Temple Grandin School (TGS) was founded in 2011 by Jen Wilger, special educator and parent of a student with Asperger’s syndrome, and David Hazen, a veteran teacher and principal. The school is named in honor of Temple Grandin, the animal scientist and autism advocate who was named among Time Magazine’s People of the Year in 2010.

TGS embarked on its first year with ten students and a staff of eight, which included content area teachers, a behavior specialist, and an instructional aide. From the start, TGS established strong collaborations with other local providers serving neurodiverse students. Through the years, TGS has consulted with psychologists, speech/language and occupational therapists, therapeutic recreation providers, educational therapists, and others to develop specialized programming to meet a wide range of student needs and interests. We are particularly proud of our Perspectives program, an eight-year partnership with the University of Colorado’s Speech, Language & Hearing Sciences department, which provided clinical training in neurodiverse adolescent populations to over 80 graduate student speech-language clinicians. New community collaborations continue to develop as TGS seeks to provide real-world experiences that will help students recognize and realize their potential.

In 2013, TGS expanded its Core Socio-Academic Program to include additional student support services. Our multi-disciplinary student support team draws from the fields of special education, counseling, social work, and behavior support to craft individualized socio-academic plans for each student. Academic teachers and support team members collaborate in real time, ensuring that every student is understood and supported throughout the school day. TGS staff members are life-long learners who keep up with ongoing developments in the field of autism and other neurocognitive differences. Staff members regularly attend and present at professional conferences as they explore and contribute to best practices for preparing this bright, capable group of students for successful futures.

Now completing its ninth year, TGS continues to support students in transitioning to post-secondary and workplace environments. Their paths are as varied as the students themselves, ranging from immediate employment in industries related to their interests to supported community-college attendance to independent living in university dormitories. The TGS community looks forward to hearing of their scholastic and workplace successes, and to helping many more students prepare for socially-engaged, meaningful adult occupations.