Each month, OAK Street Initiative is pleased to highlight a non-profit organization whose mission and work aligns with the values and principles of OSI.
This October, Dyslexia Awareness Month, OSI shines the spotlight on AIM Academy, a non-profit first through twelfth grade school focused on providing children with language-based learning differences 21st century skills for success.
OAK Street Initiative Founder Dr. Kevin Baumlin was recognized as a 2019 AIM for the Stars Gala Honoree. At the event, Dr. Baumlin spoke publicly for the first time about his personal challenges with dyslexia and how a strong educational foundation helped him succeed both personally and professionally. OAK Street Initiative and Dr. Baumlin are strong proponents of the pioneering work of AIM Academy. They believe all students with special needs deserve access to the kind of cutting edge, evidence-based education children at AIM receive.
"AIM was thrilled to meet and honor Dr. Kevin Baumlin with our Sally S. Smith Founders Award at our 2019 AIM for the Stars Gala. This award recognizes successful individuals like Dr. Baumlin who have dyslexia and other language-based learning differences. Our community was moved by Dr. Baumlin’s story of perseverance despite his dyslexia, which wasn’t diagnosed until adulthood. AIM Academy’s evidence-based, literacy-focused curriculum and our AIM Institute for Learning & Research’s online teacher program AIM Pathways were created to make sure all children, with or without a learning difference, can learn and thrive. We are excited to see the work the OAK Street Initiative is doing to further this goal."
Dr. Baumlin values AIM Academy’s commitment to helping each student succeed.
“I was honored to be recognized by AIM Academy and have the opportunity to tour the school to see first hand how founders Pat Roberts and Nancy Blair put their goal of making literacy a priority for all children into action. Seeing an entire school full of students with language-based learning differences, students who so reminded me of myself, was life changing. On my visit to AIM, I recognized, probably for the first time in my life, I was not alone in my learning challenges. I was surrounded and supported by an entire community of people who see the world differently, like I do as someone with dyslexia. Different can mean creative. It can mean innovative. And AIM Academy not only helped to validate for me that learning in a different way is worthwhile and important, for their students they validate their worth, creativity and intelligence day in and day out.”
For more information on AIM Academy, visit AIMpa.org
Photos courtesy AIM Academy.
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