A private school expands its unique community

The school bell at the IDEAL School is unusual.

Instead of a constant buzzing, alerting the end of class, there’s a relaxing instrumental that plays in preparation, sort of like the music you would hear on an elevator ride.

That’s because this school, nestled in a quiet neighborhood on the Upper West Side at 270 W. 89th St., is not your typical institution of learning, and its founders are very proud of that.

The IDEAL school is the creation of three mothers of children with Down’s syndrome: treasurer Michelle Smith, secretary Audra Zuckerman, and middle and high school admissions director Julia Harquail. After discovering limited options to accommodate the type of learning atmosphere they felt would best work for their children, the three mothers did what other parents usually joke about in conversation: they created their own school.

“The kindergarten options and grade school options were very limited,” Harquail said. “We just talked about starting a school and crazily enough, we ended up doing that.”

After a growing buzz among the community that helped manage funding, planning and development, The IDEAL School opened its doors in 2006 as a pilot school focused on K-8 students of different backgrounds, learning potential, and special conditions.

Now, eight years later, classrooms are being filled at a new building called the IDEAL Academy, just two blocks away from its sister campus on W. 91st St., as the school expands its educational community to teach grades 9-12.

But what makes the IDEAL School unique isn’t just the soothing music echoing throughout the building, it’s the idea of “inclusion,” a word frequently used by its administrators, that sets it apart from public and charter schools in the city.

In many of the classes, students with special conditions sit and work alongside children without any. Classes are typically staffed by two teachers and usually have children of different ages and grade levels housed together.

“It’s inclusion, but not just inclusion of different learning styles, but inclusion of all different types of people,” Harquail said.

The administrators at the school strongly believe in finding the advantages of public and charter schools and combining them into a central focus.

“Every study shows that a more diverse classroom creates more critical thinkers,” said David Byrnes, a teacher at the school.

So how do you accommodate a classroom full of different types of students in age, background, and physical ability? Byrnes said they look at the “individual learner profile” -- an analysis of a student’s work assessment, behavior, and ability, in combination with the feedback from teachers and parents.

“From the time a student enters the school, we’re constantly building up an individual profile for them,” Byrnes said.

The profile is not only used for feedback and instructional methodology, but for additional resources, such as therapy to help with physical and mental conditions, tutoring, and in some cases, even seating. A number of classrooms feature chairs that rock and some that are designed like bean bags.

Individual profiles also help with working through the curriculum. Besides the fundamentals (math, science, and literature) the school offers a diverse amount of subjects to learn, from Mandarin, to sign language, to African drums, to the Brazilian martial art Capoeira. In one technology class, students use a 3D printer to make everything from spare drum sticks to smartphone cases.

Head of School Angie Bergeson said it was the assortment of class options that drew in students who didn’t have special needs, and the inclusive population that retained them.

“It’s an awesome independent school education,” Bergeson said. “You get empathy, kindness, compassion, and you get to be friends with a diverse group of people.”

The students are no stranger to current events, and social issues are discussed in class. Hot topics, such as the riots that broke out in Ferguson, Missouri, after the fatal shooting of an unarmed 18-year-old last month, are welcomed conversations. The school joined the People’s Climate March last month.

“The kids all have something to say and they find a way to say it,” Harquail said, adding that her daughter was one of those students, despite what a previous school concluded when they rejected her.

“They said she wouldn’t be able to participate in class discussion,” Harquail said. “But she has things to say. Her perspectives are a little bit different because her mind works in a slightly different way, but she certainly knows about what’s going on.”

Harquail acknowledged that teaching grades 9-12 is a unique challenge, but was confident in the ability of the Academy teachers, who range from a former member of the Harlem Globetrotter, to an American Idol finalist, to instructors with hearing problems and other physical conditions. “We try to have models for the students,” Bergeson said. “Everybody from all walks of life.”

For Byrnes and Harquail, the main goal is to keep progressing “the movement” by helping students look beyond books and toward possible careers, and they support this idea with internships and career development courses.

“Success is different for every child. That’s the founding principle of the school,” Byrnes said. “Success after the IDEAL academy depends on the individual student.”

But Byrnes said the IDEAL school is looking at how to expand the idea of individual student focus to other boroughs of the city, other states, and even other countries.

“We don’t see it as a school, we see it as a movement,” Byrnes said. “We would love to be a leader in that movement.”