School Programs

Preschool Program

The Preschool serves children ages 3-5 through a full day program that meets 5 days a week. The program offers a state-of-the-art special educational and individualized therapeutic services designed to meet each child’s unique needs. Our well-trained team of educators, therapists, and specialists work closely with parents, physicians, and child study teams in order to help the child make developmental gains in all areas – mobility, communication, social skills, motor skills, play skill, self help skill, and of course, preschool academics. Students are placed by their local school district and attend at no cost to parents.

Elementary & Middle School

The Elementary and Middle School Program serves students ages five through 14 who have complex developmental disabilities. Using a team approach, we provide special education, speech therapy, occupational therapy, and physical therapy.

Our curriculum is aligned with the New Jersey Student Learning Standards, allowing our teachers and specialists to develop appropriate goals and objectives for each student in academic subject areas such as language arts, mathematics, science, and social studies. The elementary school uses the Unique Curriculum, a web-based comprehensive special education curriculum based on the standards.

Like their peers in public schools, students grade 3 through 8 take part in standardized assessments such as New Jersey Student Learning Assessments (SLA) and New Jersey Dynamic Learning Maps (DLM) – with individualized modifications and accommodations as needed.

Students benefit from Augmentative Communication and the latest in technology-enhanced instruction. Each child is evaluated to determine his or her unique learning styles, and to identify the types of technology that will make a difference. Our multidisciplinary staff team of therapists (occupational, physical and speech), nurses, and social workers, consult and collaborate with teachers to insure the student’s instructional, therapeutic, social and medical needs are met.

Our staff also works cooperatively with the Commission for the Blind and Visually Impaired (CBVI) to help ensure that students with visual impairments have access to the classroom and home resources they needs, and to effective instruction techniques.

High School

The High School Program serves students ages 14-21, and offer a unique range of special education and therapeutic services designed to prepare students for increased independence of adult life. Through community-based job training at local stores, hospitals, and agencies, students gain job skills and build a resume of experience to help them prepare for life outside of school.

Like the elementary students, our high schoolers benefit from Augmentative Communication and technology-enhanced instruction, with an ever-increasing emphasis on independence. Teens are evaluated to assess needs and to identify the types of technology that will allow him or her to fully access the curriculum, and to be as self-directed as possible.

Our multidisciplinary staff team of therapists (occupational, physical and speech), nurses, and social workers, consult and collaborate with teachers and work with the student him or herself to insure instructional, therapeutic, social and medical needs are met.

Our staff also works cooperatively with the Commission for the Blind and Visually Impaired (CBVI) to help ensure that students with visual impairments have access to the classroom and home resources they needs, and to effective instruction techniques. When nearing graduation from high school, our staff consults with the Division of Developmental Disabilities (DDD) to help our graduates with placements.

Like their public school peers, students receive instruction in reading, math, language arts, science, social studies, gym, music, and art that is aligned with the New Jersey Student Learning Standards. They also receive direct instruction designed to help them make meaningful gains in functional activities of daily living – cooking, cleaning, laundry, self care, and basic banking. Through our one-of-a kind Life Skills Program, students put to use the skills they have learned in the and therapy sessions. The entire community becomes a classroom, as students visit malls, grocery stores, laundromats, beauty salons, museums and movie theaters. They take public transportation whenever possible. Communication, money management, problem solving and community mobility are integrated into each trip.

Through our Job Quest Program, students gain community-based work experiences through ongoing training with a job coach at community sites such as CVS Pharmacy, Clifton Public Library, Clifton Recycling Center, Shop Rite Supermarket and K-Mart in Botany Village. The program provides students with realistic vocational training designed to assist them in making career choices in the future.

Districts We Serve

NJEDDA is proud of its long history of effectively serving its students and of the relationships we have developed with our sending districts.

In 2016, NJEDDA served the following local school districts: