Summer program aims to help neurodiverse kids find their strengths - vtdigger.org

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Elementary school students head back to class after lunch and recess at the Coventry Village School on Thursday, September 5, 2019. Photo by Glenn Russell/VTDigger

Eighth- and ninth-graders with learning disabilities in the Northeast Kingdom can apply for a new summer program designed to set them on a path toward college.

The free support project for neurodiverse students — those with learning, intellectual or developmental disabilities — is slated to launch later this month. 

The Northeast Kingdom Neuroabilities Convergence Project will be run by the Hardwick-based nonprofit Vermont Learning-Support Initiative. 

Brad Smith, the group’s executive director, said the summer school program is “an opportunity to begin to think a little bit outside of the box in terms of how we might work to help a group of students who have been marginalized in traditional education.”

The inaugural program has two planned one-week sessions: One July 26 through July 30 at the Grass Roots Art and Community Effort Center in Hardwick between July 26, and another Aug. 2 through Aug. 6 at the Lyndon Outing Club in Lyndonville.

The project aims to help neurodiverse students develop the skills they need to pursue a post-secondary education. 

“We’re trying to give them strategies, tools and basically a general sense that they can do it if they want to — that it’s okay to be different,” Smith said.

The goal is to help students see their strengths, cope with challenges and find camaraderie. 

Organizers focused on eighth- and ninth-graders because the transition into high school can spur uncertainty, particularly for neurodiverse students who are most anxious and most at risk, Smith said.

Kathryn Whitaker, who works with students with autism and neurodevelopmental disabilities in the North Country Supervisory Union, said she organized a similar experience for a small group of students going into seventh grade.

“We taught them about their neurodiversity, we helped them explore their own neurodiversity and we helped them with ways that they could advocate for themselves,” Whitaker said.

Kids with neurodiversities need to know how to tell others what they need to best study and learn, she said.

Helping those students while they’re in middle or high school “gives them a few years of practice saying, ‘I need more time. I need technology to write, need a quiet space, need frequent breaks,” she said.

According to 2019 data from the New England Secondary School Consortium, 40% of students with disabilities in New England completed college, compared to 67% of students without disabilities. Outcomes data for students with disabilities wasn’t broken down at the state-level. 

Smith’s nonprofit is hosting the program in the Kingdom because he says the region is “a traditionally under-resourced and underserved” area of Vermont.

“The feeling we have is, if it’ll work in the Kingdom, it’ll work anywhere,” he said. “The obstacles are numerous, such as the socioeconomic disadvantage, the transportation issues, the lack of educational achievement.”

With small, rural schools in spread apart communities, it can be hard for neurodiverse students to find a sense of community with others experiencing similar challenges, Whitaker said. 

“You can’t do that if you’re the only kid; you can’t be part of a community by yourself,” she said. “So bringing kids together with the permission to talk about (their experience), gives that opportunity to them to stop faking it, to allow their authentic selves to not only exist but to be appreciated.”

Newport consultant Sunny Naughton, who is leading the two sessions with Old Stone House Museum assistant director Drew Bush, said she’d never seen a program like this in the Kingdom outside traditional schools. 

The project is partly sponsored by the Lyndon Outing Club and Greensboro’s Rural ARTS Collaborative, with other funding from the Vermont COVID-19 Response Fund of the Vermont Community Foundation, the Vermont Department of Labor and local businesses and donors. 

Applications so far have been “light,” Smith said, and he is encouraging more students to apply. There are 12 slots for each one week session.

The program this summer, he said, will be a pilot for future sessions.

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Summer program aims to help neurodiverse kids find their strengths - vtdigger.org
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