If you are moving to the Greater Raleigh area and want to know about specific WCPSS programming, read on:

K-12: The Formative Years

Committed to excellence, The Board of Education has adopted an ambitious goal. They aim to have 95 percent of WCPSS students in grades three through 12, at or above grade level by the end of this year! Such ambitious goals are indicative of a forward thinking and committed board, who are dedicated to providing the best education and ensuring that positive growth continues.

Parents in this area have a wide variety of educational options. There are many traditional public schools and also numerous private and special-needs schools. WCPSS offers over 20 programs in the district with 51 magnet schools. The award winning magnet school program provides creative approaches for teachers to reach students and to meet different student’s individual learning styles and needs. Magnet schools in the area, have been especially recognized with awards such as the United States Magnet School of Excellence of award and the Magnet School of Distinction award.

Recently the district received a portion of a 2.3 million dollar grant to open a health and life science themed high school aimed at developing students for both higher education and jobs in biotechnology and health care. Students at these schools will have the opportunity to participate in internship programs and will have access to community college and university level courses. There’s other grant funding in place which comes from the New Schools Project, an 11 million dollar grant that will create more than 100 new and redesigned high schools across the state.

Post- Secondary: Superior Education at Your Doorstep!

North Carolina State University, as one of the nation’s top research universities, is a great example of one the best post secondary options in Raleigh. Home to BTEC, The Golden LEAF Biomanfacturing Training and Education Center, this University is committed to providing a highly trained, industry-focused workforce. Dedicated to pursue “innovation in action”, NCSU partner’s with business’s, industry and government with a focus to collectively create innovative products and research.

The region’s community colleges also offer solid programs for those wishing to pursue technical, or specialized training in particular sectors of the workforce.

North Carolina community college is focused on biotechnology training to provide a highly trained workforce for the estimated 125,000 residents of NC who will be employed in this sector by 2025.

Wake Technical Community College is a leader in biological and chemical technology programs. They also offer North Carolina’s only community college lab facility for industrial pharmaceutical technology. As a state leader providing over 20% of all industry training offered by community colleges in the state, Wake Tech serves as a catalyst for economic growth and development. This exceptional community college assists thousands of businesses with its superior Small Business Center and New and Expanding Industry Program.

It is easy to see why Raleigh, North Carolina boasts one of America’s most educated workforces. If education is important to you and your family, consider Raleigh, North Carolina as a smart option for a solid future.

There are loads of websites ready with content and information on having a learning disability. And many of them give symptoms of the “problem,” including difficulty understanding simple instructions, difficulty concentrating when reading or writing, being unable to tell important information from unimportant information, and difficulty organizing and completing writing projects. While these are explicit hindrances in a person’s ability to learn, there are often other ways to inform these systems, especially once you conceive the symptoms of a highly sensitive person.

The term highly sensitive person was coined by Elaine Aron. She explained that being highly sensitive means that your nervous system is more sensitive to the subtleties of your environment, and that the brain processes information very deeply, resulting in becoming over stimulated or overwhelmed easily by a lot of information According to Aron, 15 to 20% of the population is highly sensitive, but most don’t know it, which means there is a large number of people who could simply be sensitive to their surroundings and thus inhibited in an academic setting without being learning disabled.

I am considered to be a highly sensitive person and have spent much of my life thinking I was learning disabled. The reason for this was because I displayed some of the symptoms of a learning disability. I had a difficult time understanding simple instructions because I was overwhelmed by the amount of words directed at me. Whenever I was able to calm down, I could understand any instructions easily. Also, I often couldn’t concentrate, which resulted in me doing poorly on tests. For example, during my ACT testing there was a siren blaring outside the window for almost 45 minutes and that’s all I could think about; there was just too much information between the siren and the test to process.

As a child, I had a very difficult functioning around others because I was very shy and overwhelmed by large groups of people. I also had a difficult time working under the pressure of a watchful eye. However, if I was left alone, I could work at twice the speed of others, often finishing my tests in 30 minutes when it took others an hour or more. I could work non-stop for long periods of time as long as I could go out and bath in the sunlight alone. And I often needed extended periods to myself to be intensely introverted, often being able to go days without communicating with others.

