About Us

Superintendent Dr. Christina Torres

 Thank you for taking the time to learn more about the Mount Pleasant Cottage School UFSD and how we can help high needs students reach their full potential. The district is made up of two schools. Mount Pleasant Cottage School primarily serves K-12 students who have emotional disabilities. The Edenwald School serves K-12 students with autism as well as emotional and cognitive disabilities.

The district is committed to the success of every student. We ensure that our students are being delivered a highly rigorous curriculum while providing, through our highly trained staff, the accommodations and support they need to succeed. The dedication to our students has resulted in a consistent increase district-wide in state test scores each of the past five years.

We are dedicated to growing the district’s alternative and vocational programs so that all students are provided expanded opportunities and multiple pathways to achieve success. We are proud to have begun our first New York State-approved CTE program, in Culinary Arts. This program provides the students an opportunity to graduate with an industry credential as well as college credit. Building off this success, we are looking to expand our certified CTE programs and currently offer vocational classes in Cosmetology, Graphic Design and Technology in addition to Culinary Arts. To help all students reach their full potential, we also have a TASC program for students who enter the district with little or no credits past the time their cohort has graduated. The TASC program allows these students to receive an equivalency diploma and still receive the full supports of the school district.

It is extremely important to us that we offer students continued opportunities after 3 p.m. We offer an expansive after-school program with educational and recreational options, including interscholastic sports. We have recently become a My Brother’s Keeper Community. I firmly believe that it is vitally important to provide these programs to our students as we strive to give them a supportive environment where they can experience social and emotional growth through opportunities both inside and outside the classroom.

It is truly a privilege to work with a team of educators who are so dedicated to the success of our students. After one visit to the district, you will see that we have a staff dedicated to the district’s mission statement of Facing Challenges and Achieving Success!

Curriculum and Instruction

The district understands the importance of a rigorous curriculum and that our high needs students require a wide range of curricular options.

Our elementary unit offers intense phonetic instruction through programs like Orton Gillingham, iLit, and Successmaker. Each allows us to track progress and identify areas of deficit through data. We also value ways to embed whole-child approaches directly into instruction. Our related service providers are trained in Orton practices in order to directly support academic strategies in session. Also, we work with a cross-curricular, theme-based model that allows for the reiteration of concepts through the various content areas.

Our middle and high school curricula focus intently on differentiated instruction and use assessment aligned directly with state standards and assessments. We offer a host of curricula that target life, work, and transition skills for our alternately assessed population, including Attainment, Unique, and the use of communication symbols when necessary.

Our goal with curriculum is to ensure every student gets the exposure and opportunity to practice the essential skills to transition successfully to post-secondary education, training, or employment.

Pupil Personnel Services

 The Office of Student Services provides programs and services for students ages 5-21. Our program is committed to providing specially designed services and programs for all  children, including children with educational disabilities.

Since our population of students varies throughout the year, we offer a broad range of offerings and services, which allows us to individualize each student’s education. Our goals are to collaborate with the residential agency, our community schools and parents to establish positive relationships; to assist our students in reaching their academic potential; to encourage and support our students’ social-emotional growth; and to provide post-secondary planning in transition services.

 All students in our program first enter our Ease of Entry program. Here we start to build a rapport with each student while verifying educational placement and special education services.   All students are given an educational and social-emotional assessment for us to gain insight into their needs. All students are assigned a social worker or school psychologist to assist with   their transition into the program. Additional related services include speech therapy, physical therapy, and occupational therapy.

Our dedicated staff members provide a caring environment to ensure all students receive appropriate and equal opportunities for educational growth. Please do not hesitate to contact us if you have any questions regarding our programs and services.

We look forward to working with you and your child.