Page 36 - DistanceLearning

Strategy for Success:

The Center School

Distance Learning

Initiative

By Ronald P Rinaldi, Ed.D., Executive
Director, The Center School,

Somerset

The Center School is a state accredited,
private, non-profit day school for classified

students offering an Elementary School,
Middle School, High School, and transition
program to a student population of approx-

imately 80-90 students. Offering an academic based
program, we service over 50 sending districts from central
and north Jersey. Our emergency “remote learning” plan was
created with 2 simple goals in mind. The first was to continue
delivering a high-quality education in as similar a format as
possible to our normal daily schedule. The second, to con-
tinue to deliver all the same related services our students
required as per their IEPs. Both goals required an uninter-
rupted program and sense of continuity for our students. The
underlying concern, when creating the plan, was the fact that
disrupting a regular routine can be especially upsetting for stu-
dents with special needs. For most of our students, change,
no matter how small on a normal day, would cause anguish

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