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Friends, family visit Potential Development Schools art show
By Bruce Walton
YOUNGSTOWN
Friends and family came in droves to the Potential Development elementary/middle school to view the exhibition art show of students.
Students show art projects they completed throughout the academic year, ranging from written works and crafts to painting and coloring. The theme this year was the rainforest, including the different animals living in it.
Potential Development provides a charter school for children on the autism spectrum, with 160 students from preschool to high school enrolled in buildings in Youngstown and Howland.
Paul Garchar, executive director, said the art show at the West Woodland Avenue building is similar to ones in public schools that give students the chance to display their works at the end of the school year.
Children under the autism spectrum have a difficult time verbally expressing themselves, but Garchar said most have an easier time through artistic expression.
“This gives them a chance to show off their hard work,” he said. “They really build their whole year for this one show, and it’s a great opportunity for the families and other friends to come in and see their work.”
Adriana Lee, and her husband, Marquis, on Wednesday came to visit their three children, Anthony, a fourth-grader, Aaliyah, a first-grader and Aniya, a fifth-grader at the elementary/middle school for their art show.
“I think it’s a tool to soothe them, especially with their condition, and it lets them have something to be proud of,” she said.
Anthony colored in a picture of birds. Aaliyah colored a picture of a jaguar and made a canvas painting of a jaguar, and Aniya wrote a poem about butterflies.
Lee said the school has helped Aaliya improve her coloring skills. Aniya said she loves writing poems, adding she wants to grow up to be a writer.
Lee said raising so many children on the autism spectrum has been challenging to provide them with everything they need to succeed, but she said, “This school allows them to be who they are.”
Heather Hamrick visited the school to see the tree-frog mask made by her son, Elijah Scanlon, a kindergartner. Hamrick said Elijah is the only child she has on the autism spectrum. She even moved her family from Akron to Niles so she could enroll Elijah in the charter school. Hamrick said she couldn’t be happier to see how Elijah has improved in his social skills, blossoming into a more talkative child after just a year at Potential Development.