History of The Lab School
HISTORY OF THE LAB SCHOOL OF WASHINGTON
In September 1967, Sally L. Smith founded and designed The Lab School under the aegis of The Kingsbury Center, a diagnostic and tutoring center for children with learning problems. For its first fifteen years, this day school for children of average to superior intelligence with learning disabilities was located on Phelps Place, NW in Washington, DC. By August 1, 1982, The Lab School of Washington was incorporated as an independent non-profit educational institution with its own Board of Trustees headed by Ann Bradford Mathias. The school, still directed by its founder, retained the same administrators and staff, the same program and the same student body. It continued on a lease basis for one year in the three small Phelps Place Kingsbury buildings and in the nearby Quaker Center on R Street. Mitchell Park served as the children’s playground for 16 years.
With 90 children crowded into small rooms and the school confronting a long waiting list, a move was necessary. In July 1982, The Lab School became a separate entity from The Kingsbury Center, known as The Lab School of Washington. On May 17, 1983, the Trustees of The Lab School of Washington bought the former Florence Crittenton Home and property of 3.6 acres at 4759 Reservoir Road, NW, in Washington, DC. In 1992, the Trustees bought a house on the adjoining property to become the International Training Center and home for the Development Office.
In September 1983, its eighteenth year, The Lab School started its fall semester with 123 children, ages 5 to 16. Now we have 348 students on two campuses, ranging in age from 6 to 19. A Primary Program for five and six year olds was inaugurated, along with a Diagnostic Clinic and a small Tutoring Department. Special services such as Occupational Therapy and Speech and Language Therapy were greatly expanded. A Night School for adults with learning disabilities began as a result of an April [t1] Trust Grant in January 1984, and now it is a thriving institution. An After-School horseback riding program and a series of school trips led to the development of a formal After-School Program, which began during the 1984-1985 school year.
The annual Summer School has grown from a few children to over 200 [t2] youngsters with outdoor activities and swimming included. A College Counseling Service, specifically for this population, began in the fall of 1989 and is flourishing. An Adult Services Department now exists so that adults can attend the Night School and be tested, tutored, given various therapies, and advised on college and career choices.
From 1976 through 2007, Sally Smith headed the Master’s Degree Program in Learning Disabilities at American University. The Lab School is the primary training site for most of the graduate students. Each year, ten to fifteen American University graduate students serve their practicum under master teachers at The Lab School four and a half hours a day. Additionally, an equal number of Tutor Trainees are selected and enrolled in a program which includes being trained in working with students with learning disabilities while assisting in the Lower School classrooms.
The pioneering and innovative teaching techniques used at The Lab School have earned it an international reputation as a leader in the field. In 1994 the school was identified by the U.S. Department of Education as a National Diffusion Network (NDN) Model Education Program. The NDN validation means that public school systems are encouraged to use The Lab School as a resource and to replicate some or all of our practices. Ours is the most comprehensive learning disabilities program ever to be validated, and it is the only learning disabilities private school ever to receive this distinction. In 1996 The Lab School was selected by the U.S. Department of Education as a Blue Ribbon Secondary Program – an exemplary school!
In 1997 the elementary school of The Lab School was chosen as one of the two outstanding special education schools in the country at that time to receive a blue Ribbon from the U.S. Department of Education’s School Recognition and Improvement Programs.
In 1985, The Lab School and its Director also received an award for Excellence in Education from the District of Columbia’s City Council. The Lab School of Washington is known around the nation and abroad for its high quality education, its outstanding remedial instruction, and for teaching academic skills through the arts. The CBS Magazine Show, West 57th, featured the Lab School in April 1988, and a flood of letters and 700 telephone calls came in from every state within the Union, asking for Lab Schools in their communities. On September 17, 1995, the CBS Sunday Morning Show produced an eight and a half- minute piece on The Lab School called “Another Way.” In the fall of 1996, The Lab School was featured in a 29-minute documentary on dyslexia as part of a series called The Doctor Is In, produced by the Department of Visual Media of the Dartmouth Hitchcock Medical Center.
In January, 2001, The National Public Broadcasting system filmed teacher training and teaching approaches in The Lab School. 84 hours of shooting produced four 60-minute films to share the uniqueness of The Lab School approaches with teachers and parents everywhere. The four films, entitled Teach Me Different with Sally Smith are available from the Public Broadcasting Service (PBS). These films won the TELLY AWARD for first place in the Education category in 2002. In 2003, the films won the SILVER INTERNATIONAL CINDY (Cinema in Industry) AWARD - from the International Association of Audio Visual Communicators.
The Lab School of Washington has been accredited by the Middle States Association of Colleges and Schools since 1991. In March, 2001, and again in 2007, The Lab School underwent institutional accreditation again. Also, The Lab School received one of four Computerworld Smithsonian Awards for state of the art use of technology in education.
On September 13, 2000, The Lab School of Washington’s, Baltimore Campus opened with 18 students, ages 6-11. We are proud that this school, known as Baltimore Lab: a division of The Lab School of Washington, has succeeded and is very much like the DC Lab School. During the 2007-2008 school year, Baltimore Lab added a 12th grade and graduated its first class in June 2008.
