Duval County Public Schools Exceptional Education -Excel Day Treatment Program is a school based program that provides intensive educational (diagnostic and prescriptive teaching), therapeutic (individual, group, crisis counseling), behavioral, and family services. A psychiatrist, supervisory staff, and on site full time mental health therapists are provided in addition to the educational staff. The mental health therapists provide not only individual and group therapy but also continuous assessment of the student’s progress and response to treatment.
Students are served at two elementary, three middle and two high school comprehensive school sites. Incorporating the Excel Day Treatment Program within a comprehensive school site provides a continuum of academic, vocational, social, extracurricular and recreational, inclusion/mainstreaming opportunities leading to exit/dismissal from the day treatment program to a less restrictive program.
The overall strategy of the Excel Day Treatment Program is to assist students in developing positive behavioral and emotional changes necessary to return to a less restrictive educational setting, assist students in reaching his/her full potential and ability to function independently in the community through an individualized academic, behavioral/social skills, and pre-vocational curriculum, and assist students in the development of social competencies needed to participate successfully in school, home, and the community.
The Excel Day Treatment students will be reinforced for making good choices as a results of the Power of Choice grant provided by the Chartrand Foundation. Students can earn a variety of weekly rewards and experience success in the classroom.
Students earn weekly incentives, as well as monthly rewards including field trips to educational and recreational locations. Since the pilot implementation of Power of Choice, participating schools have seen a decrease in the number of interventions, suspensions (school and bus), Baker Acts, arrests and an increase in the number of students in mainstreamed classes and passing the FCAT.
