For years, Mahnia McMullen-Woolfolk’s quest for a school where her son could learn and thrive was a lesson in frustration.
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“We tried private schools, we tried Catholic school and we tried public school,” she recalls. “Nothing worked.”
Her 16-year-old son, Amani, has ADHD or attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, a developmental disability characterized by inattentiveness, over-activity and impulsive behavior.
“He wouldn’t go out for sports,” she says. “He kept to himself.”
McMullen-Woolfolk’s quest took a fortuitous turn at a nail salon, where she spied an ad for a summer program at Layton Preparatory School, a tiny independent school, while leafing through a magazine.
“The program at Layton turned him around academically and socially,” she says. “Amani has learned accountability. He has learned study skills.”
Layton serves a niche within a niche: college-bound secondary school students with learning differences, including ADHD, dyslexia and Asperger's Syndrome, a disorder on the autism spectrum that impacts a person’s ability to communicate with others.
The school’s teaching strategy includes lots of individualized attention—the student-to-faculty ratio is three-to-one—with teachers encouraging students to cultivate their strengths and develop ways to bolster their weaknesses.
To date, 100 percent of Layton graduates have gone on to college.
“There are lots of programs for students with special needs through grade eight,” says Barton Reese, Layton’s head of school. “But there was nothing that continued into high school.”
In September, that continuum from pre-school through 12th grade will be established for the first time in Delaware, when Layton begins leasing space from Centreville School, which serves children with learning disabilities, starting as young as age three and ending with the eighth grade. Both schools will retain their names and administrations.
“We expect it will be a very successful relationship that will benefit both schools,” Reese says. “We’re excited about gaining a large campus with playing fields, as well as the opportunity to attract students from Pennsylvania.”
Layton has been looking for just the right home for most of its brief life—and Centreville might turn out to be just that. At first, the school was located on the Oberod Estate in Centreville, owned by the Episcopal Diocese of Wilmington.
The school opened its doors in September 2005 to its first student body, made up primarily of ninth graders. Reese and co-founder Patricia McLachlin were administrators at Sanford School in Hockessin before launching the new school. The school is named for Debra Layton Harvey, principal of Harvey Truck Center in New Castle and the school’s founding board president.
With an initial $1.5 million in grants and contributions, Layton was off to an exciting start. But the school had to relocate when the diocese decided to sell the property.
Reese was poised to lease space in an industrial park in New Castle—“in the shadow of the Delaware Memorial Bridge”—when a supporter suggested he contact Audrey Doberstein, then president of Wilmington College.
Layton Prep and Wilmington College, now a university, quickly put together an agreement for Layton to rent space on Wilmington’s graduate campus on Reads Way in New Castle. The location gave the school access to a gymnasium, as well as additional classrooms shared with the university. Several Layton students take supplemental courses at Wilmington.
“Audrey understood and supported our mission and helped us to make a smooth transition,” Reese says.
Doberstein, now retired, remains a Layton supporter and serves on the school’s board of trustees.
The school’s target enrollment number is 60 students in four grades, 9 through 12. To date, Layton Prep is about halfway there, with 28 students.
A fledging institution without a huge endowment, the school has been buffeted by a bad economy.
“We don’t have 150 years of alumni and their families to draw on for our endowment,” Reese says. “We work very hard writing grants and raising funds.”
For the past two years, Layton has held tuition at $25,000 a year; with about 40 percent of students receiving financial aid.
“The school is very supportive of families,” says McMullen-Woolfolk, a registered nurse who lives in Wilmington. “They gave us a scholarship, which made it possible for Amani to attend.”
Parents, most of whom have devoted years to championing their children, are Layton’s biggest boosters.
“With most kids who have learning differences, it doesn’t go away,” says Priscilla du Pont, who has three children who have difficulty with traditional learning processes.
At Layton, du Pont’s son Brent and other students learn early on to advocate for themselves, that it’s OK to ask questions when something doesn’t make sense to them.
“These are children who face frustration after frustration after frustration,” du Pont says. “Learning how to advocate for themselves changes everything.”
When Brent began at Layton, he was shy and lacked confidence. Within weeks, he was active in track, shooting the shot put. He spearheaded a drive to enter a team in the annual Punkin Chunkin competition in Sussex County.
“I always knew he was capable of leadership,” du Pont says.
Two years after graduating from Layton, Brent is thriving as a sophomore at Penn State University, where he is majoring in agricultural science, with a minor in poultry.
“He wants to be a farmer,” his mother says. “He wants to be outside and care for animals.”
Several Layton grads are on traditional career tracks, such as teaching. Others are entering creative and highly specialized fields, such as fashion design and animal psychology.
“Most people with learning differences are entrepreneurs,” du Pont says. “We know now that learning differences often are inherited, which might be why so many parents are entrepreneurs, too.”
To offer a rich curriculum in a small setting, educators play multiple roles. Elizabeth Schultheis, who came to Layton with 30 years of experience in private, public and parochial schools, serves as director of admissions and science instructor. The guidance counselor, James Hughes, teaches history, social studies and phys ed.
“We share the same vision,” says Elyssa Doner, academic dean. “It is a very caring, tight-knit group.”
The largest math class, 10th-grade geometry, has six students. The smallest, remedial math, is one-on-one. All math tests are open book. Doner says that is because kids with learning differences do better when they have the resources at hand that will help them to find their own solutions.
“We are heavily focused on problem solving rather than memorizing the dates of the Revolutionary War,” she says.
Daniel Robinson, a 16-year-old 11th-grader with a mop of curly blond hair, is vice president of the student body. He is palpably bright, knowledgably discussing topics from chiropractic medicine to filmmaking.
Yet he struggled in the classroom as a young boy.
“I find it extremely hard to concentrate,” he says. “Here, I’ve learned lots of techniques for keeping myself on track.”
At Layton, there are many different ways for students to focus, ranging from fencing class to assembling IKEA chairs in the student lounge. In homework lab, students estimate the time they think it will take them to complete an assignment, and then compare it to the actual time required to get the job done.
Students can’t dodge homework by telling their parents they don’t have any. Mom and dad assume their kids do, unless they receive a written note from a teacher stating otherwise.
“We’re a non-traditional traditional school,” Reese says. “Students are here to get an education and it’s our job to make certain they get one.”