Illustration by Stef Hadiwidjaja
Melanie McClea watched her young son Devon struggle to identify the alphabet. He was bright and gifted in so many ways, but no matter how many learning techniques McClea employed to help him, the letters remained elusive.
“Everyone just said, ‘He’s not ready,’ ” McClea recalls. But even after repeating kindergarten, the letters still didn’t seem to click for Devon. A friend suggested McClea look into Springer School and Center, Cincinnati’s only school dedicated to students with learning disabilities. When an evaluation led to Devon’s dyslexia diagnosis, everything changed. “Diagnosis, in my opinion, is the beginning of the solution,” says Brett Marcoux, president of Springer School and Center. “A diagnosis is a step in the right direction.”
For McClea and many parents like her, the choice to leave their child’s previous school wasn’t easy at first. Devon had been at the same school for several years. The change would mean leaving friendships, upending routines, and adjusting to a new normal.
But the payoff came quickly. “I just saw him completely change. His confidence and everything was just blooming,” McClea says. Now 27, Devon is a thriving adult. A gifted dancer, he spent several years in Los Angeles at a dance school after graduating high school and attending Wright State University for one year. He’s currently enrolled in the Aviation Maintenance Technology program at Cincinnati State, still using the tools he learned at Springer: advocating for himself, studying with peers, and taking advantage of tutoring services. “[Springer] was the best decision we ever made,” McClea says.
Fast forward: McClea has two younger sons, and each was identified with dyslexia at a young age. This time, the decision to choose Springer was a no-brainer, especially for her second son, Leo, now a fourth grader. “By his second year of Springer, he was like a whole new child,” McClea says.
It’s Springer’s comprehensive approach to reaching students with learning disabilities—including dyslexia, ADHD, and executive functioning deficits—that makes the school both different and effective for students like McClea’s sons: students who are sharp and full of potential, but who see the world differently. Springer considers the educational, emotional, and social development of every student.
Classrooms are small: two adults for eight to 12 students, depending on their age. Teachers are patient, never rushing the lessons or pushing kids through to the next grade. Historically, Springer students have gone on to achieve successful careers in the arts, sciences, corporate, and entrepreneurial fields. Alumni have attended prominent post-secondary institutions such as Boston University, George Washington University, Vanderbilt, and Yale. Many have achieved advanced degrees, leadership roles, and prestigious awards in their industries. “So many successful people have been diagnosed with learning disabilities,” says Marcoux.
For McClea, the experience with Springer is also a personal one. Having struggled herself with learning as a child and suffering the shame that came with it, it was only once her sons were diagnosed with dyslexia that she realized she likely had it too, though she’d never been formally diagnosed. Learning alongside her kids through Springer’s virtual COVID-19 classes made her realize that she’d been missing crucial instruction throughout her childhood. “It finally made sense in my head,” she says. “I never got to get taught like that. It just clicked. It was my ah-ha moment.”
McClea’s family is one of thousands whose lives have been changed by the Springer experience—an experience that extends beyond the students themselves into their families and the network of relationships around them.
Springer’s challenge now and into the future is to not only reach but also make room for the myriad others in the community who could benefit from he its offerings. According to Marcoux, Springer continues to improve its organization and broaden the number of people they serve. With a capital campaign that has raised more than $19 million (and counting), Springer has the resources to embark on its next chapter: a multi-pronged initiative to expand. But first, a look at where Springer has been.
Springer Then and Now
Springer opened in 1887 as the Cathedral School for the Archdiocese, welcoming 600 students in grades 1–12. From the beginning, the school had a heart for children with disabilities, featuring included programming for deaf and hard-of-hearing students. In 1968, Springer evolved into a specialized school for children with learning disabilities, a need determined by an assessment conducted by University of Cincinnati.
Breaking from the archdiocese in 1971, Springer became an independent, unaffiliated nonprofit school for children with learning disabilities. “When the school became independent in 1971, they were still just trying to learn what learning disabilities really meant,” says Marcoux.
In the decades that followed, Springer continued to hone its specialty to meet the needs of the community and align with the most current educational research. “There will never be enough information out there,” says Marcoux. “We follow the research and keep getting better at what we do.” The Center was added in 1999, an outreach model that today continues to equip students, teachers, and parents in the community with educational programming and resources.
