Scott Parks is a special education teacher at Spanish Fort High School in the state of Alabama. In his daily work with students with autism he plays a critical role in two innovative programs for the students known as Project Reach and Project Outreach. Scott Parks is an Autism Light for his work as a special education teacher and his passion to help students with autism as well as their neuro-typical peers.
Project Reach: Eight students with severe autism in the Spanish Fort school system in Baldwin County, Alabama are presently in Project Reach. The program is led by special education teachers Scott Parks and Kristen Box along with the sufficient support of para-professionals. Cutting edge technology like iPads are used to help students learn. According to Rener Havner-Phillips of the Press-Register in the program, "The autistic teens are learning job skills, including how to wash clothes, sort silverware, organize books and stock grocery shelves. They go on field trips to deliver mail at the school system's central office, to fold pizza boxes at Mellow Mushroom or to dust and vacuum at the Holiday Inn Express (Source)."
Project Outreach: Project Outreach, is an extra-curricular club led by Scott Parks, where neuro-typical students and students with autism spend time participating in various activities together. Project Outreach is an official club at Spanish Fort High School and has it's own page on the high school website. There are 112 members of Project Outreach this school year and it is the largest extra-curricular club at Spanish Fort High School (Source). The program helps impact the lives of the students with autism, but Project Outreach has also been especially meaningful to the neuro-typical students who are gaining a life-changing autism awareness through having a relationship with someone with autism.
The following is the news video of Scott Parks and another special education teacher named Kristen Box explaining how Project Outreach works at their high school.
Additional Information on Scott Parks and these autism programs at Spanish Fort High School are available at these online stories:
Special thanks to Scott Parks for being an Autism Light through his dedication as a special education teacher that works with students with autism. Scott Parks is representative of the fine special education teachers in diverse areas of the world who have a passion to reach students with autism through whatever creativity and outreach is necessary. Scott Parks is also the first person from Alabama to be named an Autism Light.
Autism Light honors diverse heroes to the world of autism.
Autism Light honors diverse heroes to the world of autism.
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