Everyone wants to be like Renton Academy. The Newcastle school in the Renton School District is only in its third school year, but it has already hosted scores of teachers, staff and school districts.
On Tuesday, Renton Academy will host its most prestigious group yet: the Council for Exceptional Children. Based in Virginia, CEC is described on its Web site as “a professional organization dedicated to improving the educational success of people with disabilities, gifts or talents.”
The Renton Academy visit is part of CEC’s 2009 Annual Convention & Expo in Seattle this week. About 10,000 special educators from around the world are attending the Seattle conference.
“It’s a big, huge honor. We’re very excited for it,” Renton Academy Director Lisa Hoyt says of Tuesday’s visit.
CEC members are visiting Renton Academy to learn how the school serves its specific special-education population: students who need help managing their behavior.
Hoyt describes Renton Academy as a “therapeutic program for kids that are working on developing behavioral skills.”
Those 40 kids are ages 7 to 19, in grades one through 12. They are taught in one elementary, two middle and two high school classrooms.
Seventeen teacher-counselors instruct the students. Three mental health specialists and a psychiatrist help. The academy also partners with 39 outside agencies.
All Renton Academy staff members — even the custodian and lunch lady — are trained in the school’s governing philosophy.
That philosophy is called Re-Education. Re-Ed for short, Re-Education was developed by a clinical school psychologist in the late 1960s. Refined over the years, Re-Ed is a therapeutic approach that uses positive reinforcement to address the behavior, social and emotional needs of students.
Re-Ed has 12 principles, emphasizing trust, emotions, rituals, self-control and the importance of the group.
Hoyt’s favorite Re-Ed principle is that every child should experience joy every day. Creating joy isn’t a priority at a lot of schools, she says.
Renton Academy uses Renton School District curriculum, sometimes modified to meet student needs. Each student has an individual education plan.
Re-Ed is used in classrooms throughout the country. But Hoyt says that, as far as she knows, Renton Academy is one of only two public schools in a public school district that is focused on the educational philosophy. The other school, in Virginia, is for autistic students.
District officials started Renton Academy in 2006, as a way to teach district students in a district school. Previously, many of Renton Academy’s students received their education from private nonprofits, which Hoyt says could cost the district up to $80,000 per student per year.
With more than 20 years of Re-Ed experience, Hoyt is dedicated to the philosophy.
She was a founding member and president and is a board member of Washington Re-Education Association. That organization has trained more than 1,600 people in Re-Ed.
Hoyt took the lead at the start of Renton Academy, after working in the Seattle School District and in special education at the University of Washington.
As the “most restricted” district setting, Hoyt says it is no light decision to send students to Renton Academy. But she also says it is not a punishment.
She tells students that they don’t go to her school because they’ve been bad; they go there because they need more.
“They’re lucky to go to this school,” she says of her students.
Although still a new school, Renton Academy has already seen success. More than 12 students have transitioned into comprehensive schools, which is one of the academy’s main goals. The academy also graduated its first high school student last year, with two more on track to graduate this year.
Graduating high school is a big deal for a student population with a national graduation rate of less than 50 percent.
“At this point, every kid that walks and receives a diploma is a true success in what we’re doing,” Hoyt says.
