Issue date: 3/31/08 Section: Features

    With alumni now at the Naval Academy, another serving as vice president in charge of marketing at a national radio corporation, others attending Law and Medical schools, the message being emanated from The Summit School - a school serving bright students with dyslexia and other learning differences, grades 1 to 8, is that even though you learn differently you are still destined for success.

    For the past 19 years The Summit School has provided its students with effective tools that address their learning differences and caters to each child's learning style. Founded in 1989 by Jane R. Snider, Ed. D., the Summit School emphasizes the uniqueness of each student's gift and strives to cultivate it while targeting their challenges of Dyslexia, Auditory Processing Disorders or Specific Learning Disabilities.

    Snider, who serves as Executive Director of Summit - spent seven years in private practice as a Learning Disabilities Specialist and saw hundreds of children who were not successful at their respective schools because they had reading challenges. Encouraged by the parents of some of the children in her practice to open a school; thus The Summit School was birthed. The school rests on a 15-acre campus in Edgewater, MD and serves approximately 100 students annually and provides a staff to student ratio of 1:4.

    It is estimated that 15-20% of all school age students have learning issues and of that group approximately 5-6% have diagnosable dyslexia. The Summit School is leading the path in addressing these issues and during Dyslexia Awareness Week in Maryland (March 24 - 30) The Summit School will host special events on its campus to raise public awareness about dyslexia and also share information about their relationship with students who learn differently.

    The events will include a Drop-In Tour, a forum targeted to African Americans at the Sojourner Douglas College, which will focus on identifying learning and emotional difficulties, and a workshop on the Summit campus titled, "What is this thing called dyslexia?"

    "The field is way behind in servicing students with dyslexia. These are bright, talented young men and women who need to be taught in a systematic way in order to learn. If the correct strategies and techniques are taught, they will learn and will ultimately make a significant contribution to the world," Snider said.

    However, the negative stigma attached to children with learning disabilities is still very rampant; thus, while efforts are made to help the children, themselves, it is evident that there is need for the wider community to be educated about those who learn in a different way. The greatest challenge, said Snider, is educating the community that children who learn in a different way are bright.

    Summit's statistics indicate that Snider is indeed correct as more than 400 students have graduated from Summit; 99.5% of them have completed high school, attend or attended college and are pursuing progressive paths in their lives.

    In a testimonial of her struggles with dyslexia and the fundamental role Summit played in her educational and personal development one alumna shared, "I now love who I am, and that I am dyslexic. This greatest challenge has become my greatest achievement."

    The Summit School has its sights set on expansion and is looking into the addition of a kindergarten. "We are growing our Outreach Services to expand into a wider geographic area to help more children receive tutoring and speech therapy," said Snider. Another major goal for Summit is to build a $5 million endowment to curb rising costs of tuitions, to offer more scholarships, and to improve faculty salaries and benefits.

For more information about The Summit School visit www.thesummitschool.org

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