District starts new special ed program

The Tea Area School District is making education a little closer to home for some students this fall.

Special education director Jody Taylor said they started planning the complex high needs program this summer. The program is housed at the District Education Center where they also have their early childhood special education preschool classroom.

“We do have some students currently out of district placements who are going to school at another school that specializes in those high needs. We are hoping that we can build a program just like we did with the autism program a year and a half ago,” Taylor said. “It’s always our end goal to educate the students within the district.”

The complex high needs program targets students with multiple disabilities who need alternate curriculum and programming needs.

Taylor said they identified a few students who would fit the program well and also some preschool students with some of those high needs.

“We just look at how can we fulfill the free and appropriate public education we have and how can we do that within our district. It’s always our end goal to educate our students within their home school and within their home district,” Taylor said. “I’m really happy that we were able to move forward with this.”