HARTLAND, Wis. — A Hartland school is working to start a new program to help neurodivergent children. When students return to University Lake School in the fall, the school will offer a new program to seamlessly integrate help for neurodivergent children into the classroom.
“Our son was having learning challenges and we had to try to navigate that road,” said Lauren Falk, the mother of a neurodivergent child.
Her son Jordan, now six-years-old, had been struggling in school. When they tried to get a diagnosis from health experts, they were met with waiting lists that were between a year and 18 months. They ended up going to another state to find answers for him.
“It is a combination of a processing disorder and an attention disorder and a language processing disorder,” said Falk.
They turned to his private school, University Lake School for help.
“I was asking them to do things that they might not traditionally do because private schools aren’t as used to having that diverse student need because a lot of those students are being supported in a public school setting,” said Lauren Falk. “But they were open and understanding to it
Their push lead the school to create a program for all types of neurodiverse kids.
“That includes all diagnosis that have become pretty mainstream, dyslexia, dyscalculia, ADHD, anxiety. Particularly post pandemic these are all diagnosis that have ballooned,” said John Dewis, head of school for University Lake School.
He says along with now dedicating teachers and resources so other parents don’t have go to the lengths the Falks went to for help. They also want their school to be a place that celebrates neurodivergent students.
“We consider it to be a good thing. We expect students, that a high achieving population of students who are notorious for thinking outside the box at ULS will correlate highly with those kinds of needs,” said Dewis.
“For us, it is more that all these kids are everyday kids and they just kind of learn differently,” said Falk.
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