A Brief History

The need to provide additional services for students within many school settings has increased dramatically over the past years. Many of these settings are not equipped to meet the needs of these students—they do not have trained personnel and are unable to financially consider doing so.

The students are enrolled. They must attend school, and the school is responsible to educate them. Common choices for dealing with this dilemma include:

  1. Ignoring the problem, letting the student bear the burden of conformity;
  2. Adjusting the curriculum, asking the teacher to bear the weight of extra work with little or no support; or
  3. Expelling the student, requiring someone else to address the problem.

 

We began with a team approach at a local non-public school which consisted of an administrator (disciplinary issues), an educational therapist (academic issues) and a health services professional (attention issues and health needs). The team worked to design a service delivery system that acted as a "clearing house" for routing students to appropriate intervention resources and providing in house interventions when feasible.

The team approach worked well. When supported, teachers triumphed in teaching children with whom it had seemed impossible to work. Students experienced academic success and, for many, began to work out of the black hole of failure they had formerly lived in every day. Parents found that there were things that could be implemented at home to enhance their child’s performance. Administration discovered that teachers were happier, a "team atmosphere" was fostered, and retention of already enrolled families was greater.  Tapping into five years of experience, our team developed Educational Special Needs Services (ESNS) as the alternative strategy, offering services to multiple schools rather than a single school.

Having seen the incredible benefits to children, a collaborative effort was initiated to explore ways to impact the local school community with a referral service compatible with each school’s purposes, as well as to assist families in finding successful interventions for their children.  Consequently, the team reformulated its structure and purpose statement to address this broader spectrum of mission and Educational Special Needs Services (ESNS) was officially established in May 2000 and was granted nonprofit (501 (C) (3) status on October 11, 2001.  Our new trade name Enhancing Education (EE) was officially adopted in April 2014.

Adequate hearing and vision are crucial for academic success and low-cost school screenings have been offered since our inception, with many students receiving financial scholarships for vision care.