Dixon Public Schools’ new therapeutic day school almost ready

DIXON – Dixon Public Schools is adding the final touches to its newest addition to the district, the Thomas J. Dempsey Therapeutic Day School, in anticipation of the first day of school Aug. 14, Superintendent Margo Empen said.

During a brief school board meeting Wednesday, the board approved Dempsey’s student handbook, which is unique compared with other schools in the district.

In order to frame Dempsey as a “transition school,” Principal Janine Huffman decided to make the handbook much shorter than others in the district and only outlines policies that are specific to Dempsey. This is because Dempsey students will have a “home school” within the district, based on their grade level. Dempsey students also will receive a student handbook from their home school to reference things such as athletics, Huffman told the board.

The role of Dempsey is to fill in students’ emotional and social gaps in order for them to be successful at their home school, Huffman said. The school, serving kindergarten through 12th graders, provides special education services to students who experience difficulty in their home schools because of severe behavioral and/or emotional challenges, according to the Dempsey student handbook.

“Our ultimate goal is to get [the students] back to their home school,” Empen said.

That has been the district’s vision since discussions about the therapeutic day school began several years ago. Currently, students in need of these services are sent to locations that include the Quad-Cities, Rockford and Loves Park. A big reason behind the creation of the school was a desire to bring these students back to Dixon and incorporate them into the district’s community, Empen said.

To make that happen, Dempsey’s administration will work in conjunction with the home schools’ principals, Huffman said.

Dempsey students will be transported to and from school by buses provided by their home schools; they’ll graduate from their home school, follow its graduation requirements and receive a diploma from that school; and students are “welcomed and encouraged to participate in sports and after-school activities at their home school,” according to the handbook.

Along with other support services that include small class sizes and a small staff-to-student ratio, students will follow a basic leveled system that rewards appropriate school behavior. Moving up throughout the year, the highest is level four, at which point the administration would begin considering whether a student is ready to transition back to their home school, Huffman said.

Empen noted that the home school handbook wouldn’t apply for Dempsey students who come from outside the DPS district, but now are focusing on in-district students.

“I really like how you’ve framed [the school] as a place of transition,” Dixon School Board member Jon Wadsworth told Huffman.

With that, he added that it will be interesting to see how, as principal, Huffman creates a sense of identity and community at Dempsey.

Huffman told the board she is up to the challenge as it’s nothing she hasn’t done before.

With an extensive background in special education, Huffman worked as a special-education coordinator at the Bureau-Marshall-Putnam Special Education Cooperative before joining DPS.

Along with Huffman, Dempsey is staffed by Shanna Withrow as dean of students and a teacher, three paraprofessionals and Dwight Hill teaching physical education. Outside of a teaching capacity, the school has a secretary, a nurse and a custodian.

There still are two open positions at the school, but “we have some good leads,” Empen told Shaw Local News Network.

The district will have an open house for Dempsey, as it does with its other schools, but a date has not been set due to some final construction work being completed, Empen said. She also noted a dedication ceremony is planned in September to celebrate the school’s namesake, Thomas J. Dempsey.