History

Opening a World of Learning Opportunities
for Students with Special Needs

In the summer of 2006, the "idea" of opening up a year-round educational facility for students with special needs began. JoAnna Dean was a Special Education Teacher at Stevens Elementary in Jefferson County, Colorado and Deb Winter is the aunt and legal guardian of Denise, who is a child with special needs. Luckily for Deb, Denise was now in JoAnna's challenge class and was doing some summer school work as well.

They started talking about how frustrating it was that there weren't any educational based summer programs available for kids with special needs. For many of these kids, having a whole summer off from school is devastating to them and their families. It is critical that they receive a consistent therapeutic learning environment or else it becomes two steps forward and three steps back. They also talked about how difficult it was for parents and caregivers, when every year for three months they have to either take time off of work, or hope that other family members can help with day care, or get lucky and find a day care that takes kids with special needs, or send their child to a summer camp for kids with special needs, which may not be an option financially.

JoAnna mentioned that she had always had this dream to start a school that was year-round and encompassed academics, along with community and life skills in a therapeutic environment geared towards the specific needs of each individual child. As they continued to talk they realized that they both had the same desire to start something for kids with any and multiple disabilities that began at the pre-kindergarten level and continued year-round through high school and beyond.

Then and there they decided to just "do it" and the Special L.I.N.K.S. Learning Center was born. Click on the links above for more information about our school programs.