Horsham school opening fulfills a dream

Twenty-five years ago, George Rowe had a dream of creating a special Quaker school to help students who learn differently.

Yesterday, the Quaker School at Horsham which started out in the Horsham Friends Meetinghouse with three children and two teachers, began the 2007-08 academic year in a new, sun-drenched building designed to meeting the needs of students with dyslexia, attention-deficit disorder and other learning disabilities.

Students and teachers yesterday oohed and ahhed over the new facility. "It's much different," marveled Luke Anthony, 8. "The classrooms are bigger."

Students and staff were impressed by the well-equipped classrooms, the building's towering atrium and spacious library. But they were happiest to be under one roof.

The new facility brings together all 68 students from pre-first through ninth grade who had been spread among three buildings in a quarter-mile area. And because one of those buildings was on the other side of bustling Route 611, students often rode vans to cross the four-lane highway to get to some of their classes.

"Now we don't have to use gas and go in the vans to be able to move around," said sixth grader Julie Meisinger-MacDonald, 11.

"Everything's easier," agreed Sarah Rodgers, 13, who's in eighth grade.

"There was this constant shuffling between reading and math groups. . .a lot of instructional time was lost," said Ruth Joray, the acting head of school.

Ten years in the making, the building was designed to promote learning for students with language-based learning disabilities.

The windows are made of sound-buffering glass. The walls are insulated to dampen noise for students who are easily distracted. Small breakout rooms have been placed off every classroom where teachers can work with individual students or small groups. Natural light, which researchers say promotes learning, streams through high, clerestory windows to illuminate the hallway and classrooms that feature pastel colors, tiles and fabrics chosen to create a soothing, homey environment.

"These are kids who struggle with school and the skills that come more easily to other children," said Jennifer Crawford, an architect at Blackney Hayes Architects in Center City who designed the school and has a 16-year-old daughter with learning differences. "I wanted this school to feel like a different experience."

Today, students at the Quaker School at Horsham come from some 25 school districts in Bucks and Montgomery Counties and Philadelphia. About 10 percent are sent by their school districts because they cannot provide the instruction the students need. One student is bused by her district in Berks County.

The new building and the Quaker School at Horsham itself can be traced to one man: George Rowe, 83.

Rowe, the former headmaster of Buckingham Friends School in Bucks County, founded the school to meet the needs of bright students whose learning difficulties were preventing them from succeeding in traditonal Quaker schools. His dream was spurred by one student in particular who was struggling.

"We had a child who was quite possibly the brightest child in the school," recalled Rowe, who retired from the Quaker School at Horsham in 1992. "He was insightful. He was brilliant, but he couldn't read."

Rowe felt there was a need to create a special school to help such students whose families wanted them to have a Quaker education. Stratford Friends School in Havertown had opened in 1976 to help students with learning difficulties, but Rowe said there was no comparable Quaker school east of the Schuykill River.

Although Rowe did not have a background in special education, he knew people who did and recruited them. He left Buckingham Friends in 1981 to devote his attention to founding the new school.

Other Friends' meetings provided support, but Rowe said the Quakers in Horsham offered the space.

"We opened in Sept. 1982 with three children and two teachers. And by January, 1983, we had a fourth student," he said.

From the outset, the Quaker School at Horsham focused on bolstering children's self-esteem and confidence, providing intense personal attention in classes with three to seven students, tailoring instruction to their individual needs and using a specialized reading approach to help students who had trouble learning to read with traditional methods.

"We've had a ratio of one adult to four children," Rowe said, "which makes it both effective and expensive."

Enrollment grew as word spread that the school was helping students succeed.

"The demand became such that we needed space for more children," said Karen Wright, president of the school's board of trustees.

The dream of the school having its own building took off 10 years ago when some of Rowe's former Buckingham Friends' students anonymously donated more than $400,000 to the Quaker School at Horsham in Rowe's honor.

"That just blew me away, and still does," Rowe said.

With the first gift in hand, Wright said the school began to raise money. The project took 10 years, and netted most of the $5 million needed to complete the first phase of what is a planned three-phase project. The school obtained a loan to cover some costs. The building was constructed on the Horsham Friends land.

The additional space will allow the school to grow to 125 students. An all-purpose room and more classrooms are planned for later phases.

"A lot of different people believed in us and have gone out on limbs," Wright said. "We are very fortunate to have the kind of support we have."

Rowe cut the ribbon at a ceremony at the new school in June, and he took another peek at the newly completed building earlier week.

He said: "I couldn't believe it."