High Road School of Bloomington

At the High Road School of Bloomington, we partner with school districts to deliver customized education services for K-12+ students whose needs cannot be adequately addressed in the traditional classroom. Our programs are designed to manage behaviors that impede academic achievement, build transferable life skills, generate positive outcomes, and move students toward mainstream classroom reintegration whenever possible.

(P) 309.276.0933
(F) 309.276.0934
1716 RT Dunn Drive Suite 1
Bloomington, IL 61701
Director: Katy Killian
[email protected]

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Students & Staff

Our Students

Students are referred by their school district to attend High Road School and are generally in grades K–12 (aged 5 to 21). They face disabilities in a variety of areas, including autism, emotional disability (ED), independent of or accompanied by cognitive impairment, specific learning disabilities (SLD), traumatic brain injury (TBI) and/or other health impairments (OHI), and multiple disabilities (MD).

Our Staff

We are proud to employ dually-certified special education teachers, a social worker, an occupational therapist, a speech/language therapist, and more.

Overview

At the High Road School of Bloomington, Illinois, our gold-standard special education team brings unparalleled expertise to the evaluation, development, and implementation of custom-designed education plans for each of our students, with an emphasis on high-level scholastic achievement. We deliver our multisensory academic and behavioral program in a highly positive, nurturing environment that is extremely conducive to learning while also being warm, inviting, and stimulating.

Our small class sizes and impressive staff-to-student ratio allow for close and healthy student-teacher relationships to flourish, resulting in increased academic success and acquisition of positive socialization skills. The High Road School of Bloomington also provides related services in the form of physical therapy, speech-language therapy, counseling, one-on-one support, and absolutely any other resource that a special education student needs to become responsible, independent, and successful in all areas of life—at school with peers, at home with family, and in the community with friends and neighbors.

It is our goal to make learning fun and exciting by applying an individualized special education program coupled with a highly structured rewards-based behavioral management system.

Academic Rotational Model

By focusing on key areas — academics, behavior modifications, support services, and transition / life planning services — we are able to meet the individual needs of all students through these varied approaches to instruction. Through collaboration with a student’s IEP team, we are able to choose the most appropriate learning model based on a given student’s present levels of performance, social capabilities, motor coordination, and ability to learn in a group setting.

Utilizing four specific instructional rotations, students are assessed academically, gain self-regulation skills, learn with district-aligned academic curriculums, and utilize integrated technology.

Learn More About Our Academic Model

Broad-Based Educational Services & Therapies (BEST) Model

Serving students with significant autism and developmental disabilities, our model takes learned skills and practically applies them to the multiple environments in which a student would use those skills. Students spends portions of their day rotating through different modalities of instruction, the length and the frequency of each rotation is individuality designed for each learner and based on their current skills and future goals.

Each student enrolled in the model has individualized behavior programming which is driven by Functional Behavioral Assessments (FBA). We aim to identify the behaviors that continue to disrupt our student’s ability to access their environment and learning. We then use the data collected from the FBA and classroom data to device strategies that get to the root function of the students disrupted behaviors.

Learn More About Our Model

Transitional Program

The High Road School of Bloomington’s Transition Services are an important component of our program. We recognize the need to equip our high school students with skills they will require to reach their postgraduation goals. Our staff therefore provides job readiness training and individualized coaching in preparation for competitive community placements. Working with job coaches, each student receives the support necessary to prepare for employment in the workplace.

We understand that some students do not know what career they would like to pursue. Here at High Road, we try to help them find suitable paths and pique their interests by exposing them to as many fields, industries, and opportunities that we can. Students complete a variety of career interest inventories and profile sheets, go on community field trips to local area businesses, and research all sorts of professions. These steps guide our students to identify the prerequisite skills needed for each area of interest.

The unique opportunities presented to our students enhance their skills and knowledge, ready them to pursue their future goals, and provide limitless possibilities for self-sufficient, productive, and rewarding young adulthoods.

