Pathways is a nonpublic school and a member of the Maryland Association of Nonpublic Special Education Facilities (MANSEF). The MANSEF schools serve students with a range of disabilities, providing programs tailored to meet the educational needs of students who otherwise would fail. We partner with the public schools and are part of the state's educational continuum that seeks to give every Maryland child the best possible opportunity. We are a sometimes overlooked reason why for the fourth straight year Maryland's public education system received first ranking from the national journal Education Week.

At Pathways we enable students to overcome emotional and behavioral obstacles so that they can learn and succeed. We can do this because our schools are small and our staff can focus on each student individually, implementing an educational and therapeutic plan that will address each one's weaknesses and build on their strengths. Our teachers have the time and opportunity to observe a student's unique needs and use an array of avenues to help them learn, including computer technologies and the arts. Students are helped and encouraged to learn by an equally individualized program of therapy that supports them each day. The result is that dozens of Pathways students each year score well on state assessments, hold jobs, graduate high school, choose college and post-secondary technical training, discover and develop creativity in the arts, embark on careers, and lead productive lives. Their success contributes to the high quality reputation of Maryland's education system.

That is why we are proud of what we do and what our students can accomplish.

A classroom at The Pathways School-Edgewood this spring became a multifaceted adventure in discovery and

The class with mosaic in process. Ms. Quiroga is third from left.

the arts as students used what they were learning about indigenous cultures to inspire the creation of a mosaic mural.   The project, "Many Cultures, One Planet" was the focus of an arts-integrated residency carried out by South African born visual artist Carien Quiroga and funded by the Arts and

Individual piece of the mosaic

Humanities Council of Montgomery County. Ms. Quiroga worked closely with classroom teacher Zsofia Toszegi to connect lessons in native culture, geography and fauna of South Africa with instruction in metal embossing and mosaic techniques. The students practiced writing, communication skills and reading comprehension as they studied and wrote short poems on which to base the designs of individual pieces of the mural. Ms. Quiroga concluded her report of the residency by saying, "This has been a wonderful and unique experience working with the Edgewood students. I was impressed with their creativity,

Student working

teamwork and dedication in mastering the skills required to create the mural. I am delighted with how the mural turned out and it is a beautiful legacy from all the students." The finished mural will be on exhibit at the Student Art Show at Busboys and Poets in Hyattsville on May 23. The show is part of the year-long celebration of Pathways' 30th anniversary. 

February, Black history month, began with an assembly featuring an "It's Academic" style trivia contest based on facts and historical events the students had reviewed in class. Then the entire school visited the Reginald Lewis Museum in Baltimore to view exhibits on African American history.

The Museum at Strathmore was the place to encounter some investigative science. There the students visited the interactive exhibit "You Are What You Eat", where they could consider America's food consumption through larger than life art forms. Also of interest to the students was the arts venue's architecture and design, including the acoustics of the concert hall and the sound proof performance spaces.

On Thursdays throughout the February and March, students participate in and are the patrons of The Pathways Café, "owned and operated" by the Student Government Association (SGA). The students are responsible for purchasing and maintaining the inventory for the café, which serves hot chocolate and pastries in the morning, and snacks and an "item of the week" during lunch. The SGA officers rotate each week and do all the set up, clean up, customer service and counting and recording deposits with the SGA treasurer.

Working at SHARE

Every month, Springville students go to the SHARE DC Warehouse to volunteer in distributing food. The SHARE supervisor noted that the students' willingness to learn and attention to detail was great and that what they were learning in social and customer service skills would help them in any future career.

The physics and integrated science classes at Springville

Testing the roller coaster

designed and built a model roller coaster and then tested its centripetal force. The aspiring engineers are now building a truss bridge with dry spaghetti and are getting ready to test how much weight the bridge can sustain.