Staten Island charter school program designed for students with dyslexia, other learning disabilities inspires change
NEW YORK -- As children head back to school this fall, there's a charter school program catering to children with learning disabilities that is inspiring change in the New York City school system.
Since its inception, Bridge Prep Charter School has been focused on innovative programming.
"What we've seen is miraculous," the school's executive director, Tim Castanza, told CBS2's Alecia Reid.
Castanza says this is the first school in New York state designed to serve children with dyslexia and other learning disabilities.
"We have students that come to us multiple levels behind, and when they get instruction the way that they need it, when they come to a community that welcomes them, school feels different for them," he said.
Change doesn't happen overnight, but over the last four years, enrollment has skyrocketed at the Staten Island school and there's a growing waitlist. Teachers receive ongoing in-person training to incorporate explicit language and structure.
"And works with our teachers during the week to do mentoring, model teaching, planning support and coaching," Castanza said.
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The program in Staten Island has been highly successful, and now the New York City Department of Education is implementing a similar pilot program in the Bronx.
That's thanks to the Literacy Academy Collective, a group of parents whose children are dyslexic. They want other public school students to thrive.
"There will be three periods of ELA per day: decoding, encoding and a lot of comprehension work on read alouds," said collective member Emily Hellstrom.
A summer program for dyslexic children showed promising results, and now, the first DOE New York City public school pilot will be at Public School 161.
"I know how often these ... learning disabilities will go undiagnosed, especially in younger children," collective member Akeela Azcuy said.
RELATED STORY: Addressing dyslexia early changes brain's neurobiology for better, special education expert says
Shay Johnson's 8-year-old son, Jay, has not been diagnosed, but he's not reading at grade level.
"I've been kind of fighting for him because nobody else is fighting for him," Johnson said.
He took part in the summer program. She says there was some improvement, and he is now enrolled in the fall pilot.
"I just wanna see progression. I wanna see improvements with the staff, with my son, just with everything," Johnson said.
The school chancellor says the goal is to implement this program to all schools and could be a model for the rest of the nation.
