The Elijah School

May we help you with those groceries?

If you shop at Martins, you can designate Elijah School to receive a cash bonus based on your purchases. It doesn’t cost you anything, Martins simply gives us a cash bonus of up to 1% of your purchase. Our school number is 02770. Starting tomorrow (September 6), you can designate Elijah School in several ways:
1. Send us your Martin’s card number and we will designate our school on your card.
2. Go to Martin’s A+ Rewards and sign up online
3. Go to Martin’s and sign up at the store.
We’ll receive a check in May – your contribution will go towards helping our school educate the minds, bodies, and spirits of non-traditional learners. Thanks for supporting us!

Inaugural Blog Post

Welcome to our new website! The purpose of our blog is to keep you posted on news about the school and the world of different learning styles. Along the way, we’ll be passing along quotes and links to articles and resources about non-traditional learners, hands-on curriculum, raising strong families, and the challenges and opportunities in raising intentional young people in a chaotic world.

We hope you’ll check back frequently to see what’s happening. Please contact us if you have any questions, comments or feedback. Thanks for stopping by!

A Typical School Day

Our students attend school from 8 a.m. until 4 p.m. daily during the school year. This is a long day, but we do not assign homework: all schoolwork (with a few minor exceptions) is completed within school hours. We believe concept retention is better served with a longer day and longer academic year, but with more frequent and lengthier vacations.

In middle school (grades 6-8), our students are actively engaged in the structured, sequential, research-based and multi-sensory approach to instruction we use to lay the foundation for academic readiness. Our small class setting (3-6 students in a class with a teacher) ensures that each student gets enough attention.

Physical Education is broken up into two periods per day – younger students have a lot of energy and need the chance to work some of it off. Our core subjects are five days per week: language arts, reading, literature, math, science and social studies. Students also have social skills, art, music, and typing.

In high school (grades 9-12) the schedule is similar, but students also have foreign language, critical thinking/philosophy, home economics, home maintenance and mentoring time. Every Tuesday afternoon high school students are out from 1-4 on a clinical experience which may be career exploration, a service project, or other activity that helps them explore their own interests and strengths.

In 2008, we worked extensively with Diane Sept, a Connected Riding teacher, to learn horse handling skills. We saw the self-confidence of several students soar. Wednesday afternoons each high school student spends and hour with their assigned mentor (each is trained by us and our licensed counselor) to discuss progress and stumbling blocks.

Like middle school, we have physical education five days per week to encourage the kids to burn off some energy and get their minds cleared.

Welcome to Elijah School

We’re very excited that you’re here to learn more about Elijah School and all that we do. I hope that you find this information valuable, but you are always welcome to come visit our school and see for yourself what makes us so unique and to experience what we do first-hand.

Elijah was started with the simple goal of serving students who struggle with learning differences: language processing difficulties, dyslexia, ADHD, Asperger’s, and other learning differences. We believe that all of God’s people are created with value and purpose, but this segment of young people needs a multi-sensory, interactive approach to teaching with smaller classes and individual attention. Elijah’s mission is to prepare young people with the knowledge, skills, and integrity to meet the challenges of today’s culture. We envision a generation where ALL students can attain the goal of becoming well-educated, passionate, intentional young people who live in healthy relationship with themselves, their faith, and their community.

Almost all of our students have experienced frustration in school; this is equally true of kids who come from public schools, Christian schools, and home-schooling environments. They frequently come to us carrying heavy burdens: that they’re “defective” or “incapable of learning”. Through targeted multi-sensory approaches, the students learn to compensate for their weaknesses, build on their strengths, and gain confidence in their own abilities. Our approach goes beyond the classroom to include service projects and hands-on “clinicals” that have included horse-handling, helping the elderly and disabled, and basic home maintenance. Students today need life skills almost as much as academic skills, so social skills, business skills, and consumer math play an important part in our curriculum. Parents, peers, and adults have all remarked on how our students have more self-confidence, the result of seeing themselves succeed. Success breeds success.

Each of our families sets out a written Education Plan for the year which includes goals, weaknesses, strengths, and areas of interest. Weekly meetings with mentors and our Guidance Counselor help keep those plans on track. Check out our Testimonials to see some of the incredible results!

Please call or come visit us to find out how we may help your student.

Richard Starr
Head of School