Marin City school for autistic kids offers hope, expression to students, parents - Marin IJ - September 19, 2006 Staff Report

Marin City school for autistic kids offers hope, expression to students, parents
Marin IJ
Staff Report


Karen Kaplan, director at Oak Hill School, hugs a student during recess at the school in Marin City. @body Special to the IJ/Kevin Hagen (Special to the IJ/Kevin Hagen)
A COUPLE of kids at Oak Hill School for autistic students are "little professors," 6-year-olds who chat up their teachers with ideas about fundraising and how to save the world.

Other students barely speak at all.

Oak Hill School, in a once-private mansion in Marin City, opened six years ago to help children with developmental challenges and a wide spectrum of autistic disorders.

The school, the only one of its kind in Marin, serves 21 kids ages 5 to 18, many from Marin, several from school districts elsewhere. Most of them are autistic.

They are there to learn how to express themselves in conversation, to handle academic requirements, to master social skills - to learn what it takes to fit into a world that sometimes eludes them.

"We serve a wide range of kids," says Karen Kaplan, executive director. "From Asperger syndrome students with high cognitive abilities, to students with severe learning problems and mild mental retardation."

Autism and Asperger syndrome are among a spectrum of developmental disorders characterized by varying degrees of impairment in communication skills, social interaction and restricted or repetitive behaviors, according to the National Institute of Mental Health.

Oak Hill has 25 employees, 13 full time, many of them specializing in such disciplines as speech therapy, occupational therapy, art therapy, drama therapy and psychological support. "We try to be a one-stop operation," Kaplan says. "But of course, we can't do it all."

The school was begun in 2000 by four sets of parents, weary of taking their children from one after-school therapist to another, and wanting one place where services could be concentrated. One set of the parents bought the 1903 Burgess mansion in Marin City and donated it as a site. The others helped pay for renovations.

The school opened with four children and quickly expanded to 21, which Kaplan says is its capacity.

It is classified as a nonpublic school, accredited by the state to offer a public school curriculum. "We provide a K-12 nondiploma track program," Kaplan says.

John LaLonde, who heads the county's special education local plan area, says 145 school-age kids in Marin have been diagnosed as autistic, the vast majority of whom attend public school, with the rest in nonpublic schools like Oak Hill.

Although Oak Hill is the only such facility in Marin, some autistic Marin kids go to similar schools elsewhere - in Sonoma, Richmond, San Pablo.

LaLonde says autism is on the rise throughout the state, where the incidence rose by 109 percent in the past five years. The diagnosis has not risen that fast in Marin: five years ago, Marin had 95 autistic kids compared with today's 145.

Why the rise? Kaplan, saying, "I am a clinician, not a researcher," takes a stab at an answer: "One, we have better tools to diagnose; two, we recognize that autism is a spectrum of disorders, not just one thing; three, we simply have a bigger population - more kids."

No one knows the causes of autism, although a recent study by the Institute of Psychiatry at King's College in London and Mt. Sinai School of Medicine in New York found that children born to fathers age 40 or older were six times more likely to suffer from autism or related disorders than those whose father was younger than 30.

At any rate, decades ago, researchers let go of the theory that autism had something to do with parental techniques in child-rearing.

Twenty years ago, it was thought that autism occurred in four or five children out of every 10,000. Today, the accepted number is one in every 166 live births.

Kaplan, 54, a resident of Terra Linda, says she knew from the time she was 9 (and saw the movie "The Miracle Worker" about Helen Keller and teacher Annie Sullivan) that she wanted to "be Annie Sullivan and teach kids to communicate."

A graduate of Arizona State University in speech pathology and audiology, she returned to California shortly before the state passed legislation decreeing that all children (regardless of abilities or disabilities) have a right to a free public education. Until then, Kaplan says, autistic students

Advertisement

"pretty much ended up in state hospitals."

A few years later, she opened her own residential school for autistic children, the Kaplan Foundation, in Sacramento, and ran it for 20 years. Five years ago, board members at Oak Hill recruited her to run their school.

Anne Allen, parent of an Oak Hill student, says the school has transformed her child.

Alexander, now 14, had floundered in public school, coping with "neurological impairment" and "developmental delays," she said. "He had no confidence, none." Today, after six years at Oak Hill, he feels successful - "every activity at the school allows for his success."

Now he "self-regulates. He says 'I am handicapped, it is not my fault, but I have to handle it myself.'

"This school is a wonderful place. It saved Alex. It saved our family life."

Parent Lisa Glassberg of Kentfield also sings its praises. Her 15-year-old son, also named Alex, has been at the school for four years, and in that time has learned to "express his own feelings as well as identify feelings in others."

Conversation is often difficult for autistic children, who fail to recognize the signals of body language.

Academically, Oak Hill also has been "great," Glassberg says. Small classrooms and collaborative teaching "are a real key. Alex is totally engaged."

Kaplan says the school curriculum is tied to state standards, but teaching methods differ. Oak Hill teaches experientially: kids learn to communicate through art, to understand human interaction through drama, to comprehend fractions by cooking a pizza.

One little girl, who was able to talk but rarely did, found her voice when she put a puppet on her hand and pretended to be someone else.

In art class, a young boy who had difficulty expressing himself learned to draw what he feels.

"To teach science we chose a program that is multisensory, project-based, experiential," says Kaplan. "It's not just 'sit-and-git.'"

One afternoon a week, the students interact with mainstream youth who come from Tamalpais High and The Branson School to provide recreational experiences - going out for an ice cream, talking about teenage concerns.

"They become role models," Kaplan says. Others come once a month in the evening, often for social experiences off-campus.

Psychology students from College of Marin spend regular hours as observers and assistants in class.

Families get individual support, too. The school's clinical director, a psychologist with a Ph.D. who works with faculty and students, helps families deal with the stresses of having a special-needs child.

Oak Hill's services are not cheap: costs per student run from $45,000 to $65,000 a year, because of the time-intensive nature of the work and to the large number of specialists on staff. "It costs more to do the right thing," Kaplan says.

Tuition for some kids is paid by parents, for others it is paid by school districts that sometimes cannot provide the programs each student needs. More than half of the students come from outside districts - Burlingame, Piedmont, Oakland and even Mendocino.

Alex Glassberg, his mother says, came to Oak Hill after the family had explored every option, public and private: "Oak Hill was kind of the final stop."

What do parents want from Oak Hill?

"Every parent wants something different," says Kaplan. "What they all want is hope - hope that their child can grow and develop academically, socially, physically."

What can parents expect?

"It's my feeling that these children are moving forward every day, and that parents can expect growth and development throughout each child's life."

Contact Beth Ashley via e-mail at bashley@marinij.com