My teachers sometimes threw hints at me to look into being tested for a learning disability; and at times I considered it, unable to explain why I sometimes could not take in information – especially if there were no diagrams and pictures involved. After spending years not understanding myself and my often low grades, I began to do research to see if I really had a “disability.”

In doing my research, I ran across information on the highly sensitive person and became intrigued. Once I read over the information, I realized that I was not somewhat highly sensitive; I was VERY highly sensitive. On the “self test” administered on the Highly Sensitive Person website hsperson.com, I scored 25 out of 27 in favor of being highly sensitive. That let me know that many of my academic issues could easily be explained by my highly sensitive nature.

In learning more about the highly sensitive person, I found that most highly sensitive people are unable to watch a lot of violent or negative television without being adversely affected, many are unable to take in caffeine or sugar without “feeling” the difference, some have a very difficult time working stressful 9-5 jobs, often having to quit due to physical ailments brought on by the pressure, and both short-term and long-term abrupt changes can severely disorient them. I also learned that many highly sensitive people find that it is easier to work from a standpoint of purpose. They must fulfill what is considered to be their “calling” or they can never be happy – their super-sensitive nervous system won’t let them rest until they are living an enlightened life. As a result, I’ve done the same, enrolling in an institution that will educate me on teaching others to accept themselves for exactly who they are – and I feel great doing it!

Learning the background of the highly sensitive person has helped me to come to terms with who I am as a person and member of society. Early in life I felt like an outcast due to my extremely shy and introverted nature; and course being viewed as a slow learner didn’t help my self-esteem. But after learning that there are more people out there like me – a large number of people at that – I can feel comfortable that there is a place for someone like me; a person who is smart and talented, but had to learn the best ways to thrive in a high energy society. Now I want to encourage others who may know a highly sensitive person to view them differently. Instead of believing they are lacking or even learning disabled, consider that they are just different than you, like every other unique person in the world – and that is okay.

The following story was related to me by a friend and I felt that this subject needed to talked about, it is very important to deal with these various learning disabilities.

Often, disabled students are in the same class despite their various abilities or inabilities to completely comprehend the material being taught. Therefore, they are not learning at the same level.

This is why using software designed for disabled students is such a good idea, most likely more so than technology in the classroom designed for students who do not have disabilities and who are all primarily on the same educational level. With disabled students and technology, individual students are able to learn at their own pace and the instructor is then able—judging by what he or she knows the individual student is capable of, and can grade the work accordingly.

In addition, the instructor can keep much better track of his or her student’s progress by keeping records of all of the individual students work on a hard drive and back-up disks. This is also a way to teach the students how to organize their files neatly.

Many programs, even those that are not as advanced technologically as those of the other students and make it easy for them to put different files in different folders depending on the subject—and further organize his or her assignments with other folders marked by the exercise. They can even go as far as to learn programs that teach how to save old files that have been improved such as English papers or book reports that have been revised from the original version they wrote after the material was reviewed.

Balance:

As a teacher, it is difficult to instruct a class composed of students who learn at all different levels to make the lesson interesting enough that they do not bore the more advanced students—which often makes them “tune out”—and, by the same token, they do not confuse and frustrate the children who are slower at learning and require more time to reach an understanding of the material being taught. It is virtually impossible for any teacher to do so.

The main point is that technology and disabled students is almost becoming an essential part of teaching mentally handicapped children. And although technology is also helping advance other learning— i.e. learning for students without mental handicaps, without disabilities, is still a very effective method of teaching. But it does take away from the actual teaching itself, and for some teachers that is a sad thing. When the computers do most of the instructing, the teacher, of course, does less.

Be choosy in the kinds of computer software you purchase for your students. Some software for technology and disabled students is quite effective, contains a long warranty and allows the students to get the most possible benefit.

On the other side of the spectrum, certain computer software and other technological learning devices are without warrantee and are of lesser quality. Therefore these kinds of programs can unfortunately be a waste of money, even if they are less expensive. Check out consumer reports on technological software before you purchase any program. You want the very best for your disabled students.