Students with behavioral challenges will soon have a new resource in the West Ada School District. 

The Flyers Center, slated to open this August, will provide classroom space and individualized support for K-5 students whose behaviors can roadblock their path to academic success. The center will help students learn to regulate their emotions so they can return to their home classrooms ready to learn. 

District leaders say the program will prevent students from falling through the cracks and help alleviate stress for district teachers. 

“Students come to us with a variety of needs, and we want to support those needs,” said Marcus Meyers, Chief Academic Officer for West Ada schools. “We intervene, and we enrich, and we provide opportunities to celebrate their progress.” 

Intentional supports help kids find academic success 

Flyers’ focus is on behavioral support — even if that means academic instruction needs to take a backseat. 

“You can’t learn anything when your brain isn’t ready to learn it, as far as academics is concerned,” said Kelli Knowles, incoming principal of the program. “Flyers will provide that environment for students who need to slow down the academic piece and focus more on the regulation and behavior piece.” 

By introducing students to behavioral support in elementary school, Knowles hopes that young students can learn techniques that will help them achieve academic success as they graduate to middle and high school. 

Knowles, who comes to West Ada from the Lake Pend Oreille School District, says directing the Flyers program is her “dream job.” 

The former principal and high school teacher said her interest in behavioral support began as an English teacher, when she encountered students who made it all the way through elementary and middle school without learning how to read.

According to Knowles, literacy can be tied to many factors that shape students into successful adults — and those who cannot read at at least a third grade level have a higher chance of entering the prison system, Knowles said. 

“If you can’t learn to read because your behavior is taking precedence over that, then you’re robbing yourself of the skills necessary to open doors that you can’t even think about when you’re a little kid,” Knowles told EdNews. “There’s a sense of urgency for me.” 

Each student has a different need, and Flyers will curate instruction to students based on their individual demands. 

Flyers staff, Knowles said, will focus on intentional and individual support. And staff will be consistent, yet flexible.

Lessons can be changed to compensate for whatever a student is dealing with on a given day, but teachers will always ensure that behavioral support is their top priority, with a goal to prepare kids for a return to the classroom. 

“A lot of our day is going to be spent community building, because our students not only need to work on their individual behavior, but they also need to work on how to build a community — how to make friends, how to ask peers for help and how to enjoy other people,” Knowles said. 

Instruction time will also be spent helping kids learn to self-advocate, create goals, and develop leadership skills. 

When students are ready, Flyers staff will help them reintegrate academics into their schedules through individual work time or project-based activities. 

“Our schedule can be flexible, and if a student is not ready for something, we can stop and teach them right in the moment.” 

Flyers to provide support across the district 

Come August, Flyers will not have any full-time students. 

That’s because staff will first focus on in-classroom support for teachers on West Ada’s elementary campuses. Flyers will dispatch educators to various elementary schools to offer behavioral interventions within a student’s classroom. 

Leadership will then use data to determine if a student needs more intensive support.

Those students may be referred to the Flyers campus for partial-day or full-day instruction — but all Flyers students will remain enrolled in their original school. 

“It’s really important that they have that community piece at their home school,” Knowles said. “If there’s an assembly that they want to attend at their home school, we will transport them back.”

“A lot of kids feel isolated from their community and culture because of their behavior,” Knowles continued. “It’s super important that Flyers is not a separate school. It’s just a place to help students.”