works in real estate in the Tucson area and frequently has to meet clients here, no longer has to commute hundreds of miles several times a day. The school in Mesa, Pathways, is opening a campus in Tucson after three families, including Scott’s, strongly appealed to the director.

Pathways School, a private school combines individual or small group therapy with individualized learning in a small environment. It will open on Aug. 17 at 3618 E. Pima St.

Parents who have children with special needs often face challenges in finding the appropriate school environment for their children, advocates say. While public school districts are required by federal law to provide individual education plans to those children, they are not always equipped or staffed to provide special services.

At Pathways Tucson, there is only enough room in the small blue building to fit maybe a dozen kids. It’s supposed to be that way, said Debra DeLabio, the school’s director. At maximum, the school would support 20 children. Right now, there are nine children who are registered for the coming school year.

The goal is not to fill as many seats as possible, she said. “Our goal is to help them prepare for a bigger environment.”

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The school is more of a therapeutic center that also provides academic opportunities, she said. It can effectively support students with learning disabilities, speech, orthopedic and mild cognitive impediments, attention deficit disorders, autism and traumatic brain injury.

Services at the school include individualized and small group speech and occupational therapy, assessment and evaluation on the student’s education, cognitive testing, individualized curriculum and lessons on social skills.

At the Tucson campus, Pathways has a state-certified teacher, behavior specialist, speech and language assistant, occupational therapist, speech and language pathologist, counselor and psychologist on staff, DeLabio said.

Each child has his or her own academic, therapy, break and play schedule, she said.

“We are ‘diagnostically teaching,’ ” she said. “There is no one-size-fits-all approach.”

DeLabio said she decided to open a school in Tucson after she became very attached to the three families attending Pathways Mesa from the Tucson area. “I saw the stress and the strain that it was putting on each family,” DeLabio said. Also, her grandson lives here, and it was important to her that all children had access to appropriate education.

The tuition to attend Pathways Tucson is $25,500 a year, she said. While the price tag may seem daunting, DeLabio noted that a majority of the school’s Mesa students are supported by either a full or partial scholarship.

For Scott, Greta’s mother, Pathways coming to Tucson is a “dream come true,” she said

“Society often takes for granted an education,” she said. “You just assume your child would live a typical life. You don’t plan to have these challenges.”