When the mainstream classrooms no longer could accommodate Myles Lancaster’s seemingly erratic behavior, the 10-year-old with the 148 IQ enrolled in a remedial program where he was taught below grade level.
And every day, bored into hating school, Myles dreaded going.
But Irvine Unified School District didn’t know what else to do with a student like Myles, his mom said. He was clearly too gifted for traditional special education classes, yet a hidden learning disability was causing him to act out, essentially excluding him from the gifted courses.
That challenge was not unique to Irvine Unified, and educators have coined a name for these types of students: twice exceptional.
These children are exceptional in their intelligence but also in their needs. A 1997 Journal of Learning Disabilities article called twice-exceptional students “the most misunderstood of all exceptionalities.” And for Orange County parents with one of these children, there have been few classrooms, if any, that could adequately educate them at both ends of the spectrum.
Until now.
Reid Day School opened Sept. 9 in Costa Mesa as the first “2e” school in Orange County and one of only two dozen nationwide. And Myles, now a fifth-grader, is one of only 13 children attending the private, nonprofit academy, which offers grades 1-6.
“These students are operating in a world that can’t keep up with them,” said Lisa Reid, the school’s founder, educational therapist and director of curriculum and instruction. “Their families have been through a really tough experience by the time they’ve found us.”
All of Reid’s students have learning disabilities. All have been bullied extensively at their previous schools. And all, if coaxed and fostered, have abilities nearing genius.
Flexible education
The 9-year-old girl with the 10th-grade reading level is crouched atop her swivel chair, spinning rapidly. Next to her, the 8-year-old boy with the high school-level verbal comprehension is standing, doing the same. Facing the board, their math teacher doesn’t notice. But even when she turns, it’s no big deal.
“Let’s brainstorm!” teacher Sharon Thayer exclaims.
This morning, the kids are testing out cars they constructed from classroom materials – straws, tape and bottle caps make up the body, and balloons propel the small vehicles. It’s a lesson in engineering, resourcefulness, planning, the scientific method, persistence and math all rolled into one project. But before they can launch their cars, the kids must understand the concept of rate.
Miles per hour won’t work for cars this small, Thayer points out. How can we adjust?
“Inches per second!” the girl says calmly, midspin, without stopping. The boy, still twirling, disagrees. Should they consider measuring in milliseconds or nanoseconds? It’s a debate.
Reid Day is more forgiving of behaviors that would get a child booted from a mainstream classroom. If a kid has trouble sitting still, teachers will encourage him to focus, but the educators recognize the action doesn’t necessarily mean the student is distracted from the lesson. If a kid is having a tough day, there are plenty of rooms in the 3,200-square-foot school – tucked away in a winding, east-side office park – where the student can regroup with a solo activity in his or her preferred subject.
“We let them be themselves,” Reid said. “There is structure here, but we’re flexible … We teach them self-regulation and awareness as well.”
But Reid Day’s backbone really derives from its understanding of students’ neuropsychological profiles and the tools it has to help kids excel despite their shortcomings. The school is backed by a team of psychologists, speech pathologists, developmental optometrists, audiologists, counselors and educational therapists that helps parents finally understand why their child is struggling and helps educators understand how to teach around those issues.
One child, upon arrival at Reid Day, could not write legibly or at normal speeds because of fine-motor skills problems, which led previous teachers to think the student was lazy. Instructors at Reid responded by developing assessments that could be answered concisely and by introducing the student to a computer program that anticipates word choice so the user doesn’t have to type as much.
For another child with intense anxiety and attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, Reid divided assignments into small sections and gave the student a balancing board to teeter upon during class.
Within a week of Myles Lancaster’s start at Reid Day, the staff discovered he likely has auditory processing issues, making it difficult for him to understand spoken words as other kids do. That led to miscommunications that sometimes led to his misbehavior.
Now, by shortening verbal explanations and making time for weekly counseling sessions, his classroom tantrums and anxiety mostly have disappeared.
“All he needed was for someone to appreciate the kind of kid he is,” said Cher Lancaster, Myles’ mom. “The light went out of his eyes for three years. And now it’s back. Every day, he can’t wait to get to school.”
Adaptation
The concept of twice-exceptional kids has been around for about 20 years, but identification remains rare because many educators don’t know the classification exists, let alone how to spot one. Likewise, no information exists on the number of students who meet the definition.
Connie Kasari, a UCLA professor of human development who researches interventions of autistic schoolchildren, said public schools have a responsibility to teach all students but have been slow to adapt to the needs of 2e children.
“It’s unfortunate for these kids,” Kasari said. “Certainly we have great teachers in public schools. But we also have some teachers who are not trained, who are not able to recognize the very specific needs and who cannot accommodate and adapt to kids who are somewhat different.”
According to “2e: Twice-Exceptional Newsletter,” a bimonthly electronic journal containing news and resources for families of twice-exceptional students, only five public school districts nationwide have programs for 2e children. The newsletter also lists five states that provide written resources for educators to learn about 2e students, but California is not one of them.
In April, the U.S. Department of Education issued a memo addressing the dearth of public education resources for 2e students by instructing state officials to “remind each (school district) of its obligation to evaluate all children, regardless of cognitive skills.” Department staff later said it wrote the memo in response to numerous complaints from special education instructors, who voiced concern that public schools were hesitant to even evaluate gifted students for special education services.
When asked about Myles’ experience at Irvine Unified, school district spokeswoman Annie Brown said she could not discuss student information. “IUSD is equipped to serve a wide range of students, including special needs and gifted students,” Brown said. “The district offers robust courses, programming, services and resources to support each student’s unique learning needs.”
Lisa Reid said she does not fault schools for failing to accommodate 2e kids, calling it “logistically impossible for most schools to implement.” As a private school teacher a decade ago, Reid said she remembered missing signs of twice-exceptionalism in two of her troubled students simply because she had never heard the term.
“I hope (Reid Day) is obsolete in a couple years, because there is enough understanding of these kids,” Reid said.
She doubts that will happen. The resources the $22,000-per-year school provides are so comprehensive that it would be difficult for public schools to match, she said. (Reid Day also offers part-time tuition and scholarships.)
But the young kids at Reid Day eventually will need to move on, and the school’s job is, in part, teaching them to function in mainstream schools and society.
For now, Myles is happy where he is. He has become best friends with Reid Day’s other students, calling them “my people.”
“At the other schools, I couldn’t find any friends,” Myles said. “The other teachers didn’t care about me much … I like it here.”
Shortly after math class, at lunch, one boy takes two pieces of salami and places them on the face of a stuffed pig. The kids giggle and whoop in response until their communication devolves into a series of inside jokes. Pretty soon they’re outside, throwing around a Frisbee, playing freely, their anxieties and differences lost in the moment.
Contact the writer: 714-796-7960 or jgraham@ocregister.com
