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Matty Bryant, academic director for Spark Academy, a school for neurodiverse teens, cuts the ribbon to mark the opening of a new educational facility Thursday, Sept. 14, 2023, at Heritage Community in Provo.

Nichole Whiteley, Daily Herald

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A ribbon-cutting ceremony for the new educational facility at Spark Academy, a school for neurodiverse teens, was held Thursday, Sept. 14, 2023, at Heritage Community in Provo.

Nichole Whiteley, Daily Herald

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Classrooms at Spark Academy, a school for neurodiverse teens in Provo, are double the size of a traditional school classroom to give students space to do work under the project-based learning model offered at the academy.

Nichole Whiteley, Daily Herald

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Keven Downs, CEO of Spark Academy, welcomes the public and gives opening remarks before a ribbon-cutting ceremony for a new educational facility Thursday, Sept. 14, 2023, at Heritage Community in Provo.

Nichole Whiteley, Daily Herald

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A ribbon-cutting ceremony for the new educational facility at Spark Academy, a school for neurodiverse teens, was held Thursday, Sept. 14, 2023, at Heritage Community in Provo.

Nichole Whiteley, Daily Herald

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Classrooms at Spark Academy, a school for neurodiverse teens in Provo, are double the size of a traditional school classroom to give students space to do work under the project-based learning model offered at the academy.

Nichole Whiteley, Daily Herald

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Keven Downs, CEO of Spark Academy, welcomes the public and gives opening remarks before a ribbon-cutting ceremony for a new educational facility Thursday, Sept. 14, 2023, at Heritage Community in Provo.

Nichole Whiteley, Daily Herald

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Matty Bryant, academic director for Spark Academy, a school for neurodiverse teens, cuts the ribbon to mark the opening of a new educational facility Thursday, Sept. 14, 2023, at Heritage Community in Provo.

Nichole Whiteley, Daily Herald

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As the ribbon was cut, the crowd applauded and cheered and the door was opened to welcome the public inside to tour the new schoolhouse for Spark Academy on Thursday. The Provo school will be full of students starting Monday.

What started with three students on a ranch in Heber City has grown over the past nearly 40 years into Heritage Community, a 19-acre campus with two year-round academies for teenage students in grades 7-12. Spark Academy is for neurodiverse teens with autism spectrum disorder and Elevate Academy is for teens recovering from trauma-based diagnoses such as mood attachment disorders, drug and alcohol addictions, and mental health conditions.

Within Spark Academy, there are 60 students who live on campus and attend the year-round school with a learning program designed specifically for their needs.

Spark Academy reinvented its teaching system to a project-based learning model during the COVID-19 pandemic to give students a “hands-on, real world application with the academic knowledge and skill set, and the students feel like they’re having fun,” according to Alaina Chatterley, admissions and outreach director.

Matty Bryant, Spark’s academic director, explained the reason students come to the academy is because the learning model offered at traditional public schools has not been working for them. “Our kids, most of them are brilliant. They just have been in a school system that didn’t allow that to shine. So when they get here, going to project-based learning and this model, it’s a healing environment,” he said. “We have a clinical (therapeutic support plus academic support) classroom where their comfort can be met. They don’t have to be afraid of being made fun of or picked on or whatever, and then their brilliance can just come forward.”

According to Chatterley, students come to Spark Academy for one year on average to rediscover their love for learning and a confidence in themselves before going back to their traditional school at home. “The way we see it, by the time they get to us, school wasn’t working at home and they’re totally demoralized about it. They’ve lost their self confidence, they don’t want to engage. School has been nothing but trauma and tragedy for them,” she said.

Chatterley explained that project-based learning teaches students to “reengage in school in a way that builds their confidence.” Through this method, she claimed, students also learn to regulate their own nervous systems to become more resilient when challenges arise.

“It’s our job now to meet them where they are and provide the support that they need. So provide more space, more time, (more) breaks, helping them with sensory overwhelm, helping school be more engaging, helping them get their wiggles out and be moving and working versus the old model of education and treatment,” Chatterley said.

The new 10,000-square-foot building has six classrooms with approximately 600 square feet each, double the size of standard classrooms in their old school building. There are also specific amenities catering to neurodiverse students.

The classrooms feature uniquely shaped desks that can be rearranged according to the needs of the project being worked on. There are also rooms for the students to take 10-minute breaks during class when they are feeling overwhelmed or overstimulated, and there are large windows to let natural light into each room.

Some of the projects students participate in are building chicken coops, miniature golf courses, planting gardens and building robots.

George Ballew, clinical director for Spark Academy, said the majority of students are from other states, and at the end of each semester parents come to the campus to see the students present the projects they have worked on. He said tears stream down the parents’ faces as they watch and hear of their children’s accomplishments, many of whom thought they would never see their child succeed in school.

“It’s very healing for them realizing ‘My neurodiverse child can have a very happy, successful life.’ That’s my favorite part of the work here,” Ballew said.

Jerry Spanos created Heritage School, now Heritage Community, in 1984. He said seeing the growth of the academy makes him feel proud, humbled and grateful. “What I love seeing is that the next generation of people are taking the vision and carrying it forward,” he said.

Growing up, Spanos said he struggled to excel in school and graduated, vowing to never go back to school. Then, on his mission for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, he experienced a defining moment. “I met a person that saw something in me that I didn’t see, and they had the courage to share that with me and tell me, and it gave me a spark,” he said.

This person was his mission companion, who Spanos said told him, “I’ve never met a person that loves people like you love them, and I’ve never met somebody who gets loved by other people more than you do.” In that moment, he said, he realized the importance of forming genuine relationships to help others grow.

Spanos went on to receive a master’s degree in social work from the University of Utah, then created Heritage Community to help students like him with low self-esteem and mental health conditions, among other challenges.

“I just wanted to help other teenage kids have moments where people would be so authentic and real with them that they could feel and experience what I felt, because that really is what helped me to break that cycle,” he said. So he created the school with a “relationship model,” which means each person who works for the school is taught that their main purpose of being there should be “to learn how to relate with people and learn how to be so genuine and honest and caring and loving,” so that each student can have their own defining moment.

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