St. Louis Language Immersion Schools partners with The Belle Center to provide special education support to students and their families. All special education direct services are delivered in English. The Belle Center experts also conduct professional development with our instructional and administrative staff.

SLLIS believes that all students can be served with dignity and our staff works effectively with this team of experts to provide continuous and seamless special education instruction to students as needed. SLLIS is committed to providing special education services in the least restrictive environment possible and values inclusion methods.

Given our unique language immersion environment, most student therapies are conducted with a peer model outside of the primary classroom. This allows us to preserve the immersion language instruction, provide students with their direct therapies, and continue to build supportive peer interactions.

During the enrollment process we request that families bring any existing Individualized Education Plans (IEPs) from the previous school or preschool. This allows us to schedule a Student Success Team meeting prior to enrollment where parents can meet with The Belle Center staff.

This initial meeting helps The Belle Center to learn about the family’s expectation for student service, to discuss whether the IEP may need to be reconvened or if the student will continue the same range of services. This initial meeting also allows us to begin delivering Special Education services from the very first week of school. In accordance with IDEA, SLLIS participates in Child Find. Child Find allows SLLIS to identify and evaluate any student in our school communicate for special education services.

Throughout the school year parents may contact their teacher team or Head of School with requests for an evaluation. IDEA [http://idea.ed.gov/] Services currently offered (these may expand depending on student need):

• Speech Therapy
• Physical Therapy
• Occupational Therapy
• General Special Education
• Support Social Skills

Do you think that your child may need to be screened for Special Education services?

Contact your Head of School

• The French School : Conrad Wildsmith Conrad@sllis.org
• The Spanish School : Arlene Galve Salgado arlene@sllis.org

Learn more about The Belle Center [http://www.bellecenter.com/]