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and I would get upset about it and messed up,

and we would do it for an hour,

and it would be really stressful.

Made it obvious to everyone.

Sometimes I wouldn't get any help,

but the others would.

They shut me out.

It was a lot harder.

They didn't explain stuff.

So it was very hard

and not very easy to understand.

I almost always had to get help.

"He's different, be nice.

Treat 'em like a smaller person."

I had a lot of trouble with reading.

It made me feel very sad.

It was just hard

and I didn't understand any of it.

It was just very hard

and it was very frustrating.

The counting and the numbers

and the like adding stuff,

it's really hard for me.

- Dyslexia, it affects one in every five people,

yet few understand what it is.

Many go undiagnosed.

Dyslexia can be a burden that sentences students

to failure in school, feelings of inadequacy,

and frustration in life.

They are unable to
learn through common educational methods.

Nearly 20% of our students have dyslexia,

but our public school system has done little

to help these children.

- Dyslexia is a language-based learning disability

that is neurological in origin.

Dyslexia is not always easy to identify in students,

because there are multiple characteristics

that must be investigated thoroughly in order

to make the diagnosis.

- Dyslexia is neurologically based,

so that's all in your brain,

and it's how they process language,

and so these kids can be really good at sports.

They could be really good at music.

They could be really good at art,

but their counterparts,

who aren't dyslexic
could also have those same abilities

as well, and those same strengths.

It's when it comes to anything that's language based,

like your reading,
your writing, your spelling, your math,

that you start seeing the differences on paper.

- Simply put,

the student has difficulty associating the sound

to the symbol to read words.

It can also be demonstrated in terms
of listening to words,

reading words, writing words, and enunciating words,

so there are multiple different platforms

where dyslexia can be exhibited.

In 1877, a German physician

named Adolf Kussmaul diagnosed a condition

he called word blindness.

"Several of his patients could not read properly

and regularly used words in the wrong order."

10 years later,

the German ophthalmologist, Rudolph Berlin,

would rename the condition dyslexia.

In 1896, Dr. William
Pringle Morgan published an article

on the condition in "The British Medical Journal".

He noted that, "Percy F, a well grown lad",

aged 14 is the eldest son of intelligent parents,

the second child of a family of seven.

He has always been a bright and intelligent boy,

quick at games, and
in no way inferior to others of his age.

His great difficulty has been, and is now,

his inability to learn to read.

This inability is so remarkable and so pronounced

that I have no doubt, " he said, " it is due

to some congenital defect.

He has been in school or under tutors

since he was seven years old,

and the greatest efforts have been made

to teach him to read,

but in spite of
this laborious and persistent training,

he can only, with difficulty,

"spell out words of one syllable."

- One of the most
early indicators of dyslexia is difficulty

with word identification.

Sometimes dyslexic memorize words,

but they actually don't know the sound

that goes to the symbol to read the words,

so there's confusion with letters,

so that's why they need a very strong,

phonetically-based program to learn how to read.

- Well, let's say for example they're reading a story.

If the teacher
was gonna assign a paragraph to each child,

you knew the order they were going,

and then you could count ahead,

and that's what I would do is I would say,

"Okay, they're over here."

There's 11 more kids before it gets to me,

so I'm gonna go down 11 paragraphs, and I'm gonna read it,

read it, read it, so that by the time it gets to me,

I'm not hopefully gonna stumble over the words

"or mispronounce them, because I can't read them."

And so I think that's what a lot of kids do.

They find coping strategies, they can mask it,

and if a teacher does call on a student,

they'll do whatever they have to do to not have to read,

and a lot of times they'll start complaining

of stomach aches, headaches.

They may do something that gets them in trouble,

because at least it got them out of the room.

They would much rather be considered the bad kid

than be embarrassed.

- The phoneme is the smallest unit of sound in a word.

There are 44 phonemes in our English language.

For example, the word cat has three phonemes, k, a, t,

so those are the
three sounds that collapse together

to identify and read the word cat,

or to say the word cat, or to write the word cat,

so perhaps a dyslexic
student would have difficulty knowing

the sound that
is actually associated with the letter

to be able to read the word.

That's decoding.

Encoding is the
orthographic, the writing of the word,

'cause some students actually can read the word,

but they don't know the sound symbol to write the word.

- Pringle asked
the child to write the following words:

song, subject, without, English, Shilling,

and seashore.

What the child wrote?

Scone, sccojock, wichout, Englis, Sening, seasow.

The child could not even read aloud one

of the sentences he wrote only moments earlier,

nor could he read a single word other

than the simplest words in a children's book,

but the child had no difficulty reading numbers,

and claimed he was, "fond of arithmetic,

and finds no difficulty with it,

but that printed
or written words have no meaning to him."

Pringle also noted
that the child's school master claimed,

"He would be the smartest lad in the school

if the instruction were entirely oral."

- It's a hidden disability,

and I always hate to say disability,

because really dyslexia is a whole set of abilities

that non dyslexics don't have,

and what people
need to realize is these children are

very, very bright.

They're average to above average intelligence.

They need to learn the structure of our language,

and they need
to know why you use ay in a particular part

of a word, and why you use ai

in a different part of the word,

instead of being given 20 words to memorize

that have ai, ay,

but they were never told why one is used here,

and why one is used there.

- Often dyslexics
have very strong visual spatial abilities

and skills.

They're great inventors
and so perhaps the dyslexic student

in your classroom
will become the next NASA scientist,

but he needs to be able to read the manual.

- Dyslexia was identified over a century ago.

Research shows there is a proven method

to effectively teach children with the condition,

but schools across the nation seem reluctant

to even use the term dyslexia

when talking about learning disabilities.

This leaves millions of children struggling

while teachers are ill-equipped to help them,

and in many cases,

schools refused to acknowledge the problem.

- I started teaching in 1976.

We had a better understanding in the public schools

to me then in 1970s and the 1980s than we do now.

I think the whole language approach has probably

contaminated, in some way, a child's ability

to learn, because you can provide a child

with multiple books and multiple pictures,

and they still can't take the words apart.

They still can't decode words.

They can't write words,

so I think it's a flawed plan for education

that has taken hold in many quadrants.

There is a significant
research practice gap in America

that we have significant longitudinal studies

that demonstrate clearly, effectively

that multisensory instruction is the way

to teach all children.

We are not following that.

I've worked with teachers who say,

"But my philosophy is different,"

and I've shown them the research,

and I say, "Your philosophy may be different,

but we have have
proven evidence here that this is the way

to go for a student."

- Some parents believe it's an intentional decision

to circumvent a federal law,

which requires schools to
provide special services

for students with disabilities.

The Individuals With Disabilities Education Act

named dyslexia
specifically as one such disability.

- When you talk about 20% of your students that suffer

from this, and
the resources that it takes to address it,

it comes down to dollars and cents.

You know, in South Carolina, like most other states,

we're not like the federal government.

We don't print money
every day, and we don't run a deficit.

