Special Services Classes

Students in our LAP program have been tested and demonstrate a mild to moderate learning disability. Most possess normal to superior intellectual potential, but have experienced chronic failure in one or more of the basic academic skills due to the learning disability. For example, some have experienced inordinate difficulty acquiring reading and written language skills, while others have had significant problems learning computation or mathematics concepts.

The goals of the program are to maximize student’s success: raising achievement, self-esteem, personal responsibility, and social awareness to levels fully consistent with each student's scholastic, athletic, social and emotional potential.

Students in this program work on the Alberta Curriculum appropriate for our age level but their output will be individualized based on their level of abilities. In this sense the courses in this program are highly individualized. Students are placed on an Individualized Program Plan (IPP). The IPP is reviewed by the teacher with the parent at least three times over the course of a school year in addition to the four issued report cards and two parent-student-teacher conferences. As a result of the individualization, the class sizes are significantly reduced (12 to 18 students) and whenever possible an instructional aide is assigned to the class. To the casual observer the only difference between an LAP class and a regular class is class size as the students follow the same curriculum (and learning activities such as dissecting cow eyes) and the same type of time table as the other classes.

Following one of the tenants of Middle School Philosophy, the students are taught in core groupings which mean the teacher for Language Arts is also the Social Studies teacher and the teacher for Mathematics and Science is also the same teacher. Where we can, we arrange the timetable so that all four core courses are with the same teacher. Given our 6 period day, 4 of the periods are core classes are taught by the students' core teachers (same teachers) with the other 2 periods scheduled as Phys. Ed. and the complementary courses.

Students in this program are advanced to the next grade level based on age and maturity as opposed to mastery of the curriculum. Each year the student is taken from where they stand academically, socially, emotionally and physically and provided opportunities to grow as much as possible in all four areas.

The LAP students are not measures against other students as they are in an individualized program and their achievement and success is measured against their own benchmarks. Since our students are not in competition with the rest of the students in a class of up to thirty students with no learning disabilities they are no longer the bottom of the class and receive a large boost to their self-esteem. We focus on improving the students own abilities and enhancing coping mechanisms for success in the real world. For many students our program is the first positive experience they have had in school in a long time. As a result they become much happier with themselves, are more excited to come to school and exhibit increased self-esteem.

In order to qualify for placement in our LAP program a student has to have diagnostic assessments that would meet the criteria for entrance into the program. If you do not currently attend a school in our District and are interested in having your child attend our program you are required to contact the Director of Psychological Services at Central Office (403-5286731).