Sally Smith and the Board of Trustees had the goal to continue to replicate The Lab School so a third school using the Sally Smith and Lab School Methodologies opened in Philadelphia in 2006. The Academy in Manayunk, in conjunction with The Lab School of Washington, started with 23 students and has now expanded to over 100 students and will add grade 10 in Fall 2009. [t3] Sally Smith and other members of The Lab School of Washington staff worked closely with the leadership and staff of the group in Philadelphia to assure that Lab School standards were met. Sally Smith helped hire and train the staff and the Club leaders in the first year of the school. Noel Bicknell has educated the Philadelphia Staff on the Academic Club Methodology and physically helped set up Gods Club, Knights and Ladies Club, and Renaissance Club rooms.
The Academic Club Teaching Service (ACTS) worked with staff from a school in Oklahoma City during the 2006-2007 school year. In the following year, ACTS worked with a staff from a school in Milwaukee, helping them to establish Academic Clubs in their schools. Other schools and groups from Idaho and Wyoming have expressed interest in The Lab School’s Academic Clubs for their own locations.
September 25, 2006 was the beginning of The Lab School of Washington’s 40th year. The children celebrated by creating a 9-foot giraffe to reside near our entrance with the motto of “Stand Tall.” An inauguration took place at noon on September 25, with music, dance, stories, and the requisite cake.
December 1, 2007 was a very sad day for the Lab School communities. Sally L. Smith had passed away. Our Founder, Director, Teacher, and Mentor had turned her vision of how best to serve students with learning disabilities into a model school serving students and adults throughout the DC metropolitan area. The Interim Director, Sally Seawright, and the staff of The Lab Schools were dedicated to keeping Sally Smith’s vision and ideals alive as The Lab Schools continued their mission of educating students with learning disabilities in a creative setting with an arts-based curriculum where all students can and do succeed. During the 18th month interval from December 1, 2007 to July 1, 2009, the school has increased enrollment and maintained its outstanding staff.
About Our Founder
Sally L. Smith was the Founder of The Lab School of Washington, a school she founded and designed in 1967 for intelligent children and adults with learning disabilities. She was its Director from 1967 until December 2007. Since 1976, she had been a Professor in the School of Education at American University in charge of the Master’s Degree Program in Special Education: Learning Disabilities. It was Professor Smith’s belief that everyone can learn, and she designed Lab School teaching approaches involving all the art forms and experiential education to teach academic skills to children and adults. She developed the Academic Club Method, an academic vehicle, highly scholastic that teaches history, geography, civics or any subject through the arts, which has been overwhelmingly successful with Lab School students since its inception. It builds storehouses of knowledge, vocabulary, fluency of language, and critical thinking in poor readers and non-readers, which good readers develop from prolific reading.
Professor Smith was a national leader in the field of learning disabilities. In 2001, American University gave her a medal for twenty-five years of outstanding service. In 1999, she was recognized as a Principal of Excellence and presented with the Distinguished Educational Leadership Award by The Washington Post. In 1999, she was recognized by Birmingham-Southern College as a “Woman of Distinction.” She was honored with the American University Faculty Award for Outstanding Scholarship, Research and Other Professional Contributions. In 1993, she received the LDA Award from the Learning Disabilities Association of America, the highest honor given in her field, in recognition and appreciation of outstanding leadership in the field of learning disabilities. In 2004, Professor Smith was awarded the Educator 500 President’s Award for educational innovation from the West Chester University’s School of Education and the Greater Philadelphia Chamber of Commerce.
As the author of ten books and a number of articles in professional magazines, Sally Smith mastered the art of translating difficult clinical issues into popular language. The 1985 Encyclopedia Britannica Medical and Health Annual included a section on learning disabilities authored by Professor Smith. Her best known books are No Easy Answers: The Learning Disabled Child At Home and At School (Bantam new edition, 1995), and Succeeding Against The Odds: Helping The Learning Disabled Realize Their Promise, (Tarcher/Perigee), published in paperback in 1993, and recipient of the New York Orton Dyslexia Society’s 1995 Margot Marek Book Award. Sin Respuestas Simples: El Niño con Problemas de Aprendizaje En El Hogar Y En La Escuela, (Editorial Plaza Mayor, Inc.) the Spanish translation of No Easy Answers, was published in 1999. Different Is Not Bad: Different Is The World, (Sopris West), a book on disabilities for young children was published in 1994. There is a Korean edition (2003).
In 1996, both No Easy Answers and Different Is Not Bad: Different is the World were selected to receive the prestigious 1996 Parents’ Choice Award. Professor Smith’s The Power of the Arts: Creative Strategies for Teaching Exceptional Learners (Brookes Publishing) was published in 2001, and presents arts activities and their effectiveness with children with learning disabilities, ADHD, language disorders, and those who are at risk for failure. Her tenth book, Live It. Learn It. The Academic Club Methodology for Students with Learning Disabilities and ADHD was published in 2005 (Brookes Publishing).
Sally Smith passed away on December 1, 2007. The philosophy, methodology, and mission she developed for The Lab School will continue to be the blueprint that guides this almost 42-year old institution into its next exciting phase.