We have to work within a budget every year,

and that budget that we have is a pie,

and there are,

in addition to children with dyslexia

and the education component,

there are a lot of other needs in this state.

- I think the public school system is set up

to educate the majority of children

who don't necessarily have challenges with reading,

or with writing, or with math.

What we're saying today is there's a large minority

of children who are not gonna be successful

in that education system,

and we, as a society, need to think about how

to address that.

- Debbie and Bo have two highly intelligent,

dyslexic children.

Traditional public school system offered no help,

leaving their parents frustrated.

They're not alone.

Families across
the United States can echo their story.

- Helen has always been very precocious.

Her vocabulary,
even at the age of three, was incredible,

and her recall of details is amazing to me still,

and she loves to soak in information,

and she also is very hyper-focused on things.

They have little
sight words and sight word note cards,

flashcards that they have to learn in kindergarten,

and she wouldn't recognize A,

and we knew that that was not right.

It didn't match with her brightness,

and her ability to carry on a conversation,

and her ability
to understand and comprehend things.

- I always just thought that was something natural

and she would eventually kind of grew out of that,

and she never did, and she kept just getting pushed on

to the next grade and her teachers would say,

"Yeah, I'm a little bit concerned,

but no need to do anything,

just keep moving forward."

- "It's developmentally appropriate."

That's what we heard a lot,

and she's left-handed, so we heard

that, "It's challenge
sometimes for left-handed children.

She'll catch up."

These days children get homework in kindergarten,

so in kindergarten
our five-year-old daughter was spending

an hour trying to read a page of sight words,

and there was
screaming and anxiety and anger and tears,

and that was heart-wrenching and frustrating,

and looking back on it, then I thought,

"Well, this is homework."

We're supposed to be doing this with our child.

This will help her.

This will help her get over

"whatever hurdles she's having with learning,"

and it was hard, very difficult.

- It got to the
point where she would start getting upset

just coming home, because she knew she was gonna have

to try to do that work,

and all day long she was just focused

on just pretending
like, she was just focused on getting by.

She was just focused on pretending like she knew

what was going on,

and she was kind of doing the best she could,

and when she
got home she just couldn't pretend anymore,

and we didn't know how to help her,

and it really was impacting our entire family.

It wasn't just Helen's issue.

It was a family issue.

- By the fourth
grade, this had manifested in such anxiety

that her shoulders
and her whole posture was just down

like this so that no one would see her doing math

or doing her ELA work in school.

- So if you can imagine,

a child in fourth grade struggling with reading,

it's gonna be very apparent,

when a child can't read the instructions at the top

of a paper, or can't read through a reading assignment

before everyone else.

The other kids in the in the class are gonna pick up

on that and notice.

Helen almost has a sense of shame about school

or anything.

She doesn't wanna show you the art she does.

She doesn't wanna
show you what she's built on the computer,

and I think it comes from that feeling

like she couldn't do a good job,

or she was always being criticized,

kind of an outcast just 'cause of the way she learns.

- But that has been completely formative for her.

This is now her outlook on school, and I regret that.

I regret that it has become that way for her now,

and I don't know if that anxiety about school will

ever lessen for her.

- Dyslexic students
can work into symptoms of depression,

anxiety, low self-esteem, and low self-worth,

and if the child
can't navigate the school environment,

then how can they feel good about themself?

So they're robbed of life opportunities,

because we don't
provide right instructional methodology.

- I realized something was wrong in the first grade.

I spoke to his teacher and just noticed that some

of the things that were simple with my oldest son,

like reading the sentences were more of a challenge.

He's a bright child and the teacher loved him.

She just really felt like everything was okay.

She reassured me that there was not a problem,

that some kids
just struggle a little bit with reading

and not to be concerned.

Second grade was almost exactly the same.

I would talk to the teacher, she would say,

"Andrew's a lovely student.

He's a bright child.

I don't think you have anything to be worried about."

In first and second grade,

the students would
have sentences that they would practice

during the week, and at the end of the week,

they read 'em to
the teacher, and my friends would tell me

that their kids like read 'em one time,

and they had 'em, and we would practice all week long,

and it was such a struggle,

but Andrew would wanna practice,

'cause he wanted to get 'em nailed down,

and I can think of how many times that,

at the end of the week,

he would be reading the sentence to me and,

say the word would be probably,

and he would say something like might,

so kind of means the same thing,

but doesn't look at all the same,

and I realized that
moment that he really couldn't read it,

but he was working so hard to memorize it,

so in his mind that's the association that he had made,

and to just see that drive in him,

that he was working
and probably putting so much more effort

towards those sentences than anyone in his class,

but still falling
short and feeling like he couldn't do it,

that's just, it's a difficult thing for those kids,

the way that it affects his confidence was really,

really heartbreaking.

I went online and
purchased this online test for dyslexia,

not at all formal, and the report was just startling

that he had just,

I guess failed with flying colors as far as dyslexia,

and that's really where the journey began.

I then, put it in writing that I wanted the school

to test him and, at the time,

the school would not accept dyslexia as a diagnosis,

so they tested him, gave me those results.

They didn't call it dyslexic,

but they said if you were to take these test results

to a private institution,

and pay someone to interpret these results,

they would tell you that this is dyslexia.

They said, "We love having you here.

We love having your family at the school,

but this is my child, I would take him somewhere else."

- We have two daughters, Emma and Allie.

There's a four years difference between them.

- In elementary school, at the end of the year program,

Emma would always get the top in class

in math, language arts.

Several years she got every single award.

I mean, so she was always at the top of her class,

and Allie was at the bottom,

so there was a big difference.

When you would go in Allie's school

and see all the kids' paperwork on the wall,

it was obvious.

Allie was nowhere near the rest of her class.

They could write complete, short sentences,

paragraphs, and Allie could not.

We was thinking maybe autism,

like there was that much difference between Allie

and the rest of the classmates on the schoolwork.

- She would write according to sound.

I never understood,
when she was in first and second grade,

like the word of, I'll never forget it.

It's O-F.

It should not be that hard to remember O-F is of,

but she always spelled O-V,

because she spelled phonetically.

I know she felt dumb.

She felt like she couldn't do it,

heavily intimidated.

I remember in third grade she coming home

with her first science project,

and to study for science and words like experiment

and hypothesis.

Her fight and flight syndrome was crazy.

Once she even
seen a word that she had never seen before,

her mind was shut down,

because she knew that she was not capable then

of being able to understand the words,

much less do the work.

- Making Allie do homework was a nightmare.

It was a fight every night, was it not?

- Yeah, and it was useless to us as a parent,

and I hate to say that about education,

'cause she wasn't being taught how she needed to learn,

so it wasn't gonna stick,

so it wasn't doing any good at the time.

- We had this idea what homeschool was gonna be,

and I actually
built a homeschool desk in our basement,

and it was four separate little stalls,

one big desk with four separate areas

and we bought four
separate stools, one for each children,

and we had this picture that our kids were going

to quietly sit next to each other for the entire day

and work all their work and get up early

and get it all knocked out so they could go outside

and play, and then when we got Lucas and Penny,

when they started school,

you literally had to have four separate rooms,

and if we could have had them soundproofed

so that the other kids,

because they began to distract even the older kids

from doing work.

