Sanford Shapiro looks at Maplebrook School
Wednesday, October 5th, 2005
Sanford Shapiro looks at Maplebrook School
© 2005 Sanford Shapiro
Maplebrook School, located in Amenia, New York is a school that seems to know itself. It works with students with learning disabilities who are on the low end of average and below, on standard measures of intelligence. Schools for students with a lower cognitive profile, stand in contrast to the vast majority of schools that explicitly state are for students “with average to above average intelligence.” “It’s us and Riverview,” said Jen Scully, Maplebrook’s Dean of Admissions. While that’s not completely true, it is refreshing to see the campus of a relatively underrepresented population. In her estimation, students with overall IQ’s above 90 are probably not going to be an appropriate match.
After visiting classes and touring around the campus on a warm muggy day I was glad to have lunch with students in the air-conditioned lunchroom. You can tell a lot about a family, or in this case a school, by having a meal together. The kids and faculty ate together and conversed easily. There seemed to be a genuine sense of pride in the school and each student shared responsibility for parts of the clean up after the meal. The group of high schoolers I had lunch with included a day student from the town as well as kids from all over.
Classes are kept small and access to faculty is easy and facilitated consistently so that students do not fall through the cracks. Equal attention seems given to academic and social development. Small groups of students are each assigned a faculty mentor who follows and tracks their challenges and progress.
Maplebrook has a transitional program for older students that focuses on post-secondary planning, goal setting and some independent living skills development.
Related at this site: Maplebrook School
Wonderful information especially for those of us at a distance. We live in Barbados.
Have you ever reviewed Pine Ridge School ?
Would a PRS student be typically higher or lower functioning than Maplebrook, Riverview or Brehm ?
Cliff, thanks for your comments. I’m glad you’ve found the writings about schools useful. If you’ve read some of the intro info about this school visit project (you can read the first entry describing the project at http://www.ldresources.org/?p=1150 ), you’ll see that’s the whole purpose, to help parents in the process of researching schools for kids with learning disabilities. This and other sites or other information sources, online or otherwise, tell only part of the story. The more you find out about the students who go there, the people they hire, as well as the particulars of instructional design, the better your chances that you’ll be an informed consumer so to speak.
So now on to your questions. Pine Ridge has been around a long while and there are lots of families who feel indebted to this place because of how much their child has been helped. The offer a fairly unique program in that they try and address kids who have language-based learning disabilities and/or those with non verbal learning disabilities. From what I gather, Pine Ridge students will most often come in with higher scores on typical cognitive or IQ tests than those at the other three you mention, Brehm, Riverview and Maplebrook. It may be that Brehm and Pine Ridge have the most overlap in this regard.
I would recommend to any parent, that you call the school and go over the profile of your child and ask how that profile compares to other students. Sometimes if a school has recently gone through a self study as part of re accreditation, they will have some interesting statistics to share concerning their student profile. Even though many schools might not give you a definitive answer or one that only goes so deep (after all it’s hard to capture the esssentials of a learning profile and a students over all psycho social needs in a phone call), it begins the conversation that may help you decide if you want to take it any further.
I hope this helps and good luck.
Mr. Shapiro,
I am going to visit Maplebrook in the near future w/my daughter who is a 10th grader. After a day with Janet Greenwood Maplebrook and Riverview were recommend. After reading your reviews on both I am now wondering if I made the wrong choice. Can you tell me how you would rate them against each other.
Would you say on was better than the other?
Mrs. Greenwood is an Educational Consultant.
Lisa,
I thought both schools are really good at what they do.
Why would you think you made the wrong choice? Did you “select” Maplebrook over Riverview before visiting? If Janet recommended both, did you pick one over the other?
It’s good that you are visiting with your daughter. She’ll help you understand which is a better fit. You might want to arrange time for your daughter to sit in on a class or two. Take your time and do your research and you’ll make the right decision.
Good luck and keep us posted.
Sanford
Besides Maplebrook, Riverview and Brehm are there any other schools like these in the Ill, Eastcoast area. We are in Florida?
Thanks,
Lisa
Lisa,
How would you describe your daughter’s learning needs? What are her strengths?
Which schools have you visited so far?
Reading, Reading comprehension, voaulary are the strongest. She has trouble when it comes to writing but uses a laptop. Math is her greatest area of weakness. She has some trouble with short term memory and processing. We also need something that teaches social skills organization,coping skills pertaining to everyday life and everyday living skills (ADL’s). She is not a behavioral problem and does’t have emotional issues. Just a great, great kid.
Maplebrook would be the 1st school we are visiting!
Lisa,
My advice would be to first go visit all the schools Janet recommended. Be thorough, ask lots of questions and sit in on classes. Then you’ll be in a position to give your feedback to her. That will tell you whether or not to look at any other schools.
Sanford
Hello,
Thank you for your site. It has been so difficult to find such a resource. I have an 11 yr old daughter and I’m searching for the right school–regardless of location. SHe is currently at Eaglehill in Southport, CT. They have been great but they are primarliy dyslexic and she has a bit more issues. She is dyspriaxic, dyslexic, adhd, visual and auditory processing issues, short term memory issues, word retrieval issues, hypotonia. She tends to fall at an 80 for IQ but tests closer to 90 on visual based tests. SHe is quite shy and fragile with no behavioral. She is in desperate need of friends. I feel we need a school strong in speech and language. SHe is currently reading and performing math at 2nd grade. We are looking at Maple Brook, River View, Access Group. Any other ideas? It’s hard to find a school for females, her age where she can stay a few years and a school heavily focused on dyspraxia. THANK YOU FOR THE HELP!!