Early childhood special education teacher Jackie Vermilyea reads books with children in a preschool classroom at Alyce Hatch Center on Thursday in Bend. The center provides early intervention support and early childhood special education for children with special needs.

There are leaf stickers on the hallway floors of the Alyce Hatch Center, a building and playground shaded by trees on NW Juniper Street in east Bend. One room meant for play and used throughout the day has foam mats and foam play structures across the floor, and the center’s three classrooms are all brightly-lit.

In addition to providing preschool education, the center has students focus on language and interpersonal skills. Since the center serves special needs kids from birth up to the age of five, these skills are necessary for their development.

“If you went into one of our classrooms, it would look like just a preschool,” said Jennie Willis, an early intervention/early childhood special education supervisor with the center. “Just all your typical preschool activities, with maybe a little more intention of focusing on the skills and really teaching the skills.”

Staff at the Alyce Hatch Center say early intervention support is the key to making sure children with special needs can successfully join their peers in school. Making that happen has been part of the center’s mission since it opened in the 1970s. The center provides early intervention support and early childhood special education for children with special needs.

In 2021, the Alyce Hatch Center Inc.’s board of directors donated their building, land and assets to the High Desert Education Service District, which oversees special education for children in Crook, Deschutes, and Jefferson counties. For the 36 years previously, the education service district had leased the building from the nonprofit. The district serves approximately 600 students in the region.

Named after a Bend woman who worked on behalf of charitable causes, including many for children, the center provides at-home services year-round for children from birth to age three.

Children ages three to five are given preschool education at either the Alyce Hatch Center, their local preschool, or one of the other centers the High Desert Education Service District runs in Redmond, Madras, Prineville, and La Pine.

Willis has been with the center for two years, having previously worked as a teacher and an autism early intervention specialist.

“I wouldn’t work anywhere else,” she said.

“Birth to five is critical in development, and if we can get in and do really solid work, when they go into kindergarten, they’ll be in a much better place.”

Families need to be referred to the center first before being evaluated, but once it’s confirmed that the child needs services, enrollment can happen at any time. Early intervention services take place year-round, though the center is only open for early childhood special education during the school year.

Willis said the center is bouncing back from the pandemic. Though evaluations were done through telehealth during the pandemic, many families opted to wait until services were back to being done in-person before having their children evaluated. Recently, the evaluation team has been busy assessing young children all day long.

A significant number of kids are coming in, Willis said. Parents have recently started bringing children born at the start of the pandemic in for evaluation.

The center has three classes in the morning and three in the afternoon. Classes run two or three days a week, and the center currently serves approximately 40 to 50 children.

Due to the need for more classrooms, there are also classes with the same programming at Lava Ridge Elementary and North Star Elementary, both in Bend. Speech language classes are also held at Central Oregon Community College.

Staff also support special needs children even if they attend local preschools due to the lack of space.

“The goal is families and children get intervention early, so they can have a positive long-term outcome,” Willis said.

The staff work to support families as well, involving them with outside resources and parent groups.

The center has a full team of specialists, including occupational therapists, speech language pathologists, and deaf and hard of hearing specialists, among others, trained to assist children with therapy and whatever technologies they might need to communicate and get around at school. Educational aids are trained specifically by the center’s staff to work with the children.

Assistive technologies include anything that needs to be adapted to help children access school, such as wheelchairs, while augmentative communication focuses on language.

“We have a range of kiddos that are able to use language, and other children that aren’t, and we work to make sure every kid has a system in place for them to communicate what they want and what they need, what they like,” said Willis.

Therapy is included during class time, and specialists work with teachers to make sure the children are using their therapy skills and technologies in the classroom.

“We have an amazing physical therapist that makes amazing things,” said Willis. “He can make anything.”

The center has partnered with St. Charles Health System for the PEDAL (Programs of Evaluation, Development And Learning) Clinic in Bend, meant to help identify various disorders, including autism, early on and support parents through both the education and medical systems at the same time.

“Everyone has heart for the kids,” said Willis. “We believe in the work we’re doing.”