By Nate Jones

Staff Writer 

Know what it feels like to believe you are the dumbest kid in class? 

13-year-old Patrick Conley, an upcoming eighth grader at Memorial Middle School in South Portland, does. 

He used to pretend to read along with his second grade classmates at Dyer Elementary School and never raised his hand to ask a question, even though he had many more than other students. Patrick Conley’s mother, Kelly Conley, said by second grade she knew something had to be done so her son wouldn’t fall in between the cracks of the public school system. Kelly Conley, a fifth grade teacher in Yarmouth, said it felt surreal to be seeking help for her own child. 

“It’s one thing to hear about kids going into special education programs as an educator,” she said. “It’s so – I wouldn’t believe it if he wasn’t my own kid.”

As it turned out, admitting Patrick Conley needed assistance in the classroom was just the first step in a long process to find the help he needed. Although it was obvious he was struggling compared to his peers, Kelly Conley said her son was deemed “too bright” to enroll in a “reading recovery” course and “too old” for special education.

“He just fell into the gap,” she said. 

Eventually, Patrick Conley began making trips to the school’s learning center for help with reading. Ultimately, the trips did more harm than good, as he was required to miss important lessons in the classroom, he said. 

“I would come back into the room and the teachers would give me dirty looks,” Patrick Conley said. “They were frustrated I had missed class.”

After struggling through second grade, Patrick Conley entered Lisa Carleton’s classroom at Skillin Elementary School, home to a special “self-contained academic program,” for a dozen students from grades three to five. Carleton said she was assisted by two classroom aids and structured academic lessons for specific needs of students, refusing to move onto new curriculum if even one student “didn’t get it.”

“These are smart kids that just needed something different,” Carleton said. “If one thing didn’t work you would just say ‘OK,’ and go back and try something else.”

Patrick Conley said he remembered learning how to read through one lesson that rewarded students for how many minutes they read. Carleton said students would read for hundreds of minutes so they could advance to the end of a bulletin-board course consisting of different “islands.” To travel from island to island, Patrick Conley said he and his classmates completed various challenges by amassing reading minutes. He said he was proud to be the first student to complete the course. 

“We learned a lot, but we also had fun,” he said of the lessons.

At first, Kelly Conley said she was skeptical about the structure of the new classroom and what effect it could have on her son’s learning abilities. Being removed from a normal classroom could have had unintended social and developmental impacts on Patrick Conley, she said.

“It was hard to trust,” she said.

By the end of the first week, Kelly Conley said she and her son were both “sold” on the new learning environment, which focused on providing Patrick Conley with one-on-one teaching throughout the school day rather than in spurts that required him to leave his normal classroom. 

Patrick Conley studied under Carleton until fifth grade, learning how to read and write essays and do mathematics problems comparable to those completed by his classmates.

“What [Carleton] was able to do, I could never do in my classroom,” Kelly Conley said. “She probably only covered about half what is normal for an academic year, but she did it well and did it deeply. I would rather teach half of the math and do it well.” 

By the time he graduated from fifth grade, Patrick Conley’s learning abilities were comparable to those classmates in more traditional classrooms. Now, Patrick Conley – who will begin eighth grade in the fall – is earning top marks in his academic courses. He said he still receives help in the classroom but relies on the skills he learned in Carleton’s classroom to earn his grades, and sometimes help others. 

“There are kids who ask to borrow his notes,” Kelly Conley said. “It’s just crazy.”

In March, an essay Patrick Conley wrote about his struggle to learn to read earned $1,000 for Skillin Elementary School. He said he enjoys reading historical novels and his halfway through “The Black Duck,” by Janet Taylor Lisle, a book about bootleggers in the 1920s. 

“[Carleton] stuck with me,” Patrick Conley wrote in the 200-word essay. “Giving up was not an option.” 

Despite its success with students like Patrick Conley, Carleton said the “self-contained academic program” has been discontinued at Skillin Elementary School. Both she and Kelly Conley said they were disappointed that no effort had been made to research benefits of the program before it was eliminated for budgetary reasons. Carleton said she was able to teach the program for three years, a curriculum Kelly Conley said she expected could help decrease dropout rates and result in higher standardized test scores for students in middle and high school.

“Some kids do need a self-contained academic environment,” Carleton said. “It pays off when they get to middle school.”

Patrick Conley said he continues to receive extra help with his lessons, and raises his hand more than anyone else. Realizing you need the help is the first step in overcoming the obstacles created by “learning differently,” he said. 

“It’s not your fault you’re not learning that much or you’re behind a little bit,” he said. “You just learn differently.”

   Staff Writer Nate Jones may be reached at 282-4337 ext. 233.