Margaret couldn't work,

couldn't leave Lucas to do some work

or leave Penny to do some work

and then work with the older kids,

so they really were not neglected,

but they didn't get the help that they needed,

so they were kind of left to do things on their own.

- Probably about first or second grade,

I realized something's not quite right,

and I realized that I could not do what I wanted

to do with him.

I would become really frustrated with him,

because I thought this is,

"You're just not trying hard enough,

or, "You're just being disobedient."

It was like we felt like we failed him,

like, "I just messed him up.

Well what's gonna happen to him?

Where's he gonna be when he is 15 or 16?

Is gonna be able to read?"

And I started to read books and blogs,

and everything says something different,

and we just were kind of at our wit's end.

I didn't know what we were gonna do.

- He asked us one day Lucas said,

"Am I gonna have to go to college?

I don't wanna go to college."

And we said, "No, you don't have to go to college

if you don't wanna go to college."

After we said that, he said,

"Do I have to go to high school?

And we said, "Yeah, you have to go to high school."

What does high school have for this kid?

Is he gonna be the kid that never does well in school,

and so he's marginalized,

but he's quiet and obedient and a good kid,

so he's gonna get put in the back of the class,

and he won't cause any problems

for the school, so they won't spend any time with him.

That was the fear for us.

- Students who have dyslexia,

who have not been identified

and received correct instructional methodology,

often don't finish high school or finish high school

with less opportunities for college.

We do have good colleges in America

that have learning centers at the college

that provide additional assistance

for the dyslexic student,

but even getting to that point,

if you don't have right instructional methodology,

the odds are not very good.

- He's gonna be successful eventually in life

if we manage not to screw that up in the first 18 years.

We both have background in education,

so we'd seen
what happens to kids when they are labeled,

but if you've got a school of 1,000 kids, or 500,

or 700 kids and you have a just a handful

that have special needs,

it's difficult to
get them the services that they need.

- When she had meet the teacher for first grade,

I immediately said,

"I am very concerned about Helen's reading abilities.

They don't match her speaking ability,

and I am worried
that she might have a learning disorder."

And she said, "Oh, she's left-handed,

developmentally appropriate."

And even throughout first grade,

when Helen was in first grade,

that just continued to be the conversation,

and we had her tested formally,

it came back with a diagnosis of dysgraphia

and low reading fluency,

which all falls under the umbrella of dyslexia,

and no one really did anything.

We said we'd like an IEP or a 504, and everyone said,

"Well she's performing on grade level,

so we just don't
really think that anything is necessary

at this time."

And it wasn't until her anxiety got to the point

where she was having panic attacks in school

that they've finally said,

"Oh let's look at a 504 plan,

and give her some accommodations."

- I said, "Brian, something's just not adding up."

And I sat with her for two weeks,

did her homework, and then Brian sat down with her

for two weeks and did homework with her,

and we come to the conclusion

that yeah, something's not adding up.

So we went to her teacher,

and her teacher said she would keep an eye on things.

Within the second phase of the nine weeks,

I went back to the
teacher, because she had not contacted us

and said, "Hey, do you see any red flags with Allie?

Something's missing,

something's not connecting."

And she saw no
red flags at all, which was heartbreaking,

but we were actually
told from the school psychologist there

that maybe Allie had issues with words,

because mom had such a dialect.

- Southern dialect.

- A Southern dialect
and maybe that was the whole reason.

I mean this was severe,

and to be told
things like that, it was a constant thing.

We were told
myths that only rich people have dyslexia,

that and the dialect
thing is probably the two things

that infuriated me the absolute most.

- A southern accent is not the issue.

The issue is does the child know the sound symbol

association to read words, to take words apart,

to write words,
to listen to words, to understand words.

It is not an accent issue.

- We were forced to take our child out

of the public school system to go

for testing somewhere else,

and we were fortunate
enough that we had to pay for that,

but the school wasn't there to help us.

It was right before
Christmas break and I got the paperwork.

I took the paperwork from the outside source

that we went to,

who is a doctor, who can diagnose dyslexia.

I took it to the school,

and it sat there at the school for about three weeks,

and I went to the principal and I said, "What's up?

What are we gonna do about my kid?"

And she says, "Well is there a problem?"

- We couldn't get to school to even read it.

So we had a doctor's orders that clearly diagnosed it.

So they said, "Well the school counselor",

"he has to do his evaluation."

He wouldn't even read it.

And he said, "I see nothing wrong with Allie.

This is not debilitating.

She can still function with the rest of her class."

I asked her teachers, I said,

"How many of Allie's papers do you have to read

and try to figure out what the heck it says?"

She said, "A hundred percent."

And then I asked her, I said,

"Are you holding that against Allie?"

She said, "No, because we know there's something wrong."

So I asked each teacher same question.

And then I looked at him and I said,

"How can you say
that this is not affecting Allie's grades?"

- The problem
with accessing services is you may access

services that are not appropriate for your child.

Does the resource
teacher have an understanding of dyslexia?

Have they been
trained in multi-sensory instruction?

Those are key issues that also need to be asked.

- What I always saw when I would go into classrooms

in traditional schools is that if it's day 63,

you had to have this number of word wall words

on your wall.

You had to be on this certain page.

You had to be doing this certain thing,

and so therefore
there's no more individualizing instruction

for the students who are struggling.

And then oftentimes schools put the kids

in a resource room or RTI,

but they're using methods that are proven not to work

for the child with dyslexia.

- They are going out of the classroom

for a specialized program,

and then when they go out of the classroom

for a specialized program,

they're missing something else in the classroom.

It creates even more anxiety,

so what was meant to help the child,

and get them on track,

or close gaps
is actually creating gaps in other areas

of their learning
and their social emotional development.

They get singled
out in class, they leave, they come back,

they've missed, maybe the class is in the middle

of something totally different than when they left.

They don't know what's going on.

They have to be caught up,

and they're expected to move at the same pace.

Even with the accommodations,

it's hard for a child to do that.

It's even hard for an adult to do that,

much less a child that with a difficulty in learning

and understanding language.

- Dyslexia is something that we all need to recognize

as an issue today.

I personally have dyslexia,

and I didn't know it until the last eight or 10 years,

but I started looking through some stuff

that my parents had accumulated over that time,

and I'm 62 years old now,

and there was information about dyslexia back then

that my mother had accumulated and I didn't know it.

She really didn't talk to me about it.

I don't think we publicly talked about it,

but she looked at a school in Chicago.

She looked at one out in Arizona,

and I didn't know
this till I went through the paperwork,

and saw these
schools that she was actually researching.

- We were doing homework one afternoon after school,

and one of the things was just free reading.

You just read something,

and so Andrew was reading these books

that I always thought he really enjoyed,

and he read to me and I said,

"You did a great job today,"

and I could tell that he was just really down,

and I said, "Andrew, I'm praising you.