The school has moved locations several times over the years—with footprints in downtown, Over-the-Rhine, Mt. Adams, and Roselawn—but has been at been at its current six-acre location at 2121 Madison Rd. in Hyde Park since 1981.
Currently, Springer is Cincinnati’s only learning disability school. It is one of only three in Ohio—the other two are in Columbus and Cleveland—and one of only about 50 nationwide. It goes without saying: Cincinnati is fortunate to have such a school. “Not every city has a Springer,” says Marcoux.
Springer’s Next Chapter
In 2020, right as the pandemic was unfolding, the Springer team began asking hard questions: How could they serve more students? How could they reach more families inclusively? The lower and middle schools were flourishing with about 200 students total, and the Center was continually adding deeper and more robust programming for the outside community, “but we weren’t reaching as many people as we thought we could,” says Kirstin Eismin, vice president of institutional advancement.
Springer’s board thought critically about the school’s expansion potential and embarked on a strategic plan. The resulting capital campaign raised more than $19 million. “We’re really fortunate to have a lot of people who care about Springer and who stepped up and supported us,” Eismin says.
The resulting funds are being directed into several buckets: financial aid, expanded Center offerings, construction and renovation projects, and an expanded diagnostics center.
As a specialized education, Springer comes at a cost, but the school is dedicated to breaking down financial barriers that may prohibit families from choosing the best educational path for their child. While full tuition for most lower and middle school students comes in at $31,000, Springer awards $1.23 million per year in financial aid to 56 percent of families. Ninety-five percent of students qualify for the Jon Peterson Special Needs Scholarship (approximately $12,470), which is available to Ohio residents, and average Springer aid is about $11,600 per student.
Expanded Center Offerings
As an extension to the school, The Springer Center for Learning Disabilities was launched in 1999. A subsequent name change and branding redesign came in 2000 for the whole organization, now Springer School and Center. Eisman describes Springer’s Learning Center as “a gift to the community.” Indeed, the array of workshops and courses offered to not only Springer’s students and families but also outside families and professionals is remarkable.
Through the Center, students have access to tutoring and summer programs, whether enrolled at Springer or not. Parent workshops, hosted both on campus and off site, give parents tools to understand and support their struggling learners. Whether it’s deciphering a child’s evaluation team report (ETR) or individualized education program (IEP), or simply being a listening ear to help shoulder the stress of parenting a child with a learning disability, Springer offers compassionate professionals to support parents.
Continuing education workshops are offered to help coach and equip education professionals to reach learners of varying abilities in their classrooms. The Center’s Distinguished Speakers Series hosts nationally renowned leaders in the education field for both parents and educators to stay current with the latest advancements in learning disability research and best practices.
With funds from the capital campaign, Springer has renovated its existing building and increased spatial capacity and flexibility to continue offering Center programming, with less interference to students on property.
The newly reconfigured space includes a 400-seat auditorium with the potential to host student theater productions, graduation ceremonies, and large-scale community programming. The addition of four classrooms, administrative offices, and dedicated tutoring and diagnostic spaces with sound-proofing were also part of the expansion project.
Additional parking spots were also added in the place of a razed building on property.
Diagnostic Accessibility
One of the greatest hurdles in helping a student overcome the challenges of a learning disability is simply understanding the scope of the situation. Without a proper diagnosis, parents and educators may feel like they’re playing Whac-A-Mole blindfolded.
Parents might even receive well-intended but ultimately misguided information from traditional educators who don’t recognize the nuanced signs of a learning disability, especially if the symptoms are subtle or if the student has co-existing conditions. As a result, kids are too-often pushed through the system, barely scraping by, and may miss out on reaching the fullest potential of their personal and educational development.
Getting students tested for learning disabilities, however, can come with its own challenges. Often there is an agonizing waitlist that can be upwards of six months, which can consume the majority of a student’s school year and can mean the child is struggling through an entire grade level.
Springer saw the opportunity to step into this gap. In September 2023, it opened the Diagnostics Center, a comprehensive evaluation resource to give parents answers more quickly and more efficiently than what was previously available in the region. Evaluations are available for children in grades K–12, beginning at age 6.
