Rise School of Stillwater to offer unique benefits

Tuesday, July 17, 2007

STILLWATER, Ok (July 17, 2007) -- The nation’s seventh Rise School will open in Stillwater this fall thanks to state officials and others who have made it possible to bring the national flagship program for children with disabilities to Oklahoma.
 
The Rise School of Stillwater, which will be located at Stillwater Head Start until a permanent location is built, will partner closely with Oklahoma State University. Each classroom will be staffed with a teacher with a master’s degree and experience in teaching children with disabilities as well as two full-time teaching assistants.
 
“We can’t thank Representative Lee Denney, Senator Mike Morgan and Governor Brad Henry enough for making $550,000 in funding a reality,” said Dana Hilbert, director of the Rise School of Stillwater.  “The support of state school Superintendent Sandy Garrett and the State Education Department also was instrumental.”  
 
Denney is credited with spearheading the work to secure state funding for the Rise School.  In addition, the school is possible because of the vision of the Mya Gonzales Foundation and the generosity of T. Boone Pickens, which laid the foundation for the school.
 
The goal for children in the Rise School is to receive personal attention from teachers, special curriculum and specific intervention therapies that will ultimately allow each to graduate with a high school degree.
 
The Rise School also will provide important hands-on internship and observation opportunities for college students majoring in early childhood education and special education, which will train and better prepare them to teach in Oklahoma classrooms.
 
“Students who participate in the teacher-training program will learn to match children’s needs with appropriate instructional methods according to each child’s developmental and physical abilities,” said Christine Johnson, associate dean for research and graduate studies in the College of Human Environmental Sciences at OSU.
 
“When these students become teachers in Oklahoma’s pre-schools and elementary schools, the Rise School will have a multiplier effect and benefit hundreds of special needs children throughout the state,” Johnson said.  
 
The Rise School in Stillwater will be especially unique compared to the nation’s other Rise Schools because the university setting will provide faculty members the opportunity to conduct well-designed, long-term research. Johnson said, “These studies will begin as soon as the school is open and document the developmental outcomes of the children being served, but also provide cost-benefit ratios for the state.”
 
The seed funding to start the process for developing the Rise School came in part from a $425,000 gift from T. Boone Pickens to the Mya Gonzales Foundation last November. The Mya Gonzales Foundation was formed by OSU Director of Football Operations Jimmy Gonzales and his wife Mary in March of 2006. Their daughter, Mya Gonzales, was born with Down Syndrome in July of 2005.

For more information, please visit: http://ches.okstate.edu/rise/