St.
Luke's
Children's Hospital
School
When children are hospitalized or chronically ill, continuing with school provides some normalcy and comfort to an unfamiliar and anxiety-provoking time.
At St. Luke’s Children’s Hospital School, we support the intellectual development of our patients as part of their comprehensive care – working with them so they can keep pace with their classmates, and ultimately return to their community schools and teachers.
Our school, located on the Pediatric floor, opened in 2004 with a mission to ensure that our patients are given the same educational opportunities as other children their age.
Our master’s level special education teacher has experience in cognitive remediation, alternative education, homebound education, and hospital education. She works with more than 100 students each year, from kindergarten through 12th grade and from throughout our region. Along with our professional and volunteer staff, the teacher provides for the individual needs of each student by establishing appropriate expectations – emotional, social, and educational – and then helping students accomplish them. This is a critical time to build self-esteem and a sense of competency, and the Hospital School is a key element in doing that.
Currently, the state of Idaho does not have a comprehensive, standards-based curriculum for hospitalized or homebound students, so our staff coordinates efforts between each patient, school, teacher, and home for curriculum needs and credit acquisition for work completed at St. Luke’s Children’s Hospital School.
Staff
Our staff is led by Carla Hart, an Idaho state-certified K-12 special education teacher, who oversees a dedicated group of support personnel.
Services for Our Children
- Individualized classroom and bedside instruction
- Focused projects
- Social skills acquisition for adolescents with brain tumors
- Homebound coordination
- School Re-Entry programming
- Liaison between hospital and school
- Parent training on school processes and continuity of academic programs
- Open year-round, Monday through Friday, with doctor-permitted open classes on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday afternoons
- Individual class times by appointment
- Services available to inpatient and outpatient school-aged children seen at St. Luke’s Children’s Hospital
School Re-Entry
After hospitalization, going back to school can be intimidating for many children, especially if they have been absent a long time, or if their illness or injury has caused them to look different or have different needs than before hospitalization.
When one of our patients is ready to return to school, our hospital school teacher can meet with staff at the child’s school to help plan for his or her educational, physical, and emotional needs in the following ways:
- Develop a 504 Accommodation Plan and/or an Individualized Education Plan (IEP)
- Work with families on special education processes
- Review neuropsychological and physical and occupational therapy evaluations
- Review speech and language evaluations and current academic status
- Outline the social/emotional status of the child, along with a current medical report
- Give classroom presentations to explain childhood illnesses/injuries and treatments
- Provide in-services to peer professionals on the impact a chronic/serious illness or injury has on educational performance
Contact Us
St. Luke’s Children’s Hospital School
190 East Bannock Street
Boise, Idaho 83702
208-381-7981 phone
208-381-5307 fax
hartca@slhs.org
