A Fort Worth school has relocated to a new 20,000-square-foot building. This is why.
The Key Center for Learning Differences, a lifelong dream of the late Mary Ann Key, has moved into a new building, where it will host the only Certified Academic Language Therapist training program in Tarrant County.
The expansion comes at a pivotal time, as schools grapple with making up gaps in learning, including students that had delayed diagnoses of learning difficulties that occurred over the period of virtual learning due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
“What really happened is that parents seeing their students at home, struggling to learn, it shed light on the fact that many of them had not been receiving what they needed in the classroom,” Cathy Youngblood, the director of the Key School Academic Language Therapy Training & Preparation Program said. “I think that is where parents began to really ask questions and fish for answers.”
There are an estimated 78,000 children in Tarrant County school districts that are affected by learning differences that impact reading, making the need for specialized education and support a necessity throughout the county, Key school officials said.
With a new building, officials say they are looking to help share the expertise the school has gained over the last five decades, with language and reading specialists at schools across the county.
They also have plans to form an early childhood education program that will also be geared towards helping students with learning differences earlier in their academic careers.
A lifetime passion
But the K-12 school and training program began as a summer-school for only 12 children in 1966, held in temporary locations like a church, and Mary Ann Key’s house.
Along with Mildred Gardner, Key developed the program alongside the field of language therapy. It became a school that served K-12, establishing a small campus off East Loop 820 in 1996 where it continued to grow.
A ceremony was held Thursday night to officially open the new, 20,000-square-foot building, and honor the founders of the school, which contributed time, money and resources over the last five decades.
“There were a great many sacrifices she and many other Key school teachers, staff and board members made over the years to make sure the Key School was there to help the children of Fort Worth succeed in learning,” Lori Key, one of Mary Ann’s daughters, said at the ceremony. “Despite the hardships, however, Key School always operated with grace and honor and ethical standards.”
Lori told the Star-Telegram that Key, who passed away in April, 2020, never needed a campus, but dreamt of having one to better serve the students.
“She didn’t need a building, but she would have liked a building,” Lori Key said. “This was one of her dreams. Really it was always about having good teachers and putting the kids first.”
Key, who worked as an international teacher before returning to the U.S. in recent years, is herself a trained language therapist.
“I was trained in Houston, and to have a certified Neuhaus (Education) training center here in North Texas, means that more people can be trained as academic language therapists, which means more kids can be served and helped,” she said.
Training Teachers
Youngblood said the training program, which virtually welcomed its first cohort amid the pandemic, is the natural next step in the expansion of the center in Tarrant County.
“It is an important event for the Key School and the Key Center, because we take this huge step beyond just the small intimate school that Mary Ann Key began, and we are creating an environment where we are moving this specialized training out to teachers out there in Fort Worth in the surrounding area,” she said. “So that they can give their students the same thing that we are able to give our students here at Key.”
The program is one of only five in the country that is endorsed by the Neuhaus Education Center, a nonprofit that specializes in professional development and reading readiness.
Danielle Coleman, a reading specialist at Tarver-Rendon Elementary in Mansfield ISD, is currently part of the training.
“It is kind of difficult trying to do the hours that it takes to do the training and trying to find a school that works well with our district and what we actually do with our dyslexic students and our students that have reading difficulties,” Coleman said.
But Mansfield ISD is working with the Key Center to provide the training, which began online due to the pandemic.
“Our director of instruction actually brought Key School to us, knowing that some of us wanted to do a CALT,” she said.
With limited time and resources however, the demand for training can not be met by a single facility, so those participating in the training are also sharing techniques to identify and help students with learning difficulties with other teachers at their schools.
“We are teaching the teachers how to fish, so to speak,” said Doris Singleton, another trainee from Mansfield ISD. “We are giving them the keys and the tools to help their own students.”
Registration for the next cohort will begin in the spring, Youngblood said.
“It’s not just teachers, anyone with a Bachelor’s degree can go through the training,” she said. “We have parents that go through it to help their children, and in most cases teachers that come into this are also parents of children with disabilities.”
The new facility will provide additional hands-on learning activities, including observation rooms where teachers and parents can observe and learn from language therapy as it happens.
New campus brings joy
Beyond that, the campus, which has been in the planning stages for years, provides students with much-needed space and amenities they didn’t previously have.
“I went from squeezing in between people trying to get to class in a crowded hallway, to walking to class with my head held high,” Lara Fulgham, who started at the school in first grade said. “Look how far we have come.”
Fulgham is a Senior this year.
The new facility, which is located at John T White Boulevard off Interstate 30 and Cooks Lane, includes outdoor classrooms, private therapy rooms and a path dedicated to the founders of the school.
Kim England, who has a son that attends the school, said the new campus is bright, light and “everything the kids deserve.”
England heard of the school through a friend when her son, now 13, was struggling with interventions at Keller ISD. The specialized training at Key was a game changer.
“The difference with his emotional state was immediate,” she said. “And educationally within a couple of weeks.”
With training from the facility being offered to teachers across the county, England said she is hopeful.
“It needs to be done, and it is about time, because there are too many kids in public school that are not receiving this service,” she said.
This story was originally published November 15, 2021 at 5:30 AM.