“What’s so cool is that it’s comprehensive,” says Eismin. Rather than scheduling multiple appointments with multiple specialists at multiple locations, the Springer Diagnostic Center is a one-stop shop. A comprehensive psychoeducational evaluation includes assessment in cognition (information processing, memory, processing speed, and verbal/nonverbal abilities), academics (reading, writing, math, and spelling), social-emotional and executive function (including the ability to control feelings of anxiety or depression), and speech/language and motor skills (such as receptive language, expressive language, handwriting, and visual motor skills).
While these types of diagnostics are notoriously expensive, Springer’s financial aid programs can sometimes cover up to 90 percent of a family’s diagnostic bill, depending on need.
Eismin notes that the current waitlist at Springer Diagnostics is about six weeks. “It’s not about recruitment [for Springer],” says Eisman. “Once you have answers…you can take action.”
For some, that action might include considering Springer as their child’s school. But for many, the knowledge of their child’s specific diagnosis can lead to more effective strategies within their existing school environment.
Expanding Grade Levels
As the campaign was winding down, Springer’s accrediting body, Independent Schools Association of the Central States (ISACS), floated the idea of Springer adding a high school to its existing lower and middle curriculum. “We leaned in, did a two-year study, and decided to pilot this program,” Eismin says.
In the 2023–2024 school year, Springer welcomed its first high school class: 14 ninth-grade students. Half of the students came from Springer middle school, but the other half came from the outside community—students who wouldn’t have been reached had Springer not offered this option.
“What we didn’t know was that there were so many people we were missing by not having a high school,” Eismin says. She adds that these new-to-Springer high school students had likely been “getting by” and finding ways to cope within other educational systems that weren’t meeting their needs. Seeing these students flourish within an educational matrix that is designed for their learning needs added fuel to Springer’s fire; they felt compelled to continue making more room for those who needed it. “There’s nothing better than that,” says Eismin.
In December 2023, Springer’s board evaluated the success of the pilot high school program and voted to unroll a full high school in the coming years, adding one grade level each year as the current ninth grade class moves up. The hope is to enroll 25–30 students in the rising ninth grade class and have a full, 150-student high school once the high school is running at full capacity.
As an emerging program, Springer High School is built from a foundation of more than 50 years’ experience in independent learning disability education. Small class sizes facilitate confidence and curiosity, while a research-based curriculum helps students achieve Common Core milestones and develop the skills needed for post-graduate education. Flexibility and modification are baked into the instruction, as are clear and individualized learning goals for each student.
For the 2024–2025 school year, Springer’s high school will remain on its current campus in a newly renovated space, but a search is underway for a separate location for the high school.
Bright Futures
Like McClea’s experience with her three sons spanning multiple decades, Springer hopes to provide long-term solutions to the multigenerational educational needs of the tri-state community.
“A learning disability impacts the entire family. Everyone under the roof is impacted,” says Marcoux, whose seventh-grade daughter is also a student at Springer. “Our job is to bear the weight of all the things that we need to do to make each child successful so that the family can be restored.”
Parents, he says, often pick up additional “hats” while navigating a child’s struggling school experience. They often assume roles of after-school educator, counselor, and round-the-clock advocate—often with the added weight of big emotions for all parties involved. Part of Marcoux’s joy is in seeing parents be able to “drop the other hats” when their child enrolls at Springer. “Restoring the parents’ ability to just be the parents again is heartwarming for me,” he says.
He also relishes the opportunity to watch the passion and purpose of his staff. “What I take a lot of pride in is seeing in the eyes of our staff and teachers just how meaningful this work is.” Though many families don’t look at or find out about Springer until they’ve been through the proverbial ringer and run out of other options, the message for parents is that they don’t have to reach rock bottom to start exploring the potential of Springer and its community resources.
For McClea, she’s grateful she knew about Springer when she first saw early signs of dyslexia in her younger two sons. She can’t imagine getting through her children’s early education without Springer. “If your kid is struggling in school, it is not fair to not give them the education they need,” she says. “Springer knows how to teach your child.”
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