I thought you read that really well."

And he said,

"I don't think that's what I'm supposed to be reading."

And then when I talked to him a little more,

and had him elaborate,

he shared with me that that's not

what other children his age were reading,

and he said that his friend, Cannon,

who's one of his
best friends reads Magic Treehouse books,

and that's a series

that I think most
people are pretty well familiar with,

and they're early chapter books and he said,

"Mom, I would love to read a Magic Treehouse book,

but I don't know how."

And just as a parent I'm trying to hold it together,

and reassure him that everything's gonna be okay.

And then he looked at me and he said,

"Mom, why can't I read Magic Treehouse books?"

And I know that we all face different challenges,

but that was a very tough moment for us,

because I honestly, this was all new,

and I wasn't sure

why he couldn't read the Magic Treehouse book,

and we just felt dedicated, kind of rededicated

that day that one way

or another we were gonna give him the skills

to be able to do it.

- Hundreds of families who sought help

for their dyslexic children were told repeatedly

that there was nothing wrong,

or that their student's progress was appropriate

for their age level.

Even when teachers did acknowledge a problem,

they put those
children in special ed classes that failed

to address the issue
or told parents to seek help elsewhere.

The only help the Collins family could find

in Indiana was
a tutor in her last year before retirement.

School systems
were ignoring and failing these students,

so a group of women from South Carolina decided

to do something about it.

- Reform in public education moves at a glacial pace.

We have private schools throughout this state

that do a great job,

but they are very
expensive to put instruction for children

who are severely affected by dyslexia

into an affordable range,

you have to do it through the public sector,

and we had a
group of very dedicated retired educators

that saw the need to have a public charter school,

and came up with the idea that they wanted

to create one that would be specifically

for students with dyslexia.

- A group of parents in our community were meeting,

because they had children with dyslexia

and the schools
weren't meeting the need of their children.

It seemed like the answer was to homeschool,

find an Orton-Gillingham tutor, or send your child

to an expensive private school.

We needed a better answer than that.

- Nancy Linvill and I had the idea

that surely it would really be nice

to have a school for children with dyslexia,

so I was with her one day,

and we talked about a charter school and I said,

"I just wonder what if we google charter school

in South Carolina,

I wonder what would pop up",

and up popped the information

from the South Carolina Charter School Alliance,

so I had the keyboard,

and I put her name
in and she began to receive information

about how to
start a charter school in South Carolina,

and that's sort of how it was born.

And then we were tasked with finding other people

to help us.

- I was happily retired, living on the lake,

gonna enjoy life.

Nancy Linvill, who's
been a friend of mine for a long time,

took me to lunch, and told me about a great idea.

She had to start
a charter school, and I congratulated her

on her wonderful
idea, and said I have wanted nothing to do

with it, that I had left it all on the floor

in my last school.

I was done, and she's a very determined lady,

so two more times she asked me,

and the last time she asked me, I said, "Why not?

Sounds like a good idea."

Just sort of to have her quit asking me.

And then also I'd been thinking about it and I thought,

"Things haven't happened in 40 years."

These children are still doing it the same way

that they were doing it 40 years ago.

It hasn't worked,

so maybe, just maybe we could do something

"that would make a difference."

We knew a lot about dyslexia.

We knew a lot about
how dyslexic children needed to learn.

We knew very little about

how you even would put a school together.

- We chose to become a charter school because

that would be a way to be a free and public school

for dyslexics,

and remember there are schools out there,

but they're super expensive,

so we chose the
charter avenue because it would be free,

and more youngsters
could get the help that they needed.

- We learned very quickly

that we couldn't make it disability specific

under the current law,

so we had to amend the public charter school law,

so that we could
then have disability specific schools,

because under the former law you had to admit anyone

to that school that had a disability,

so we were able to change the language,

make it disability specific,

and that was the key to the success.

Well he introduced it.

It never even went to committee.

It was passed and became law in three months,

so that was a miracle
that allowed us to be mission specific

for children with dyslexia.

- Then it was time to figure out,

now how do you
navigate the process of getting a charter,

and that's complicated.

You need a sponsor
and we determined that the best sponsor

for us would be the Charter School District

of South Carolina,

and they have an application process

that's pretty rigorous,

so we got to work, and we worked, and we worked,

and we worked.

- We had to create and write a lot,

and we had to be
ready to win or be awarded the P&I grant.

- Took about three years to write the application.

We did inordinate amounts of research.

Sometimes I felt
like I should get a PhD at the end of it,

because it was just that detailed.

We knew of some schools

that were teaching dyslexic children very well,

so we started traveling and visiting schools

that were doing what
we wanted to do to see how they did it.

We quizzed them on how they got started.

We also learned
what they wished they had done differently,

which was huge for us because it kept us

from making some mistakes we would've made.

- It was a ton of work.

It was constant work,

and there were bumps in the road along the way.

We just had to be very tenacious.

We had to support one another.

We would come together,

and we would not always see things the same way,

but we did see that we all had different gifts

that we could bring.

Some of us were
stronger with connections in the community

who could get behind others

who would be supportive financially

and just be supportive with their encouragement,

that kind of thing.

- We were one of the finalists to get a charter,

and we had to go to what's called a capacity hearing.

That was one of the most difficult parts.

- We were just asked questions about,

not so much about
what we thought we would even be asked,

maybe they didn't even know as much

as we thought they would know.

We couldn't even see the people

who were asking the questions.

It was all this
technology, and there was a little camera,

and we couldn't even see the person,

so that was very strange.

- There was a lady that we could not see.

She had a little cylinder that came out from the wall,

and whenever
you talked the cylinder would point at you,

and you talked, and
she was someplace maybe in Pennsylvania,

probably sitting
in her pajamas in her living room listening

to us.

Then there was somebody also in Louisiana
who was listening,

and they would
ask us all kinds of difficult questions.

The capacity hearing lasted for one or two hours,

and then we waited for the results,

and we got a notice back and they said,

"We do not feel
that you have capacity to start a school.

We are not going to recommend you to get a charter

for your school."

We were absolutely devastated.

We thought we
have worked so hard and now we're not going

to get our school,

so we decided we will do the best job that we can

at the hearing.

We had people who came to testify,

and they had three minutes.

They could say nice things for us,

so we gave our presentation and, at the end,

they said, "Yes, you get your charter."

They voted that day that we could have our charter,

so then people said,

"Well you should be happy that you got your charter,

but you have
more work than you can imagine still left

to do."

And that was true.

- We were very busy making talks everywhere,

and putting up signs, making the public aware

of what we were offering,

reaching out, and we would have little meetings

in the libraries
and present and tell what dyslexia was,

that these are
bright and capable kids who have gifts

and talents and
they're just not getting what they need

in order to open those gifts,

so we were actually
educating the public as we went along,

and we were
trying to reach the people who maybe didn't

even know that they had a dyslexic in their house.

