Set in the revitalized Main Street District of Alhambra, the school serves the Los Angeles Unified School District and several other school districts in the nearby San Gabriel Valley.
Sierra School of Alhambra resides in a beautiful, safe neighbor-hood with access to nearby parks. Sierra itself has a gymnasium and a grassy playing field. Our program provides weekly individual counseling to all students. Speech therapy and occupational therapy are available when needed. Transportation is provided by the school.
Sierra is a small special education therapeutic day school serving several different groups of students. The common ground among all students is that they function best in a highly structured setting as opposed to a large mainstream public school. The small class sizes and adult to student ratio allows the adults throughout the school to get to know the students on an individual basis. The students at Sierra all have behavioral difficulties and social/emotional issues with which they need help. The staff consists of special education teachers, counselors, and a speech and occupational therapist. Students are placed in an appropriate classroom conducive to their learning style and needs.
At Sierra we believe that the IEP team, which includes parents/guardians, determines the educational needs of each student; data collection is one of the ways we can track progress. Through the guidance of BCBA trained staff, the aides are able to apply specialized instructional techniques. Behavior goals are tracked and data driven through the use of a data collection system known as Catalyst. It is this data that helps drive the classroom instructional goals. It tracks behavior and IEP goals broken down into various skills to enable students to acquire the steps toward achieving their goals, maintain them through practice throughout the day, and generalize the skill in various environments.
Our school philosophy looks to empower students who are non-verbal with communication disorders by applying a Total Communication System in the classroom. We empower our students who are non-verbal with Functional Communication Training and Picture Exchange Communication System to enable them to interact within the classroom environment and in the community. We focus on skills such as functional living skills, basic hygiene, functional reading, functional math, and community based instruction. We apply, within each classroom, assistive communication systems in the instructional environment for those students who can benefit from the use of such devises determined by an assessment done by districts. We teach Life Skills using hands-on experiences when opportunities are available.
Sierra school staff are experienced in all aspects of special education. As a team, classroom staff and administrators collaborate to provide the best educational environment possible. One of our many goals is to treat every student to explore his/her environment, make choices throughout their day, communicate their needs and wants, and to feel nurtured, safe, and secure.
