Frequently asked questions

While it can be helpful to have a diagnosis, at this time our team does not conduct comprehensive psychoeducational evaluations.  Here's why:

• Cost: The cost of materials, time to administer evaluations, time to interpret the results, and time to report back to parents and teachers adds up quickly!  Financial resources are limited, and it is important to us to be good stewards of the resources available.

• Service Delivery: When service providers are busy doing all of the activities listed above, we are not helping students develop skills or supporting teachers.  Our priority is to promote and support access to classroom learning in private schools where resources are traditionally limited.

• Availability: Each local education agency (school district) provides evaluations at no cost to families as part of the Child Find process that results in a determination of eligibility for special education services (which is a public-school service).  Alternatively, parents can seek an independent individual evaluation through their physician or other psychological agencies in the community to obtain a diagnosis.

• Each member of our team has a background in conducting and interpreting school-based assessments.  As such, our team is willing and able to interpret evaluation results from other agencies and translate that into supports for students in the private school setting.  This includes helping the school develop an individualized accommodation plan or service plan to support each student's educational needs. 

Our team emphasizes assessment activities that guide and measure intervention activities. We recommend and/or employ a variety of curriculum-based and/or criterion-based measures that help identify specific skill deficits so that interventions can be implemented efficiently and effectively.  In addition, we encourage the use of progress monitoring measures to ensure interventions are having the desired impact.  

While we understand the value and benefits of training and placing our own paraprofessionals in private schools, and hope to someday be able to add this service to our programming, we do not yet have the capacity to offer this resource.

Research suggests improved student outcomes for ALL students when inclusive practices are implemented in the classroom.  As such, it is not our goal to mimic traditional public school special education models that staff a resource room for students to rotate in and out of each day.  Instead, the primary goal of our special education teacher is to build teacher capacity through consultation, modeling, providing support with curriculum modifications and adaptations, making materials for interventions, coaching interventionists, supporting progress monitoring activities to measure student growth, and providing staff education.

It depends.  In most circumstances, it would not hurt to keep private therapy(ies) in place.  School-based specialists focus on optimizing learning outcomes and school functioning.  As such, sometimes "treatment" goals at school differ from those in private therapy.  In situations where school-based therapy is recommended, our therapists are happy to collaborate with your child's private therapists to ensure continuity of care.  In some cases, private therapy will be recommended in lieu of school-based therapy if our specialists' caseloads are full or if the child's needs are not impeding learning.  In some cases, school-based therapy might be sufficient and the addition (or maintenance) of private therapy might not be indicated. 

Typically, our specialists are able to work with students once per week, although sometimes we might be able to fit in two sessions per week.  This depends on the service provider's schedule and caseload.  Because we are only on site for part of the week, our providers also spend time consulting with teachers and parents about ways they can support skill development throughout the week.  Also of note, it is very common for school-based therapists to take the first couple of weeks of school to observe students, reconnect with teachers and families, and set up their caseloads and schedules.  We often do not start seeing students directly until the second or third week of school.  

Our service model is meant to be a school-based service delivery model.  Private schools contract with TheFiveEleven for specialized supports to be provided "school-wide" to their staff and student community.  In other words, the hope is your student would be able to access supports at no additional cost than what you pay to your school for tuition.  TheFiveEleven strives to provide services at a discounted rate to schools to keep the services accessible.  As such, if you have the means to offer a tax-deductible donation to TheFiveEleven in lieu of a fee-for-service, we would graciously receive your gift to help us keep our costs down for the schools we contract with.  Your gift will hopefully allow us to also reach more families!

Private schools do not receive funding for special education-type programming and therefore often use different names for student support plans according to their purpose.  Our team can support the school with the development of these support plans.  While this can vary from school to school, some common plans we have helped to develop and implement include the following:

• An intervention plan is used to document and monitor any additional instruction provided beyond the general classroom curriculum.  Intervention plans tend to be fluid in that goals can be updated at any time according to the student's level of progress and mastery.  They can also be discontinued as soon as the student's needs have been met.  

• An accommodation plan (also known in some schools as a 504 plan) is used to document classroom accommodations that "level the playing field" for students with disabilities.  Common examples of classroom accommodations include amplification systems for students with hearing impairments; large print for students with vision impairments; pre-written notes for students with motor impairments; audio books; testing accommodations; etc.  Accommodation plans are ideally reviewed each year to ensure they remain current and are passed along from school year to school year.

• An individualized service plan (also known as an Individualized Catholic Learning Plan in some schools) is used when a student has multiple goals and multiple team members providing supports for the student.  For example, student might be working toward grade level standards, but due to the nature of their disability is not expected to master those standards at the same rate as their grade-level peers.  Or a student might receive academic interventions, plus speech therapy and occupational therapy so the service plan can be utilized to coordinate those supports and ensure they remain in place year after year or until they are no longer needed.  Individualized service plans should also be reviewed annually.

We bring an interdisciplinary approach to the table, allowing us to integrate and coordinate our efforts with the academic interventionists to promote a whole-child approach to learning.  In this way, we can address barriers to learning that go above and beyond academic skill deficits.

Yes, the school psychologist is available to provide classroom guidance, small group intervention, and individual interventions that are focused on optimizing functioning at school, both socially/emotionally and academically.  In addition, members of our team can provide resources to teachers (who have the closest relationship with students at school) to support social and emotional functioning in their classroom.  The school psychologist does not provide "therapy" that might be found from a private psychologist.  Our team is willing to work with you to figure out the best support for your child's needs.

We always encourage you to begin the conversation with your child’s teacher.  With that said, we are happy to hear directly from you about your child's educational needs.  Here are some suggestions:

If your child attends a school that contracts with TheFiveEleven:

• your school will have the contact information for our team and can share that with you. 

• if we hear from you directly, please know we will eventually be in contact with your child’s teacher, as we never want to circumvent the staff member who spends the most time with your child at school.  

If your child's school does not yet contract with TheFiveEleven, feel free to use our contact page to start a conversation, and please tell your school administrator about our organization!