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Teaching Methods Reflect Achievement

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By D'ANN LAWRENCE WHITE

dlwhite@tampatrib.com

Published: October 8, 2008

SEFFNER - From the outside, the small white, frame house in rural Seffner looks much like the tiny schoolhouse its founder envisioned.

"I wanted this to be like an old-fashioned, one-room schoolhouse where all the grades would learn together and the older students would help the younger ones," said Arnold Stark, founder, educational director and teacher at the Academic Achievement Center. "And I wanted it to be small enough to give each student individualized attention."

In addition, Stark believed a particular kind of student would benefit from that type of environment, a kind of student he was very familiar with.

As a youngster, Stark struggled with dyslexia and attention deficit disorder. He realized early on that he could never learn in the structured environment most schools require.

"You try to fit these kids with learning disabilities, who are very bright, into a certain regiment, and they are going to fail," Stark said. "And then they are going to start to have a lot of frustration and emotional problems as a result. By the time they come to me, they very often have low self-esteem."

After working with bright children diagnosed with learning disabilities since 1971, Stark founded Academic Achievement Center in 1981 in North Tampa on Himes Avenue, then relocated to Seffner 10 years later.

The center is among the first schools in Hillsborough County approved to receive McKay Scholarships, which enable Florida students with disabilities to attend private schools. Stark has 14 students in grades four to 12, although he accepts students as young as second grade.

"It's amazing how, once you start to give the students some individual attention and allow them some success, they immediately begin to blossom," Stark said. "I've seen kids who have had very little success in reading and math entirely change their attitudes."

Of course, attention alone won't turn a bored student into an overnight success. Stark said it takes a team effort involving the student, parents and some nontraditional teaching methods.

"Parent involvement is key," Stark said. "Sometimes I have parents coming in and out of class throughout the day. Since we're so small, I welcome any help I can get."

In addition, he said, students with learning disabilities tend to learn better when they can see how their lessons work in the real world. So Stark's one-room schoolhouse is lined with aquariums and cages filled with geckos, snakes and other creepy-crawly creatures that the students, 13 boys and one girl, are responsible for maintaining.

"Kids with learning disabilities tend to have an interest in natural history and science, and working with animals really increases their self-esteem," Stark said, adding that some of his students have interned at Lowry Park Zoo.

His experiential learning methods extend beyond the classroom. For the past 12 years, Stark has been taking students each summer to the Amazon rain forest in Peru. He also has taken students to Costa Rica, New York and Boston for spring trips.

"It's just been marvelous in terms of getting the kids to develop skills, as well as getting them to come out of their shells as they deal with an entirely different culture and people," Stark said. "It does more than any classroom setting could do."

Laura Bilotti agrees. Both of her sons have learning disabilities and attended the Academic Achievement Center. Her older son, John, graduated last year and is studying music at Hillsborough Community College. Her youngest son, Joe, is a senior at the center and hopes to get dual-enrolled at HCC this winter to begin studying in the aquaculture program.

She said she and her husband were frustrated by the lack of resources available for children with learning disabilities before they found the Academic Achievement Center through the McKay Scholarship program.

"We walked in and there was classical music. There were pictures posted from floor to ceiling. It was beautiful chaos," she said. "My husband said I wish I had the opportunity to be in a school like this when I was a kid. It was a sense of ET finding home. My kids had found their place."

The center is at 313 Pruett Road, Seffner. For information, call (813) 654-4198.

Reporter D'Ann Lawrence White can be reached at (813) 657-4524.

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