- I was having lunch in Easley, and I bumped into one

of the board members for Lakes and Bridge's wife,

and we knew each
other from church way back when we were

in college, and I was sharing with her

about Andrew's struggles at school,

and she told me that her two sons were dyslexic.

And I said, "Really, 'cause I've asked the teacher,

and they tell me this is not dyslexia."

And as we got talking, the stories we were sharing,

they were sounding so much alike,

and we began to follow Lakes and Bridges,

and read about their progress and just know that

that was gonna be where we were supposed to end up,

and we homeschooled until we could get in there.

- I just started googling.

I would spend every afternoon

of Allie's third grade year crying,

figuring out how can I help my kid?

We had one more
Orton-Gillingham trained tutor in the area,

one, and she agreed to take Allie on

with the fact that I had to understand

that she had one more year before retirement.

- Finally, when we knew that we was coming back

to South Carolina, to Lakes and Bridges,

I think the last six months I just did the homework,

because it was easier on everybody.

- So we saw Lakes and Bridges, the ad, and I said to John,

I said, "Should we apply?"

And at this point we'd already had Lucas tested.

So Jonathan said, "Let's apply,

We can say no if he gets in if it's not gonna work,

but let's just apply."

So we applied and I think that was in December,

and in February we got an email that he was accepted.

It was a Friday.

I still remember getting the email,

and I sat down at the kitchen table

and cried because
I felt like someone was going to help him,

and it's still kind of, I didn't expect,

I'm sorry to do this,

but it was very emotional knowing that,

"Oh, someone's going to help him."

I didn't know Heidi,

I didn't know these teachers.

We just thought this is what's going to work out.

God has really worked this out.

We got in and,

- We're not alone.

- We're not alone.

Yeah, I think that's it.

- We don't have to do that by ourselves.

- We felt like
we realized that there were other parents

who are in the same situation we're in,

and now someone basically has come,
and is going to help us.

- Lakes and Bridges had its charter,

one of the first
four charter schools in the United States

specifically designed for children with dyslexia.

That grabbed
the attention of parents who were desperate

to get their kids the education they deserved;

however, the hard work was about to begin.

- There was more work than you can imagine.

We had to create the school.

The most difficult part,

and I was told this at the very first meeting,

is the facility or the building.

You have to find a facility.

This is extremely
difficult because you have no money.

- I mean parents had been in touch.

They had their kids ready to sign up.

We had people.

We had our teachers, wonderful people,

who were geared up and trained,

but we had to have a place.

We would run
into something that we were enamored with

and then we would hit a brick wall,

because it just
didn't work out with the things that had

to be.

Even the Pickens
County schools were actually trying

to find us places that were open or that could be used,

and we were led to a beautiful little school

in a wonderful facility
that was much like schools way back

when I was a girl and went to school,

and so it was easy to fall in love

and feel comfortable there,

and in my mind that's just where we were going to be.

- State officials
would ultimately rule that the facility

in question could not be adapted to the needs

of a modern school and rejected the location.

Lakes and Bridges
found another, an abandoned church

that had once been a car dealership.

They leased it ahead of the 2018/19 school year,

and hired a faculty,

but there was still one big problem to overcome

that threatened to derail the entire project.

- We had a building
we could not get through all the process

with the bureaucracy to get the approval to move in.

We couldn't tell people that we couldn't move in.

We couldn't tell people,

"We don't know if we will be able to start next year."

It was an awful experience.

It was the low point.

- If we could have just come in as hard workers

and started doing things,

and getting it ready the way we thought we could get

it ready, we could have opened in the fall,

but we were not the ones who could do that.

- That was devastating,

and we couldn't tell people,

and because we just
had to put our smiling faces on and say,

"Oh everything's going great."

- Oh I was so frustrated about that.

- All their efforts seemed doomed to fail,

but Lakes and Bridges found an improbable solution

from an unlikely source,

the traditional public school system,

the very institution that had refused

to acknowledge a diagnosis of dyslexia

and it resisted
parents' efforts to get proper education

for their children, was now partnering

with a charter
school designed to teach those students.

- We went to Dr. Danny Merck,

the superintendent of schools for Pickens County,

and he said,

"Not only will I allow you to be in one of our buildings,

it will be only four miles from the facility

that you were going to have."

So Dr. Merck saved us.

He said, "I would not have done this"

for any other charter school,

but this school is teaching children

that we are not serving well,

and we know that you will teach them,

and then they will come back to us,

"and be able to graduate from high school."

- He blessed our
coming into the school and welcomed us,

and that was a very warm and moving time

to see that people did believe,

and we're aware of the problem and were willing

to step out and offer a spot for us.

- That was not a very popular decision statewide,

because most school districts have looked

at public charter schools as competition.

Superintendent Danny Merck and his board,

my hat's off to
them for being so helpful and agreeable

in accommodating Lakes and Bridges,

and I think that they have seen,

and have shown
to other school districts around the state

that partnerships like this can be effective.

- My reaction was I was incredibly relieved

because we had a home.

The teachers, and the staff,

and the parents were probably disappointed,

because they didn't
know there was a chance we didn't have

a home and they weren't exactly pleased

with the home where they were landing.

- While Lakes and Bridges searched for a home,

they also needed to find a principal.

Heidi Bishop was nearby at Camperdown Academy,

a private school

that employed
an Orton-Gillingham based curriculum.

- The whole board was involved in the decision

to hire Heidi Bishop.

We wanted somebody that was mission specific.

If we had gone outside, say and had somebody

who had had public school administration,

it could have been the same old, same old.

- One thing that I had always wanted to do was

to be a part of something so much bigger than myself,

and one thing my husband and I always said was,

"One day if we ever hit the lottery,

we're gonna start a school,

and we're not gonna charge tuition,

"because we'll be able to cover it."

I have spent 32 years in private school,

and schools whose tuition are anywhere

from $22,000 a year to $65,000 a year,

and so I know,

and I'm very aware there is a teeny tiny population

of people that can afford an education like that.

I also know that at least 90 to 95%

of the population will never even be able

to sacrifice enough to get to a school like that,

and these kids deserve the same education

as any other child.

Yes, this has been stressful,

but I wouldn't trade it for anything,

'cause when I look at some of the students

in the school that I know had no means

to do anything else, that makes my day every day,

when I see them and see how they're thriving

and realizing that they deserve the same rights

to that same kind of education as the child

whose parents could just write a check for $22,000,

and it would probably be equivalent of most

of us writing a check for a couple hundred dollars.

- Now that they had a principal,

Lakes and Bridges needed a curriculum

that would give
dyslexic children the tools to succeed

when they reentered the public school system

as high school students.

They used multisensory courses based

on the Orton-Gillingham method of teaching.

- By definition,

to be dyslexic means you have average

or above average intelligence,

and you can understand why a really bright student

would be especially frustrated that they can't do

what everybody else in the room is easily doing.

That's really frustrating for them.

