came to the school. In the process of reorganization, George eliminated the use of one-to-one aides and therapeutic support staff (TSS) assigned to individual students. The idea for doing so originated with a teacher intern who wondered what it might take to gain benefits for one-to-one staff that were assigned to Centennial students. While Lehigh benefits for aides who were hired and paid for by local districts was an impossibility, this teacher’s magnanimous idea led to the creation of teacher teams, a notion popularized recently in the professional literature. George and two members of his administrative team, David Miller and Julie Fogt, wrote a grant proposal to PDE and acquired an additional $105,000 that could be used to replace the 11 one-to-one aides in the building with six additional interns or associates with Lehigh benefits, to work on behalf of Centennial students. The use of teacher teams wherein every member was familiar with a child’s program eliminated the need for one-to-one aides as well as the need for substitute teachers when Centennial faculty were absent. Centennial has not used a substitute teacher since 1999. A second trip to Harrisburg proved fruitful. This time the goal was to acquire ongoing and reliable professional development for Centennial faculty. George and his team of administrators sought approval for a school schedule that would satisfy state requirements of 180 school days and 990 hours of instruction and leave every Wednesday afternoon free from 11:45 to 3:30 p.m. for training to occur. The proposal was approved, and Wednesday afternoon trainings remain in place to this day. Brian James began his tenure at the school the same year George came to the school. “I applied to Centennial after seeing an ad in The Morning Call.” Although he was hired to teach, “I soon realized that I was looked at more as a big body, capable of restraining, rather than as an educator,” he said. This lasted for a couple of months until George announced his new plan for the school. “I remember a lot of resistance from staff, but as time went on resistance was replaced by growing support,” he recalled. “The students responded by improving their behavior, and the teachers responded by improving their attitudes in the classrooms,” he said. The timing of Centennial’s success in decreasing the rate of physical restraints and ending seclusion time-out proved fortuitous, making Centennial School one of the first schools in the country to do so. As a result, the school received much attention, especially from groups advocating a change in the way students with disabilities were disciplined. During the subsequent 17 years, Centennial was visited by over 100 schools from around the country and received favorable coverage from media outlets as well as professional organizations, including CNN, ABC Nightly News, ABC Nightline with Brian Ross, The Huffington Post, Education Week, Propublica, LRP, The Council for Exceptional Children, The American Institutes
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