Your Questions Answered

My child has been to several schools. Could changing again hurt them socially?

Switching schools can feel very destabilizing—for your child and you. Parents often move their children hoping to find the right fit, and this takes courage. 

For children with learning differences, we firmly believe that “the school must fit the child, the child cannot be forced to fit the school.” Children who struggle to learn in typical settings often experience emotional trauma, low self-esteem, and stunted learning. Transitions are indeed hard—but our students and parents regularly share that finding the right school far outweighs the fear and short-term worries of transitions. 

We work very diligently to assess if your child will be a good fit and succeed at The Promise School. We take the admissions process very seriously, and our team will partner with you to make an informed decision—always keeping your child’s best interest first.  

Even if we cannot serve you, our admissions team will provide insights, knowledge, and observations to help you find your child’s best school.      

The Promise School is small. How do you work to ensure that students have healthy social engagement? 

This is a very real and legitimate concern.  In our experience, parents worry about this more than the children. We offer this for consideration 

A child who is struggling to learn in a traditional or wrong-fit educational environment—ones that may have more students and a plethora of social outlets--often suffer in silence. Perhaps worse, their social survival skills or good behavior may cause them to be overlooked or pushed along. It is not that classroom size should not be a consideration, it just matters less at pivotal and formative stages of their learning journey—especially for students with learning differences. 

What are the small class environments like?

We offer the following based on our what our team and parents witness

When a child feels safe, in a place where other students like them learn; in a place where expert teachers love teaching; in a place where learning is paced for the individual not the masses; in place where students FINALLY FEEL SUCCESS; in a place where your child can see and feel their progress; in a place where they can express themselves with words, sounds, movement, art, and music….Their world shifts---from a mindset and experience of fear and failure--to one of comfort, belonging, self-confidence, and growth.

What kind of resources, activities, and trips are you able to offer the students?

Our students work hard during instruction, engaging and activating a full range of skills, senses, and new experiences. To complement classroom learning, we offer diverse enrichment. Here are the core components

Daily (supervised) unstructured outdoor play (weather permitting).  Twice weekly, highly curated physical education and functional fitness. More than “gym”, our physical education programming enhances and develops critical developmental and interpersonal skills including balance, core-strength, hand-eye coordination, agility, team building, and sportsmanship. We proudly partner with Rhapsody Fitness 

Weekly, our students enjoy art taught by one of the region’s leading art therapist to help them explore a variety of art techniques and mediums—all aimed at helping them to express their feelings and explore new horizons.  Once a week, our students enjoy music classes to ignite new learning pathways and self-expression. 

On Wednesdays, our students participate in jiu-jitsu fundamentals—this is not a random activity. Experts view “interventions involving physical activity (such as aerobic exercise or yoga practice), as well as organized sports activities (such as soccer or basketball) and martial arts benefit the development of executive skills, as they require children to hold rules and strategies in mind, adapt flexibly to others’ actions, and monitor their own performance and behavior. Physical activity is also critical for getting blood (and therefore oxygen) flowing to the brain and for emotional well-being, which are in turn essential for children’s executive function development”

What curriculums do you use?

We have a robust and curated approach for language-based learning differences. The foundation of our reading and English Language Arts is reading comprehension, grammar, and writing. We use several highly specialized curriculums and approaches chosen specifically for our students: aligned with state and national standards. 

We use the Orton-Gillingham instructional approach (O-G) for teaching dyslexia. The Orton-Gillingham approach is globally recognized as the Gold-Standard for teaching dyslexic learners, based in the science of reading. Importantly, O-G is NOT a curriculum, rather an approach.  O-G is diagnostic and prescriptive, individualized, language-based and alphabetic/phonetic, simultaneous multisensory, direct and explicit, structured, sequential, and cumulative but flexible, synthetic and analytic, cognitive, and an emotionally sound approach. Further description of the O-G principles can be accessed here. 

How do you teach Math?

We employ a multisensory approach mirroring the OG principles.  We also use the Concrete-Representational-Abstract (CRA), which utilizes three levels of support: hands on, tangible materials, drawing and visual models, and finally, numbers and equations. 

Are you an O-G Accredited School?

No.  As we are in our second year, we must first gain accreditation from national or state certification bodies. We are currently an affiliate member of the South Carolina Independent School Association (SCISA) and are pursuing full accreditation with SCISA. 

With the end in mind, achieving O-G Instructional Program Accreditation, we have structured and resourced our programming, staffing, training, oversight, standards, and governance to align with O-G Instructional Program Accreditation.

How do you ensure fidelity to the Orton-Gillingham Approach?

Our teachers are trained and accredited through the Orton-Gillingham Academy and have many years of experience in education and Orton-Gillingham. We provide and invest in on-going professional development throughout the school year and summer months. 

Additionally, we have contracted with Low Country Orton Gillingham Training, LLC to oversee our educational programs, student progress, staff development, admissions, and family training. Low Country Orton-Gillingham Training, located in Charleston, is comprised of Fellow Practitioners—the highest level of O-G Certification. 

Do you serve students with Dysgraphia?

Yes. Dysgraphia is a specific learning difference that affects how well students use written language to express their thoughts. We utilize a multi-sensory approach and OG principles to support our students with Dysgraphia. While handwriting and spelling can be components of dysgraphia it is not simply about handwriting. 

Do you serve students with Dyscalculia?

