Education
The school curriculum offered at the Merck Center is based on the Massachusetts Curriculum Frameworks and the individual needs of our students. With support from the principal and assistant principal, teachers work to design units and lessons that increase skills and knowledge both through group activities and one to one tutoring sessions. Small class sizes (no more than ten students per class and often as few as five) allow teachers to gain a profound understanding of your daughter’s skills and deficits and modify and enhance lessons accordingly. Our core subjects are augmented by elective classes including art, culinary arts and physical education.
Individual, bi-monthly meetings between teachers and students promote progress on students’ academic goals. During this time teachers work one-on-one with students to review the quality of their work and grades. When warranted, teachers arrange for one of our tutors to meet with students after school for extra academic support.
The Merck Center has a teacher dedicated to working with students to prepare for the next step after high school. Often this includes preparing the students for the SAT, exploring post-secondary learning opportunities on the Internet, bringing students to a college fair or college tour. Depending on the student’s goals, it could also include setting up volunteer and/or employment opportunities in the community or exploring other vocational options. Our teacher works with parents and other members of the treatment team to ensure a collaborative transition planning process.
To meet the needs of students who struggle with executive functioning skills, experts at the Research Institute for Learning and Development have provided Merck Center teachers with group and individual consultation and training in the area of executive functioning. Through these trainings and consultations, we are able to incorporate an extensive array of individualized tools and strategies into our daily work with students that are designed to support their success and skill-building across all components of their treatment at the Merck Center.
Bringing state of the art learning opportunities to the students is a high priority at the Merck Center, so we work hard to maintain relationships with esteemed institutions such as the Museum of Science and Harvard Extension School. The Museum of Science collaborates with our teachers to implement state of the art science curricula both on site and during our visits to the Museum’s wet lab and exhibits. Students who require or request classes not currently offered at the Merck Center have access to college-level classes at the Harvard Extension School, just minutes from our campus.