Why our daughter will be returning:

The same reason we enrolled her initially – we determined that traditional education does not provide the best learning environment for our daughter.

Our daughter is easily distracted so she does best in a quieter, calmer environment.

The class size at Lahr-Well is small which helps our daughter because she benefits from more individualized attention. She was receiving individual attention in traditional education, however she was being pulled from her general class quite a bit for this and was missing out on general class activities to the point that her participation as a class member was significantly impacted. At Lahr-Well, because of the smaller class size, the impact of individualized attention is all positive.

The traditional education which our daughter was receiving seemed to be set up so that all students had to conform to a very rigid learning standard despite the fact that children’s ages in elementary school grades can vary by almost a year and children do not all learn at the same rate. Expectation of student ability in traditional education appeared to be unrealistic (although these expectations appeared to be based on the Illinois State learning guidelines for first graders, which seem unrealistic in several categories – such as first graders being expected to be able to work complex mathematical word problems that require higher level reading abilities and math skills to complete). At Lahr-Well our daughter has been able to work on her level and actually is improving in all areas at her pace.

The wearing of uniforms seems to have improved our daughter’s ability to focus on her learning. In traditional education there were so many distractions, particularly involving clothes and dressing up. These distractions were preventing our daughter from focusing on learning.

Additionally our daughter may have been teased/harassed in traditional education setting and did not currently have the social skills to discourage this type of behavior. Our daughter seems much more comfortable and is no longer stressed when she comes home from school.

In the traditional education environment, it appeared that quite a bit of time was wasted with students waiting in line or going from one place to another. At Lahr-Well, because of the smaller class size and the way the classes are set up, time spent at school appears to be used much more efficiently.

— Dr. Anne W., Mother