Dixon Public Schools’ new therapeutic day school officially opens

DIXON — Dixon Public Schools celebrated the opening of the newest addition to the district, Thomas J. Dempsey Therapeutic Day School, at an open house Saturday.

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. Its doors opened to students Aug. 14 after several years of discussions to add therapeutic day services within the district.

The school’s name was chosen by the school board in November 2023 in honor of the late Thomas Dempsey, a former special-education teacher and principal of the former Nachusa – now Shippert – Campus.

Opening the school has “been a labor of love,” Superintendent Margo Empen said Saturday.

Prior to opening, in-need students were sent to locations that included the Quad-Cities, Rockford and Loves Park. By bringing these students back to Dixon, the district hopes to better incorporate them into the DPS community, Empen said.

In working toward that goal, Dempsey functions as a “transition school” to fill in students’ emotional and social gaps in order for them to be successful at their “home school,” which is based on grade level within the district, Principal Janine Huffman said during a July 31 school board meeting.

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 in 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.

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 now fully staffed by Shanna Withrow as dean of students and a teacher of fourth through sixth graders, Heather Batson as a teacher, four paraprofessionals, and Dwight Hill teaching physical education. Outside of a teaching capacity, the school has a secretary, a nurse and a custodian.