Gulf Coast Preparatory School meets the needs of students, families and the community by providing educational services that integrate responsibility, compassion and achievement. We establish a learning environment that is creative and encourages feelings of joy and accomplishment. We form meaningful relationships with our students to ensure that they succeed academically, develop autonomy, and reach out to others in the spirit of altruism. Our interactions with one another are characterized by honest communication, professional integrity and kindness. We will know that we are successful when our students come to school eager to achieve personal goals, with hope for the future and faith in themselves and others.

Gulf Coast Preparatory School provides comprehensive, individualized and research based educational, vocational and behavioral services to students participating in the Gulf Coast Residential Treatment Center. The school develops and implements programs that nourish academic, vocational, emotional, physical, social, and intellectual growth through a constructivist model enlisting the student, parents, guardians, case workers and state placing authorities.

Curriculum and instruction are designed to help each student master grade appropriate academic, vocational, and social skills through a variety of traditional and research based innovative approaches. The school believes that students with academic and social deficits learn best when challenged in a non-traditional environment offering a variety of instructional models. By tapping into the appropriate motivational strategy for learning, each student has the opportunity to maximize academic advancement and transition back into a less restrictive school setting, post-high school education and/or independent adult living.

The Special Education Program conforms to all applicable local and federal laws and mandatory requisites of IDEA 2004. Transition planning is conducted at the annual IEP meeting as students reach the age of fourteen. The Transitional IEP includes a statement of transition services needed, a statement of any interagency support and responsibility, and other community links as indicated. Our primary intent is to focus on the special needs of each student.

The school offers an instructional program that meets the needs of the individual student, as specified in each student’s Individualized Education Plan (IEP). Each school employs appropriate curriculum materials.

Lesson Plans are carefully designed to meet the needs of the individual learner and the class as a whole. Direct Instruction techniques are implemented when indicated in reading, math and writing. Hands-on activities are used to teach objectives each and every day.

Research indicates students learn and retain information more successfully when instructed in this manner. Teachers write and implement lesson plans that allow each student to master basic skills and the benchmarks set forth by state standards.

Gulf Coast Preparatory School establishes high expectations and demands accountability in all aspects of the instructional program. Teachers and Administrators alike evaluate the success of their teaching strategies and curriculum content on a regular basis. Each student is academically assessed using the Woodcock Johnson IIIR at both entry and exit to capture academic progress.

Ultimately, the school seeks to maximize every student’s full human potential and provide the skills to transition back to the home school and eventually to post-high school education and/or independent living.

To encourage a successful transition to a Less Restrictive Environment, each school invites guidance counselors from all local schools to talk with students about the expectations and requirements of the public school campus. Each guidance counselor makes a presentation and then students are allowed to ask questions and enter into dialogue with each representative.

As a result of these meetings, many students adjust their behavior goals themselves as they become increasingly aware of the firm limits established and enforced in the schools to which they will return.

"If you punish a child for being naughty, and reward him for being good, he will do right merely for the sake of the reward; and when he goes out into the world and finds that goodness is not always rewarded, nor wickedness always punished, he will grow into a man who only thinks about how he may get on in the world, and does right or wrong according as he finds either of advantage to himself". -- Immanuel Kant, Education

The school selects professionals who have extensive experience with this unique population of students to design and develop programming correlated to proven research based techniques in the field. Of particular concern in setting up our programs was:

1. Why are so few students in residential treatment successfully transitioned in a timely manner to a Less Restrictive school setting?

2. Why are so many students in residential treatment so far behind their peers academically, even when intellectual and academic potential are within average limits?

With these questions and possible solutions in mind, we developed a model for instruction and behavior that is a departure from the more traditional models of teaching and behavior modification. Specifically, the school model consists of three components that are research based with documented results.

Therefore, our faculty moves beyond "discipline" or "management" and more towards constructing a school environment where students feel trusted, respected and empowered. Most models of discipline target behavioral reduction, which does not result in mastery of skills needed to replace problematic behaviors.

"To focus on discipline is to ignore the real problem: We will never be able to get students (or anyone else) to be in good order if, day after day, we try to force them to do what they do not find satisfying".

-- William Glasser, Control Theory In The Classroom

The conventional wisdom with regard to behaviorally challenged students has long been "Get the behaviors in order, then worry about the academics." As a consequence of this thinking, most EH and SED students fall years behind their peers in academic functioning. Each school believes the opposite of this statement is more effective:

Many conventional programs that rely on rewards and consequences truly come down to coercing students assuming the teacher holds more power and authority than the student.

Over twenty research based studies have concluded that when people are promised a reward for doing a reasonably challenging task-or for doing it well-they tend to do inferior work compared with people who are given the same task without being promised any reward at all.

"Most relevant to our subject here is the finding that children who are frequently rewarded tend to be some what less generous and cooperative than those who aren’t rewarded" (Fabes, Fultz, Eisenberg, May-Plumlee, and Christpher 1989).

We believe that rewards, like punishments, can only manipulate someone’s actions. They do nothing to help a student become a kind or caring person. In fact, what the rewarded student has learned is that if he is generous he will get something. When the goodies are gone, so is the inclination to help.

