When Rivendell’s evaluation team recommends supportive services for a child, we work with the family to develop an Individualized Education Plan.

The IEP may include recommendations for special education, itinerant teaching, and/or related clinical services, such as speech and language, occupational or physical therapy. Recommendations are tailored to each child’s specific needs and aim to support and maximize the child’s inclusion in the daily activities of his or her school or center.

When special education services are recommended, Rivendell matches a Special Education Itinerant Teacher (SEIT) to work with each child. SEIT teachers work with children in the preschool or daycare center they currently attend. In some cases, children attend our own Rivendell Preschool, which we have designed to serve as a model of inclusive early childhood education.

The CORE Program

The CORE program of Rivendell School is a program for children of preschool age who have some cognitive abilities typical of children their age yet lack the requisite social, adaptive, and organizational skills that are necessary to cope with a school environment.

The CORE program, using SEIT and related services providers, presents a typical preschool curriculum in a one-to-one classroom setting that is predictable, sequential, and designed for each child’s unique learning style and his or her level of cognitive and social functioning. Through therapeutic teaching methods, clinical services, and intensive team member collaboration, the child develops awareness and understanding of a typical preschool environment.

Children enter into the CORE program at the age of 3 years. They are gradually given opportunities to apply the skills they have learned in the CORE classroom within the classrooms of Rivendell Preschool on therapeutically supported visits in accordance with their individual progress.

Children who may benefit from the CORE program are children who seem to learn in very specific ways and find great challenge adapting to new experiences, to information presented in new or even slightly different ways, and to changes in their routine. Such children demonstrate strong idiosyncratic aversions to or fixations on certain experiences or objects and therefore find “flexibility” very difficult. Although children considered within the autistic spectrum may benefit from CORE programming, this diagnosis is neither a requirement for nor an exclusive description of program eligibility.

The CORE program may be described in brief as a pre-preschool program leading to successful placement in a therapeutic program or typical classroom setting with SEIT and related services support.

For more information regarding the CORE program please contact Margaret Weiss at Rivendell School margaret.weiss@rivendellnyc.org.