If you would like to participate in our vocational programming by allowing our students to tour your business and benefit from what you can teach them, please contact our Program Director at 309-454-8700.

Community Participation

The High Road School of Bloomington also encourages and provides extra support to students who want to participate in community-sponsored activities.

One such activity is the Penguin Project of McLean County, which provides theatrical opportunities for artists with special needs. The project pairs artists with special needs with same-age peer mentors to create an annual theatrical production that will impress!

Goals of the Project:

To provide an opportunity for children with disabilities to develop creative skills related to the theater arts
To provide an opportunity for children with disabilities to participate in a community theater experience
To facilitate interaction between children with disabilities and their age-level peers through joint participation in a community theater experience
To facilitate an appreciation of the challenges faced by children with disabilities and their families
To identify the impact of a community theater experience on the communication skills, socialization, and self-confidence/self-esteem of children with disabilities
To facilitate interaction among medical, developmental, educational, and theater professionals through participation in a common community project
To provide a forum for support and interaction for families of children with disabilities

Vocational Training Assistant Program

VTAP (Vocational Training Assistant Program)

One of our school’s primary goals is to support reintegration back into mainstream public school settings and community activities. To facilitate this goal, eligible students participate in the Vocational Training Assistant Program (VTAP), an evaluation and training program of Unit 5 Public Schools that prepares students with disabilities for transition to employment and active community participation both during and after high school.

Although VTAP is just one piece of the larger puzzle of comprehensively educating all our students, it provides invaluable experience and promotes core values, like responsibility, dependability, and self-reliance. Part-time employment and/or working at a training site during high school also develops a host of work skills and builds character and self-confidence.

Program components include:

Vocational Training Center: Participation in an entry-level program that provides comprehensive services for students. It is designed to provide short- and long-term training that will lead to gainful employment.

On-Campus/Off-Campus Training Sites: Students are placed at various training sites during the school day to develop basic job skills and appropriate vocational experience necessary for long-term employment. The VTAP Coordinator chooses an optimal site per student, where the student is integrated with nondisabled workers and where his or her strengths, talents, interests, and abilities are best accommodated.

Community Work Experience: Students are required to engage in community work experience during the school day, but VTAP also entails carrying this aspect of programming over outside of school and school hours. Students are responsible for securing their own transportation to work assignments, where they must show an ability to maintain employer expectations with minimal supports. If a student requires supports once they exit school, they must show independence for 18 months to be considered eligible for support services through the Department of Rehabilitation Services.

Faith's Law

Faith’s Law
Sexual Abuse Response and Prevention Resource Guide

Faith’s Law is named after prevention advocate and child sexual abuse survivor Faith Colson, who graduated from an Illinois high school in the early 2000s. Faith’s Law was passed by the Illinois General Assembly as two separate pieces of legislation. The first legislation established the definition of sexual misconduct within the Illinois School Code and outlined the requirements for schools to develop and post employee code of professional conduct policies. The second legislation adds employment history reviews as part of the hiring and vetting process for schools and school contractors, requires notices to be provided to parents/guardians and the applicable student when there’s an alleged act of sexual misconduct, and makes other changes to the process schools must follow when handling allegations of sexual misconduct. As a result, ISBE has developed a resource guide that is available on its website (www.isbe.net) and includes guidance for pupils, parents or guardians, and teachers about sexual abuse responses and prevention resources available in their community, including the contact information of entities that provide services for victims of child sexual abuse and their families.

The Sexual Abuse Response and Prevention Resource Guide can be found on the Illinois State Board of Education website (www.isbe.net) at: https://www.isbe.net/Documents/Faiths-Law-Resource-Guide.pdf#search=faith%27s%20law

In addition, a copy of the Sexual Abuse Response and Prevention Resource Guide will be provided to parents/guardians, upon request. Please contact the School Administrator to request a hard copy of the Resource Guide.