With this in mind, each school’s primary mission is to first focus on the individualized curriculum.

• Instruction and curriculum are based on extensive research of the learning process.
• Instruction is planned using a systematic approach based on each student’s present level of educational performance.
• Tasks are evaluated to fall within the student’s zone of proximal development when possible. Individualized lessons include tasks that students cannot do alone initially but can do with assistance.
• We maintain the highest standards of academic performance.
• We focus on the mastery of basic skills.
• Reading instruction consists of intensive phonics based remediation. The Reading Mastery series by SRA is used for non-readers.
• When a student is off task, we ask ourselves what task they have been given; perhaps the problem is not the child but the task.
• Lessons are consistently meaningful, satisfying, engaging, and relevant to the learner.
• Objectives are taught using hands on materials and strategies when possible.
• Lessons are presented in a logical sequence beginning with the foundations of education and leading eventually to higher order conceptual thinking.

The behavior management program seeks to correct three persistent weaknesses in standard behavior management plans:

1. When the highly structured system of rewards and consequences is no longer available to students, the improvement in behavior dissipates and old patterns of negative behaviors reemerge.

2. When the highly structured behavior management program is used, the relationship of adults to students is characterized by control and compliance rather than respect and learning.

3. In behavior modification models, much academic time is lost to the program of rewards and consequences such as school point stores and time out areas.

To address these three concerns, the school approaches behavior not as something to be rewarded or punished. Positive behaviors are expected and intervention strategies include:

Negative behaviors are viewed as "teachable moments". A student with a behavior problem is regarded in much the same light as a student with a math problem. Our staff uses a problem solving model to process misbehavior with each student, guiding the student to make reparations for the misbehavior and to describe better ways of managing their frustrations in the future.

First, removing students from school activities doesn’t just fail to solve problems: it generally makes them worse. The more you punish someone, the more angry that person becomes and the more "need" there is to keep punishing. "Researchers have found, for example, that students who are severely punished at home are more likely than their peers to act out when they are away from home" (Kohn).

Unfortunately, due to traditional behavior management programs there is the misnomer to rely on consequences and punishment because it is actually a quick and easy mechanism to obtain temporary compliance. To reward students for doing what they should do is to reinforce that concept that one should do the right thing only to receive a reward, not because it is the right thing to do.

Additionally, we refer to the dozens of studies that have been done showing that if two groups of people are given a reasonably challenging task, one group for a reward and the other for no reward, the group not working for the reward completed the task more accurately, creatively, and thoroughly.

Students who are frequently rewarded are often more oppositional and less generous than peers who are not. It takes a great deal of patience and understanding to help a student solve a problem that is upsetting them.

Our program uses proactive, positive strategies that anticipate potential difficulties and makes adjustments to the environment whether they are modifications to the curriculum, instructional formats, changes in scheduling and/or teaching students alternative behaviors to meet their needs more acceptably.

Teaching appropriate behavior is particularly important when students do not know what the appropriate behavior would be in a particular setting or circumstance. This generally involves one or a combination of the following procedures: self evaluation, self management, self instruction and self reinforcement.

Behavioral self-control interventions are designed to match the functions of the problem behavior identified during the functional assessment. Clearly if students are dangerous to themselves or someone else, we use techniques instructed through the Crisis Prevention Institute. However, these instances are not common, and students are encouraged rapidly to rejoin their group and solve the problem with which the escalation occurred.

We strictly adhere to the philosophy that physical restraint is an absolute last resort. We believe that it is far better to repair damaged property than to risk the escalation and emotional trauma of an already upset student.

"In their classic study, 400 Losers, Ahlstrom and Havighurst (1971) were chagrined to discover that their six-year-long, intensive intervention program did not help a group of at-risk youth find success.

But, to their surprise, a handful of the participants did turn their lives around. The adolescents who "made it" all had one experience in common. Each had developed a special relationship with either a teacher or a work supervisor during the treatment program. These adults valued the students, treated them as individuals, and expressed faith in their ability to succeed" -- (Ed Leadership, 2003).

The problem solving approach to behavior management requires that students feel a connection with the adults involved. Many emotionally challenged children perceive themselves as alienated from school staff. Often, they lack healthy relationships at home to model in their own lives.

The school is built on the foundation of strong, positive relationships among all members of the educational team – school staff, students, parents and families, and all parties involved in each student’s education. Our policy of kindness and respect colors everything we do. We believe that students should see staff members interacting with each other in positive, friendly ways.

Students who drop out of school report in numerous studies that they never felt a bond with an adult at school. We make the connection between individuals a priority. School dances, field trips, therapy sessions home contacts, and all of the many other value added services allow students to form the attachments through which they can develop the social and emotional skills they will need; not only in their schooling but in their work and adult lives.

"Children are more likely to be respectful when important adults in their lives respect them. They are more likely to care about others if they know they are cared about. If their emotional needs are met, they have the luxury of being able to meet other people’s needs- rather than spending their lives preoccupied with themselves." (Kohn).

Our students see our staff as real people that are truly interested in their well being. The ever lasting relationships that we build with our students take time, patience and unconditional love. It is an investment that does not always show the short term return but does pay huge dividends over time.