PLEASANT GROVE — Gratitude is the word Amanda Sullivan uses repeatedly when talking about Spectrum Academy and what it has meant to three of her children.
Her kids have been enrolled in the charter school for the past three years, and it has offered them the education, support and opportunities they often lacked while attending public schools.
Spectrum Academy specializes in educating students with autism and other special needs. A popular resource in Utah and Salt Lake counties, the academy broke ground Wednesday for a new facility on its Pleasant Grove campus, which will expand the number of students it can accommodate.
“As a parent, I couldn’t expect those (public school) teachers to accommodate to my child, and I felt bad for those teachers, but I also felt bad for my child,” Sullivan said. “So the difference is incredible.”
“It has been the most amazing transition (to Spectrum Academy). I couldn’t have asked for anything better to happen for my special needs kids than this. They have friends ... They are learning at the level that they are at, and the help there that they get on subjects that they have a hard time with is incredible.”
The family is one of the lucky few who got its application accepted almost right away. Others are stuck on a waiting list, sometimes for years, before finally getting accepted.
“It’s kind of a lottery system,” said Kristen Wilson, principal at the elementary school and the functional skills program at Spectrum Academy. “So some parents who go onto the waiting list get called up immediately, and some have to wait several years.”
Fortunately for the families that are currently waiting their turn, Spectrum Academy’s in-progress Spectrum Transition and Academic Resource School will allow an additional 100 students to attend.
The facility will provide the space for students to learn to function in numerous real-life situations and settings, with educators teaching “communication skills, self-regulation, life skills and transitional skills development programs — all in age-appropriate groups,” according to a news release.
“I’m so excited,” said JoLynn Powell, a teacher at Spectrum Academy. “We’re going to have so much more room.”
“I do know that some parents are a little hesitant because they worry about that inclusiveness of having another building, you know, but it’s just going to give us more of an opportunity to help these students be more successful. So I’m very excited.”
The planned 22,000-square-foot facility will feature more than a dozen classrooms, two different serving kitchens, sensory rooms, a mock apartment, open space to socialize, therapy rooms and places for students to go when they feel overwhelmed.
“It’s for our kids, like our functional life skills program, who have more intense disabilities and more cognitive disabilities,” Wilson said. “So the purpose behind having a building just for them is to be able to offer them more support to be able to offer more accommodations to them in their classrooms, more equipment, more specialized services and to be able to accommodate their needs in more specialized ways.”
Spectrum Academy’s North Salt Lake campus already has a Spectrum Transition and Academic Resource School, but it only teaches elementary-age students. The one in Pleasant Grove will teach students K-12, Wilson said.
The building is expected to be finished by Aug. 4, 2021, “right in time for teachers to get in and set up their classrooms and be ready for students to start the ‘21-22 school year,” Wilson said.
It will cost around $4 million to build and was paid for through municipal bonds, said Brad Nelson, executive director of finance and school development.
The facility is well worth the cost, according to Sullivan.
“I’m very religious,” Sullivan said. “I feel like (my children) were placed where they needed to be placed to get the help they needed.”
“(The new school) is going to give 100 families the same experience I’m going through, and that’s amazing.”