One of the interesting type students is the one

with an extremely high IQ,

because when they get the kind of testing

for learning disability,

they're still gonna be above average in reading,

but compared to their intelligence,

there's still a huge gap with where they are compared

to where they would be expected to be

if they didn't have dyslexia,

and I think that those kids are often missed,

because they're coasting through,

but they're not available for special courses

that they could be taking for gifted and talent

and things like that,

because they're not above average.

There are three components to Orton-Gillingham.

First of all, it's
understanding the dyslexic student.

Second, it's that multi-sensory teaching,

and then third, it's structured phonics,

and the multi-sensory is really essential

for the dyslexic student,

because they need to feel the letter

while they're
seeing the letter, and hearing the letter.

If I would show you the letter M,

you would trace the letter M, and you would say "m"

at the same time, so there's the visual,

the auditory,
and the kinesthetic that is a component

of every part of a lesson that the students receive.

There's no assumption that there are words

that you're just gonna memorize.

Everything has
to be taught using logic and concepts

that the student can hold onto.

You don't put this child in the position of having

to guess anything.

Everything that you ask that child to read,

you've already
exposed him to the letters, and the sounds,

and they're never frustrated.

The teacher sets a pace that works for the child,

so you don't just say,

"By next Thursday we're gonna be through 27 letters

of the alphabet."

You wait until you're sure

that the child has
mastered the concept before you move on.

Every Orton-Gillingham tutor knows

that you can go as quickly as possible,

but as slowly as necessary

when you're teaching a child.

There's a lot of training that teachers need to have

in order to be able to teach that way.

- So at Lakes and Bridges curriculum is designed

specifically for children with dyslexia,

so it's meeting them at their needs,

and we're moving forward at their pace

versus a traditional
curriculum is standards based

and usually based
on a pacing guide, so by day whatever,

you have to be on this page,

and so while our
curriculum ultimately meets the standards,

it's not driven by the standards.

So a specific example would be, we use Math-U-See,

and so it's Greek
letters, so there's an Alpha, Beta, Gamma,

Delta, Epsilon.

Our Math-U-See curriculum is not designed by grade,

so Alpha doesn't represent first grade.

Beta doesn't represent second grade,

but by the time they complete Epsilon,

then they have met all the standards

for first through fifth grade.

We give them
a whole series of assessments that focus

on reading, writing,
spelling, comprehension, decoding,

phonological awareness,

and then we look at where the clusters are,

and then we group them into their small groups based

on where the students placed on the Math-U-See,

or where their strengths or weaknesses are

in the other areas
of reading and writing and spelling,

and so you might have, for example,

first, second grade class.

We have them do direct math at the same time,

and we have them do small group OG instruction

at the same time,

so you may have a group that's comprised of first

and second graders,

and another group that's also comprised of first

and second graders,

and this group might be an Alpha at the beginning,

but another group of first

and second graders might be further along in Alpha,

or you may even have another group that's in Beta,

so we place them based on where their strengths

and weaknesses are with it.

We also use Orton-Gillingham combined with SPIRE

for our ELA reading component,

and so we bring in interventionist so we can get

even smaller groups.

So like for example, that first second grade group,

they do the ELA reading together,

and we call it PIE,
Personalized Instruction and Enrichment,

and so instead of four teachers like direct math,

now we have seven
that come in so we can get smaller groups.

And so we use Orton-Gillingham,

we do some assessments

with a criterion reference spelling test

to give us an
idea of where their skills are strengths

and weaknesses with reading and spelling,

and then we group
based on where those similarities were,

and then we start
working through a sequence of phonograms,

and so it's very structured and systematic as well,

which is what
Orton-Gillingham is and why Project Read is

that way, why Math-U-See is that way.

They all support what the dyslexic child needs,

and so they do working simple to complex.

They do sound symbol exercises, looking at a symbol,

putting the sound
or sounds with it, then hearing the sound,

having to write the symbol for it,

and then you take
those symbols and you put them together

into words to read, and then words to spell,

then into sentences to read, sentences to spell,

and then ultimately
in the oral reading as the culmination

of the lesson.

- In 2018, Lakes and Bridges opened its doors

inside a neighboring
school, Crossville Elementary.

It immediately filled to capacity.

This was the
first charter school in the region designed

to provide a free
education for students with dyslexia,

and parents were desperate for their children

to receive the education

the public school system had refused to provide.

Less than one
year later, the results were astounding.

- If you talk to the parents at Lakes and Bridges,

you will certainly
know that that school is having an impact

in their lives and the lives of their children.

- His gains academically are amazing,

but just the confidence to read to me, to read out loud.

He's reading the signs as we drive down the road.

It really is unbelievable.

I think when I look back, I just go,

"Wow, I can't even believe this happened."

- Near Christmas we had an IEP,

an Individualized Educational Plan meeting

where they went over what the kids were doing,

how they were progressing.

They told us we expect that by eighth grade,

Lucas will be
on grade level and ready for high school.

The fact that he'll be ready to go into high school

and with a confidence and an ability

to succeed was something we'd never considered.

- I mean obviously he's gonna go to high school,

but I think it doesn't look quite as overwhelming.

- He's not afraid of it anymore.

It just probably doesn't even cross his mind.

It's just something down the road where before,

for a third grade kid to be worried about going

to high school is pretty terrible.

- I would say
Orton-Gillingham made all the difference

just how you teach the kids,

and if a kid's
dyslexic and they need Orton Gillingham,

I feel like that's what they should be given,

and it's made all the difference.

I don't think any other approach would've worked.

- Lakes and Bridges cares about Allie.

They care that she learns.

They give her what she needs academically,

and even emotionally.

They give her the support system that she needs

in an environment to learn in.

Where Allie was at before, she received nothing.

She was thrown in a classroom with 25 other kids

and expected to fit in this square hole.

- There have been
a lot of changes in both Helen and Edward

since they started Lakes and Bridges.

She has not had a panic attack in school,

and that is a huge improvement over just last year.

- To my mind, they're thriving in school.

It's the exact opposite of where they were before.

We noticed the change within weeks of them starting,

and even just things like just when they come home,

they wanna read a book.

That never happened before.

- Even just their body language.

Helen was so closed off and so much trying to hide,

and now she smiles and she doesn't like to admit it,

but she does and it is just amazing growth.

- It's also helped us, 'cause we know they're getting

what they need.

We don't feel like we need to worry,

that they need to get taken outta school.

We need to get a tutor.

- We don't have to be these educational advocates

for our children anymore because we know

that their teachers and Heidi Bishop,

and the Elizabeth Bridges,

the special education coordinator,

they are the advocates for our kids now.

We can just do regular parent things now.

- The biggest difference that comes first is

the emotional difference, the child's confidence.

They're happy to go to school.

They no longer fight
their parent in the morning about going

to school because
they know that they're coming to a place

where they feel safe,

where they feel it's a risk culture,

where they can make mistakes,

where they know
that everyone is at a level playing field,

because they know that they have the same struggles

as other students in their class.

- We had children
that prior to coming to us would get out

of the car at their local public school,

and they would run away,

because there was so much anxiety,

and it was a real struggle for those children

to go through the school day,

but that is over now.