Yes. Dyscalculia, defined by the Cleveland Clinic, is as a learning difference that affects a one’s ability to do math. Much like dyslexia disrupts areas of the brain related to reading, dyscalculia affects brain areas that handle math and number related skills and understanding. Our teachers, approach, and curriculums are hand-picked to serve our students with Dyscalculia, which also is how teach math to all students because this approach is a best practice and supports our multi-sensory learning approach. 

What if our child needs outside supports and services? 

Many of our students benefit from additional services including speech and language pathology (SLP), occupational therapy (OT), physical therapy (PT), counseling, etc. 

For students with additional services, and with parent consent, we coordinate with their other providers to capture their goals and progress, incorporating elements of these interventions into our students learning plan when appropriate. We also keep an open line with these providers to share our insights from school to help adjust their care plans and interventions. 

Can students have their other providers support them during the school day?

Yes. When possible, we welcome having other professionals service your child during the school day. We know how much this can help to minimize after-school traffic battles, competing school-pickups, and other youth activities. 

Can you help us find other professionals and resources?  

We pride ourselves on partnering with the region’s best evaluators, providers, clinicians, educators etc. We can help to evaluate what types of resources needed (often identified by psycho-ed evals), discuss how they support your child’s learning, make referrals etc. 

What is your philosophy on homework?

Our learners benefit from explicit, consistent, and continuous skill building. We ask our students to read or be read to for a minimum of twenty-minutes per day after school. In addition, our students complete daily homework assignments (Monday-Thursday) to enhance their specific learning needs.   

How can parents help with homework? 

Our students have folders and planners that identify their daily and weekly goals. One of the most important areas of support is reading—listening to them read or reading to them.

Our students work so hard during the school day, and when they get home, they often want to relax and release. As such, we encourage an after-school break before resuming their homework. 

Our Orton-Gillingham Fellows also offer educational seminars to help guide and explain best practices and tips for parents.  

Do you offer tutoring?

For students enrolled in the Promise School, we offer Homework Club. Homework Club is a voluntary after-school program offered Monday through Thursday. In Homework Club, our students work independently with support and guidance from staff as needed.  

Homework club offers many benefits. Our staff can observe and assess what our students retained from daily instruction: this helps our team to evaluate what to target for the next day. When students get home, school is “over” till the next morning! Parents can spend time doing adult things, coaching, relaxing etc.  

How do you communicate with parents on progress, concerns, accomplishments etc. 

Parental communication and involvement are paramount for success. Parents see their student’s homework needs, lessons-plans, and organizational planners daily. 

We have quarterly conferences with the student’s teachers and family to review progress in academic, social, and emotional domains. 

We have robust performance and educational assessments. We work very hard to express and communicate our students’ progress in language that is easily understood by parents without specialized teaching or O-G backgrounds. 

Do you offer summer programming?

Yes, for Promise School students. We believe that our students benefit from near year-round education and skill building. While we are not a year-round school, we offer a month-long program in June (three- hours, four days a week) to maintain and enhance their Math, English-Language Arts, Orton-Gillingham skills. In July, we offer O-G instruction. These are voluntary programs, and for those unable to attend, we provide work packets for self-guided enrichment.   

Do you offer tutoring for students not enrolled in the Promise School?

Not currently. However, please feel free to call or email as we know many of the area’s best and most experienced O-G educators and we can help make introductions. 

What is your approach and philosophy for ADHD medications?

ADHD is more common in dyslexic learners than those without dyslexia. Three to five percent (3%-5%) of the overall school population is estimated to have ADHD. For students with a dyslexia diagnosis, upwards of 30% of students have ADHD. 

The decision whether children take ADHD medication is a personal, family decision—and we fully respect a family’s choice. We have some students who take the medication and others who do not. If requested, we help parents to evaluate the pros and cons of these and other types of medications as it relates to their child’s learning at The Promise School. 

Do you have a school nurse?

Brandie D’Orazio, Head of School, is a Registered Nurse in South Carolina. She has deep clinical experience in critical care and trauma. Also, having cared for her son Leo who was highly medically complex, she is very well versed in pediatric and adolescent health needs. She provides nursing support as needed and administers prescription medication upon parent request for students who need it during school hours.    

Do you work with students on executive functioning? 

Our programming is rich with intentional skill building to help our students enhance their executive functioning skills. Executive functioning is a key developmental skill for students and these skills do not always develop linearly. According to experts, “in some children, executive function issues present as trouble with impulse control, tantrums, and difficulty in self-regulating emotions. For others, challenges with school organization, time management, and remembering instructions are more visible. Adolescents who struggle with executive function often have a very difficult time reaching independence and making plans for the future”

We help to build these skills in many ways, and here are some examples: 

• Organizing key activities, assignments, and dates in their daily organizational planners

• Utilizing step-by-step checklists

• Learning how to manage each class with a system of color-coded folders

• Explicit guidelines for desk and locker organization

• Rules and procedures for door/building entry and exit. 

How do you support students with self-regulation? 

For students with language-based learning differences, conflict and self-regulation can be more difficult because of how they understand, interpret or process information spoken language. As such, we help them identify triggers and engage in pro-active solutions. To help be our best with self-regulation approaches, we partner with Powerfully You for staff training and student programming. Additionally, our art, music, and physical education provide integrated and complementary skills. But perhaps the student and staff favorite may be weekly visits from our therapy dog, Finn, a loveable, soft fluffy Great Pyrenees.