Education
The Germaine Lawrence school curriculum 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 each student’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’ IEP goals and transition plans. Additionally, teachers take advantage of the focused time to review the quality of students’ work and grades. When warranted, teachers arrange for one of our tutors to meet with students after school for extra academic support.
Germaine Lawrence has a teacher dedicated to working with students to prepare for life after high school. Specifically, she monitors students’ transition plans and implements interventions and goals outlined by the IEP team. Often this includes preparing the students for the SAT; exploring post-secondary learning opportunities on the Internet or by bringing them to a college fair or tour; setting up volunteer and/or employment opportunities in the community; etc. Our teacher works with parents and other members of the treatment team to ensure a collaborative transition planning process.
A high number of students who come to Germaine Lawrence struggle with executive functioning skills. These numerous and diverse but overlapping skills include:
- Inhibition: the ability to stop one's own behavior at the appropriate time, including stopping actions and thoughts
- Emotional Control: the ability to modulate emotional responses by bringing rational thought to bear on feelings
- Initiation: the ability to begin a task or activity and to independently generate ideas, responses, or problem-solving strategies
Experts at the Research Institute for Learning and Development have provided the Germaine Lawrence 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 Germaine Lawrence.
Bringing state of the art learning opportunities to the students is a high priority at Germaine Lawrence, 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 Germaine Lawrence School have access to college-level classes at the Harvard Extension School, just minutes from our campus.