In fact, one of
the children that would run away was one

of the leaders of the talent show

that the school most recently had,

which was very heartwarming to see.

- Got an email last night from one parent

whose child gets up very early every morning,

'cause he cannot wait to be at school.

He was actually really sad this past weekend,

because it was the weekend.

There was no school and he wanted to be here.

- Walking through dyslexia with a child who feels bad

about himself is a crushing experience as a parent.

I felt helpless to reassure him

that things were gonna be okay.

Now that he's in Lakes and Bridges,

it's almost a non-issue.

He feels like every other child around him,

and I don't think
he even identifies himself as dyslexic

as much as he identifies himself as a child

that's lucky enough to go to Lakes and Bridges.

The biggest thing is confidence,

and that may not sound like a lot,

but with reading as a struggle,

and you already are struggling,

and you feel bad about yourself and you're worried

about what the people around you are thinking about,

whether you understand
it or whether you're saying it right,

it makes the challenge so much bigger,

and the fact that Andrew's around children

that struggle the same way he does,

he's more comfortable reading to me and saying,

"I don't know what that word is,"

or slaughtering the word, which I love it.

I love when I hear him guess.

I have a child that would never try before.

If he couldn't see a word, he would look at it.

You could not make him try, and now he'll try.

Obviously academics are important to me too,

but what I'm saying is academics go hand in hand

with the confidence.

I really think that he was so insecure that

that in itself was a barrier to him getting

where he needed to be academically.

I cry a lot.

I feel having him at Lakes and Bridges has been

a tremendous blessing for my family,

and it's a feeling
that my husband and I are moved to tears

about weekly.

For the first time in a few years,

I'm not concerned anymore that they won't be able to go

to high school, or
that they're not gonna have opportunities

for college if that's the path they choose.

For the first time, since Lakes and Bridges,

I feel like they'll have the same opportunities

that all children have.

- I have seen students go from just being horrified

at the thought that you're gonna ask them to read,

but once they've encountered success

and they know that they have the tools

inside their own brain to decode words,

they are proud of it, and they wanna use that skill

and they'll start with reading the stop sign,

and move into bragging a little bit about

what they can
read, and then get so excited seeing kids

just using their
free time to sit like in the playground

and look at a book, read a book,

because they're so excited about the story

that they're reading.

- One little boy talks about,

there's a book
called "The Invisible Boy" that his mother,

who's one of the teachers, has in her classroom,

and when he saw that book he said, "Oh Mama, that was me.

I was invisible until I came here,

and at Lakes and Bridges, they see me."

The first time I heard that story,

I cried and cried.

I could still cry.

It's just amazing.

They have not only the academic struggle

to get a grip on language like learning how to read,

how to write, how to spell,

but there are huge emotional layers,

and for them to be overcoming that,

and to feel like they no longer feel

that they're lazy, or they no longer feel

that they're stupid,
they know they're working their hardest

and so all of those things are being reinforced.

- Lakes and Bridges was housed in a school

that wasn't designed
to meet the needs of dyslexic students,

but their emotional
and academic growth was remarkable.

Now that the renovations were completed,

they started their second year in a new home built

just for them.

I think that what we are doing,

and what we've
accomplished this year actually far exceeds

anything I thought we'd be able to do in a first year.

It was difficult to integrate 110 students

from 110 different backgrounds,

not only academically, but socioeconomically,

just the whole thing, and we were able to do it.

- We have students coming from all over the upstate,

and even other parts of the country and of the state,

and so all of the paperwork and coordinating all

of the plans so
that they're compliant with timelines,

communicating to teachers about those plans,

communicating the
way the district wants those plans handled

and organized and followed through with,

it was very challenging for one person to do that

in a mass amount and I had never done that before.

It was very stressful,

which education is
anyway because you feel like you have all

these children's
lives on your shoulders, their education,

but then it was also having all the compliance,

because especially with an IEP,

it's actually a legal document,

but we did it and it's one

of the hardest things
I've ever done career-wise in my life.

One of our goals at Lakes and Bridges is

that every child's
gonna make at least one year's progress.

Teachers are
reporting that kids who came in with IEPs,

Individual Education
Plans from other school districts,

in the first three months,

many of them had met their year goal,

and they had to be rewritten.

So that either means that the kids are learning much

more quickly than had been anticipated,

or that their other schools had expectations

that were too low.

The biggest revelation for us has been

the social emotional
growth that was very quickly apparent.

Kids that had felt like failures,

or had given up on themselves seemed

to find themselves again at Lakes and Bridges,

get new confidence, they were happier,

they were working harder.

Their parents reported
that they were excited about coming

to school instead of dreading coming to school,

so that was very reinforcing for us.

- We have students who last year,

through the course of the year,

just didn't want to be here

'cause they missed their friends.

By the end of the school year,

we had students that didn't wanna leave.

We had a situation on the last day of school,

where school got out and it took 15 minutes

of delaying our car line pickup,

because we had two classes

that would not leave their classrooms,

'cause they were in tears,

and they just were not ready to leave school.

They wanted to stay in school.

They weren't ready for the summer

Because we had to delay school a week this year

because of the renovations,

I heard from a lot of the parents

whose kids were actually very upset that we delayed

because they wanted to be back here,

and they wanted to see their friends,

and they wanted to be back in school.

The first day of school this year went very smooth.

I think we had one year under our belt.

We knew more of what to expect,

and being in our own building helped tremendously

to really make us feel like we were in our home,

that we weren't inside somebody else's home.

I think the whole tone is different this year

than it was last year.

There's just a tone of self-confidence overall

throughout the whole school,

from myself on down to the teachers to the student.

We are starting the year right now right at 150,

so enrollment is very well.

We have about 49 students on a waiting list.

What's heartbreaking
is that we can't serve those students

who are on the waiting list, because you know

that every single student should be here,

getting the same education as those students

that were lucky enough to get their numbers pulled

in the lottery, and so it is heartbreaking

to know that they're not here with us,

and that we would love for them to be here with us,

but we also have
to keep in mind what our space availability

is in this building.

- Here's something I find very sad,

of the applicants for next year,

and we have just finished the application process,

67% of those applicants
couldn't come to Lakes and Bridges,

because we don't have room.

While we're renovating a building,

and are very excited about it,

that building is already too small

to even accommodate the kids that wanna come now.

The need's huge.

We have surpassed our dream.

Originally, we were afraid nobody'd wanna come,

and now we're afraid we'll never be able

to accommodate the kids that do wanna come.

- I think the sky's the limit for this school.

The faculty is amazing.

The students are amazing.

The parents are very supportive.

We are creating
history and precedence every single day,

and so what you think will happen,

and what is happening don't always match up.

I'd like for us to be known as the school to go to

for dyslexia resources, for information,

for modeling how students should be taught,

and making it just
a premier educational site for children

with dyslexia.

