Academic Support
Academic advisers assist students with their coursework to ensure they are meeting graduation requirements, while a Career Development and Transition Coordinator assists students with post-secondary education or vocational choices after high school. To learn more about the Transition Program; KSTAR, visit the Transition Program Link under Academics. This program includes assistance with college admissions, financial aid, scholarships, and testing.
Dual Placement
Our Dual Placement program is a partnership between Olathe Public Schools and KSD. Our students have the opportunity to take a variety of classes to pursue their future career choices: core, electives, and Career Technical Education classes. KSD provides transportation to and from the participating school. Interpreter is also provided to facilitate communication. For more information click on Dual Placement.
American Sign Language/English Bilingual Language Arts
Our ASL/English bilingual program provides content instruction for Deaf and Hard-of-Hearing students using both social and academic ASL and English to promote higher levels of language, literacy development and critical thinking skills. Academic work is kept at grade level in both languages at all times. Using language separation, the ASL Language Arts instruction and the English Language Arts instruction are linked together across the curriculum; students receive opportunities for language experience in signing, viewing, reading, and writing in both languages. Students who have access to spoken English also have opportunities for language experience in listening and speaking across the curriculum.
Students who have emerging, limited ASL skills participate, on a short-term basis, are enrolled in an ASL Immersion class every day for one hour to focus on development of social and academic ASL in support of overall bilingual acquisition. Driven by Kendall conversational Proficiency Level (P-Level) assessment findings, students work on their ASL conversational skills, and their ASL conversational skills are assessed each quarter. Students, achieving a P-Level score of 4, are dismissed from ASL Immersion class and begin receiving individualized ASL services. Students who are new to ASL may also receive services from a Language Facilitator on a short-term basis to assist with the comprehension of academic ASL use in content-area classes.
ASL and Spoken English Services
The Speech-Language Department provides ASL and spoken English support and assessment based services. Deaf and Hard-of-Hearing Students may be seen in small groups, in individualized sessions and/or through consultation. In speech and/or language, students work on goals specific to their needs through theme-based small group and/or one-on-one instruction. Students are encouraged to work on articulation, auditory learning, clarification strategies, communication strategies, fluency, language, semantics, speechreading, and vocabulary.
