Schools

Therapeutic School Expands, Adds Younger Grade Level

Sage Day staffers in Mahwah say a demand from the community prompted their decision to add the fourth grade to the school's offerings.

A therapeutic school in Mahwah is adding another grade level, thanks to what educators and therapists at the school say is a demand from the community.

Sage Day is a special education alternative school system that operates middle and high schools throughout northern NJ. Its middle school campus is in Mahwah.

Previously, the school offered a therapeutic learning program to fifth through eighth graders. Starting in the 2013-14 school year, it will be adding fourth graders to its lineup.

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“We were getting a lot of calls from [both school districts and parents] asking what options were out there for younger kids, third and fourth graders,” Alison Hipscher, the school’s clinical director, said. “We didn’t want to compromise what we have, but it was becoming pretty apparent that the needs of the community were expanding to include younger students.”

Sage Day currently has about 35 students who take a full academic course load, but also therapy sessions throughout the week at school. Students receive individual, group, and family therapy sessions built into their school days. Small class environments are also suited for catering to learning through emotional issues, Hipscher said.

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“Our students have emotional needs that interfere with their ability to be effective learners [in a typical school environment],” she said. “The structure here is flexible. We are teaching the kids how to self-regulate their emotions, and acquire the coping skills to work through their emotions. That’s something they don’t have the ability to do when they get here.”

The school is now accepting applications for a new fourth grade class. It anticipates accepting about five students, who will be added to a restructured class that combines the fourth and fifth grade students at the school. According to Principal John Immerman, the merged environment will be able to both address the individual needs of each grade level, while still acclimating the school’s youngest attendees to its structure.

Though students in older grades switch classes throughout the day, the fourth and fifth grade classes are self-contained.

“We already had the model built,” Immerman said. “Adding fourth graders made sense.”

The principal said the school on Darlington Avenue does not have further plans to add more students or expand its facility.

“Educationally, we do not have the expertise to go lower,” he said of the seven-teacher school. “We don’t have any current plans [for further expansion].”

Kids go through a screening process that school officials say is extensive, and includes cooperation from Sage Day, students’ families, and their home school districts. Students generally attend the school as out-of-district placements, but can be enrolled privately by parents. The school’s new fourth graders will go through a process to make sure that Sage Day is the right fit for them before they enroll, school officials say.

“I think it’s a great thing anytime to be able to provide assistance to a child,” Hipscher said. “The earlier you do that, the better. We can’t physically grow much larger, but to be able to open this up to more kids and fill a need without compromising what we already do is a great thing.”

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