- I did not realize until I was trained here

at Lakes and Bridges Charter School

that I had been teaching children

with dyslexia the entire time,

and then once
I had that training and in conversations

with school leadership, with the staff,

with people on our staff,

and with children who are dyslexics

and seeing them learn, it made me really have an aha.

"Oh wow, for 13 years that child was a dyslexic,"

"that child was a dyslexic, that child was a dyslexic."

If only I had known how to teach them in this way,

with this method, and with these tools that I now have,

it just makes me think like what could I have done

for those children?

- A law has just been passed in South Carolina

that all kindergarten, first grade children are

to be screened for dyslexia,

but teachers don't know how to teach these children,

so what are they gonna do with these children

in our public schools?

- It's one thing to identify the fact

that children have this learning disability,

but there's another to,

what do we do to get teachers prepared to number one,

identify it, and
then to be able to teach to that student?

I had teachers call me, but they said,

"This is a waste of time.

I've never seen anyone with dyslexia,"

and my comeback to them was,

"Well, if you've never seen anyone with dyslexia,

you don't know what you're looking for,

because it is prevalent.

It is there."

- It is likely that
every teacher has encountered a student

with dyslexia,

but most teachers
are never trained to identify them.

After all, eight out of 10 kids are unaffected.

New laws, like the one passed in South Carolina,

that mandate screening of all students

for dyslexia are a positive step

in getting children the education they need,

but with so few schools like Lakes and Bridges,

and 20% of the population needing
that sort of instruction,

the demand for proper education dwarfs the supply.

The increased
awareness of dyslexia and the success

of schools like
Lakes and Bridges are bringing positive

changes around the country.

- Lakes and Bridges has been a model for other schools

that will be starting up in the next year or two.

We've had interest from Minnesota to North Carolina

to Colorado, even California,

and then of course here in South Carolina

to open up schools on this model.

- Having Lakes and Bridges in the state

of South Carolina is obviously a real benefit.

There's only a
few schools in the nation that are targeted

on dyslexia like Lakes and Bridges.

What we really need to do though is try

to figure out how to get more Lakes and Bridges

in South Carolina.

- It's going to be up to local communities

to take the template that has been developed

and make it a reality in those areas.

- I have thought about the question of,

why don't traditional schools provide this service,

and it's a big question and, in some ways,

it's because it's hard,

but if four, five, six people

that know nothing
about running a school can start a school

that is as as successful as Lakes and Bridges,

then how hard
could it be for a traditional school system

that has all the resources that they would want

to start a program for dyslexic kids?

I mean, it makes no sense to me why we had to do it

when they could.

I can't answer that question.

- There's a national problem with understanding

how children learn, how they should be assessed,

and then going forward,

what do we do?

- Developing a specialized school for students

with dyslexia
is unheard of in the public school realm.

Dyslexia is not a word that's spoken usually

in an IEP meeting or an eligibility meeting

in the public school realm.

- Oftentimes a school will throw in just enough

to make the general public think that they are doing

what is necessary,

but they're not willing to really do the research

to go back and offer a research-based program

for these children.

- As a society,

we have to address the needs of all of our learners.

Dyslexia, kids with autism, you go across the board,

but dyslexia is one that should be relatively easy,

because if it's affecting up to 20% of our students.

- We need more teachers
who are trained in Orton-Gillingham,

who are trained in multisensory instruction,

and we need far more schools than Lakes and Bridges.

What we need is a replication of this school

everywhere, in not only in our state,

but in all the other states because,

in a general sweeping sense,

we're failing children in America.

We're not teaching them correctly.

- All the children seem to be challenged

with the way things are now,

so why not switch
over to an Orton-Gillingham type approach?

It's gonna benefit all the kids.

Dyslexic children are gonna flourish.

Other learners are gonna flourish,

and the whole school district is gonna benefit,

because you're gonna have better readers.

- If a child has multisensory learning,

it enhances the ability for them to learn,

and to retain the learning,

because it involves all of the sense modalities,

so it's the best way for really feeding the brain,

for making a deeper imprint.

When a dyslexic student is in the classroom,

and they don't have multisensory,

it's almost like making an imprint in the sand,

and then it vanishes.

It can't be sustained,

but all children learn better

if they have multisensory instruction,

not just the dyslexic.

- You could go back like to the 1890s.

I have seen the tests that those students had to take,

and they were based on phonics, and spelling,

and it's all structured just like we're doing

in Orton-Gillingham right now.

It could change back.

We could start teaching whole groups,

a good phonics
instruction so that kids wouldn't have

to guess.

It wouldn't have to be,

"Do you know this sight word or not?"

There would be a chance for all students

to have the logic and the structure of our language.

I think that would be really good.

I know that people believe

in what we're doing.

It's evident by the long commutes,

by the families that are moving to this area,

by the support that we get,

by the volunteerism
we get from people in the community

to help us out
when there's projects that need to be done.

- This is probably the best opportunity I've ever had

in order to do
something that really mattered to people,

to other people
and that really could make a difference,

because we know
that some of the most innovative people

in our country, many
entrepreneurs, engineers and inventors,

writers are dyslexic,

but what we don't
know is how many dyslexic people gave up

on themselves before they were able

to achieve their potential,

so at Lakes and Bridges we have an opportunity

to prevent anybody
from failing to reach their potential.

- Dyslexia, it's a condition that affects 20%

of our population, but is largely ignored.

The issue of educating dyslexics is a moral one.

There are millions of bright

and intelligent
students suffering through childhood

and expected
to perform in school's designed for them

to fail.

Perhaps it's not
possible for the public school system

to provide proper instruction for all children.

Perhaps training thousands of teachers

in multisensory education is too difficult a task.

Fortunately, communities
across the nation are coming

together to form
more schools like Lakes and Bridges

to plug the gaps in our public education system

and ensure no child will ever be written off.

- I get to do more stuff with my parents now

that I don't have as much home.

I don't have any homework.

I get most of my evenings off.

I get to do stuff
after school rather than just going home

and doing more work.

- The teachers care about me,

and don't think
any different of me than other students

and don't really treat me differently.

They treat everyone the same and as nice

as they treat anyone else.

I've grown from a first grade to a fifth grade level

in the matter of a year.

- We can move around in the carts and stuff

or the chairs and stuff like that.

It's fun.

- When I first moved here from Florida,

it's like a really welcoming community.

Everybody asked me my name and shook my hand

when I walked into the class on my first day of school.

It's like a really
positive and safe learning environment

and all the teachers are super helpful.

- I like that we have the raised desk,

and the wobble stools really help whenever I need

to move 'cause when I write I need to move around

to think more.

My confidence is better

from being at Lakes and Bridges Charter School.

- I love reading now.

I've improved a lot lot, 'cause I can actually read now,

so that's amazing.

I'm starting to read a chapter book.

I can read a lot of words in the chapter book,

but my mom has to help me a little,

which that's great 'cause I've really been wanting

to start a chapter book,

but it was really hard,

and now I can read chapter books,

and I've always like looked at the pictures,

and I've always wished I could read and now I can.