PLEASANT GROVE – A little more than six months after breaking ground, Spectrum Academy held a ribbon-cutting ceremony and open house Monday for its newest students and their families.

Marney DeVroom, president of the board of directors for Spectrum Academy, spoke briefly during the ceremony at the new Pleasant Grove charter school. After the ribbon cutting, DeVroom and Brad Nelson, director of finance and development, welcomed the students and their families onto the campus.

DeVroom spoke about the accomplishment of opening a second campus, its first in Utah Valley.

“It’s incredible. As a board, we feel a tremendous amount of pressure to meet the needs of families with autistic children,” she said. “We had such a huge wait list at the North Salt Lake campus that we thought by opening another campus in Utah Valley that it would help the wait list … but it just opened the door for more.

“We have 150 kids on the wait list already, and actually the wait list has gone up in North Salt Lake because of the attention from the new Pleasant Grove campus.”

Waiting at the doors Monday was Principal Liz Banner, offering a bag to the children to pick between a glow stick or a slinky. She explained why Spectrum Academy is particularly special for autistic children.

“The difference [between us and regular public school] is that we have social skills for 30 minutes a day so they can develop those tools so that they know how to interact and know what to say,” Banner said. “The small class sizes help a lot.

“We are also all trained in how to look at a student and de-escalate them before they get into a meltdown.”

In each classroom, Spectrum provides a teacher and a parent professional who are both trained in how to give behavioral support. There are also occupational therapists and speech therapists on staff to help the teachers figure out what interventions they can put in place for students to give them the tools to ultimately be successful later in life.

Banner entered into special education because of her son’s autism diagnosis.

“I was actually a dental assistant for years and I had my youngest son, Jackson, and he has autism,” Banner said. “So I started going with him to schools and trying to find out information about autism.

“It was really tricky. To find out information as a parent was really nerve-wracking, so I decided to go back to school and get my degree as a special education teacher. As I worked in special education, I also got my degree to work as an admin.”

DeVroom’s story is similar.

“My own son was diagnosed with autism, and once you get that diagnosis, there’s no place to take them,” she said. “So he just went to public school for a few years and dropped through the cracks. It was a wonderful thing to find Spectrum.”

BreAnna Woods, a new teacher at Spectrum Academy, worked at a private school that specializes in educating autistic children before starting at Spectrum this year. She said she experiences a great deal of joy working with the children.

“They’re hysterical, they make my day so much better, the funny things they come up with,” she said.

As Ms. Bre interacted with a few of the children, she asked about their particular needs or what the parents would like her to focus on while their children attended Spectrum. Woods shared her personal belief in the difference the Spectrum education can make.

“My favorite things about Spectrum are that it’s very individualized for each kid, and a small classroom is awesome,” she said. “They level out for academics so that the teachers are really able to focus on the kids that are struggling or that need to be pushed a little bit more.

“They’re also provided occupational therapy and speech, and they get a lot more time with that than they would at another school.”

Banner truly believes in the difference the Spectrum education provides for these children.

“The other day I asked my son — he’s 13 — ‘Why do you like Spectrum?’ and he said, ‘Because I can be myself and be around other people that understand me.’ “