About Woodland Developmental Center

The Educational Program

Woodland students have a curriculum designed to encourage mentally impaired individuals to develop life skills. Students progress as far as they are able.

For example, students are taught how to work with money. First they identify coins, then tell the coins' value, then combine coins to make a higher value, and finally use this knowledge by going to a store, paying in cash and waiting for change.

Woodland’s program focuses on function, unlike many other educational programs. The staff believes that a student is more likely to remember something if they are taught to use that information in daily life.

In conjunction with the educational program, Woodland also offers the following services:

• Physical Therapy
• Speech and Language Therapy 
• Sign Language Instruction
• Occupational Therapy
• Psychological Testing
• Audiological Testing
• Orientation and Mobility

Gym, swimming, arts and crafts, life science and music also are offered to students.

Community Interaction

Woodland’s primary focus is to provide a protective and nurturing environment in which students learn life skills necessary to function in society. With the guidance of highly experienced and educated staff members, Woodland students practice these life skills in the community through three major programs:

• Community-based instruction: Students learn how to access community resources such as stores and banks.
• Pre-vocational education: Students learn work skills such as reading job-related materials, using a functional vocabulary, being on time, finishing tasks and reporting to a supervisor.
• Social skills training: Students role-play reactions to different social situations to develop or reinforce proper responses.

Parent Involvement

One of the ways Woodland tries to involve parents is at each student’s yearly Individualized Educational Planning (IEP) review. In this review, parents discuss their child’s development and needs. Parental suggestions can be incorporated into the student’s instruction and training program. Parents also are encouraged to participate in Woodland’s parent-teacher organization and students' extracurricular activities, such as the Special Olympics.

The School Day

From 8:45 a.m. to 2:55 p.m., more than 200 students ages 3 to 26 attend Woodland Developmental Center. In classrooms for the moderately cognitively impaired, students follow the regular school calendar. They also are offered an optional summer program. Students in classrooms for the severely cognitively impaired or severely multiply impaired attend Woodland 205 days a year.

Every school day, Woodland follows the six instructional themes of the Michigan Department of Education. The themes state that schools will:

• assure a continuum of placement options in the least restrictive environment
• support development of effective curriculum for all
• seek accountability through evaluation and research
• effectively transition students to post-school opportunities
• work toward a unified system of education
• use technology to enhance learning and communication