FAQs
“The [Springboard] team gave my family consistency, honest feedback, practical advice, exceptional modeling, an opportunity to talk with others who get it, and a safe place where meltdowns were considered learning opportunities.”
- Alumni Parent
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Is my child a good fit for The Springboard School?
Students at The Springboard School have a variety of developmental challenges, including communication and learning disorders, ADHD, emotional and behavioral problems, selective mutism, and high functioning autism. Our students are bright, but often lack the social skills and behavioral regulation of their peers. Through our therapeutic program, our students learn to make friends, listen to the teachers, and regulate their behaviors accordingly.
How does Springboard help each student's whole family?
We have been a parent-child program for over 40 years, with parents and caregivers joining us in person in the classroom on a regular basis. Parent involvement is a crucial part of our program so parents can internalize what their child is learning at school and integrate these important lessons into their homes and communities. Because of COVID, parents and caregivers are not allowed in our classroom in person, but remain an integral part of our program. Weekly parent counseling is now done by Zoom and we have instituted weekly individual meetings between each parent and all of their child’s therapists and teachers, also by Zoom. When a child is part of our program, we are proud to help both the child and his or her entire family.
What makes The Springboard School curriculum unique? How is Springboard's program different from the services I can get at my public school for free?
While local districts do offer occupational therapy and speech and language therapy, Springboard combines these therapies with our comprehensive social skills curriculum , which is central to our language-based classroom. Our students are bright, and thrive when given the opportunity to integrate therapeutic practices into our unique classroom experience, which focuses primarily on social skills and emotional and behavioral regulation. In addition, there is no other therapeutic classroom program that involves parents like Springboard does. We equip parents to integrate what their children learn in school into their homes and communities as well. Our lessons incorporate puppet and role play, pictures, scripts, stories, and graphic organizers so the children are taught directly how to play, socialize, and regulate their emotions and behaviors. We meet each child where they are to help them reach their full potential and provide a strong foundation for mainstream success.
What types of schools do your students attend after graduating Springboard?
In most cases, our students graduate from Springboard ready to join a mainstream or inclusive kindergarten or first grade classroom at either a public or private school. Some of our students benefit from continued related services as needed. At Springboard, we equip them with the communication, socialization, and emotional and behavioral regulation skills to succeed in elementary school, middle school, high school, and beyond. Our program was founded in 1978, and we have had decades of alumni succeed in both academic and professional settings after getting the right foundation at our school.