Pulling back the curtain: How are admissions decisions made?; Korina Martin, Director of Admissions

One day you may find yourself looking for a new school for your child. If your child struggles in a traditional school setting or already has been diagnosed with a learning disability, you may find yourself exploring special education schools. It’s a daunting task, families often finding out they don’t know what they don’t know yet, but one question I often get is, “How do you decide to accept a student?” Many families reading this are now part of the LPS community and have now gone through this process, and likely have some understanding. Other families reading this might be in the midst of applying to schools wondering where they should apply, how to know if it’s a good fit, and wondering how the school knows they can support their child. Averaging around 125 applications a year, we have molded a system that gets to this. I want to “pull back the curtain” and share exactly how we get to that very question - how decisions are made including who is involved, what we evaluate, and what steps we take to provide due diligence before sending that acceptance letter.

The paperwork

To apply to Learning Prep, we first ask you to submit a hefty amount of paperwork, including:  the parent application, a parent statement, neuropsychological testing, school testing, IEP, progress reports, and anything else a parent has that would help us understand their child’s needs. We also connect with 2 educators who know your child well and they will complete a questionnaire to provide additional feedback. If you’re wondering if we really read everything, yes, we really do! We are looking at: 

• cognitive profile 

• diagnostic profile

• classroom presentation 

• current IEP goals and benchmarks

• social presentation

• current academic performance

• speech & language, OT, counseling and AT needs

The admissions committee is made up of myself, Kurt Moellering (Head of School), Amy Davis (Principal) and Cate Wilson (Chief Operating Officer). We meet weekly and discuss every applicant and referral that comes in. Our guiding questions are always:

1. Is there a language-based reason for the student to come to LPS?

2. Based on the information we have, do we believe they will make progress here?

If these questions guide us to “yes,” then we offer an interview.

The interview

The interview is a one-hour visit attended by me and Principal Amy. It’s pretty informal, but we want a chance to interact with your child. We ask simple questions like what’s their favorite class, what’s their favorite lunch, what they like or don’t like about school, etc. We are looking to see how they interface with us, how they manage the meeting part of the visit, and their attention. Even though many students are quite nervous, in this short visit, we often see personality shine through, which helps us start to think about the social fit and peer cohort. Do we have students who present (socially) like your child, will they find friends here? That, along with giving them a chance to see our environment and the other students here, is the purpose of this visit. If all goes well on both ends, we typically like to have students come back for a visit day (or two).

The visit day

During the visit day(s), your child will have a regular schedule, and walk through a day-in-the-life of a typical LPS student. For the student it’s the best way to see how it feels different than their current school. They interface with teachers to see how they teach, and meet the kids and see if they feel they might have connections. For us, this is the chance for our “boots on the ground” (teachers) to see your child in-vivo, in our setting. How do they respond to the pace of the class? How do they interact with other students? Can they attend for the whole period? How much prompting or support do they need? Would they be a positive member in our community? These are all questions that our teachers are answering as they interact with your child and consider if we can support them. After the visit, the staff report their feedback and observations, which gets cycled back to our Admissions Committee for review.

The decision - how do we know if it’s a fit?

At this point, we have a lot of information - reports, evaluations, references and observations. Each piece provides an important piece to the “puzzle.” We ask ourselves, Can we meet the child’s needs both academically and social-emotionally. If yes, then an acceptance letter is headed your way! That’s the best case scenario, but it’s not always the case. Sometimes it’s “Yes, but…” when some pieces are a fit but not others. When this happens, we will be transparent and let you know. We know that as you explore schools, some will check boxes that others don’t, and you will have different priorities for your child. We believe it’s important for you to know what components fit (or don’t), so you can make the best decision for your child.

At the end of the day, finding the right school for your child is an incredibly overwhelming task. There are a lot of unknowns, the one at the forefront being “Where can my child thrive and be happy?”. We want this for your child, too - that’s why Learning Prep exists. As you engage in this journey, we will likely not have all the answers, and it may not always be the perfect fit, but at the very least, you will have an ally in this challenging process.