On a windy October morning, clad in a bright orange NASA suit and noise canceling headphones, Turner Sanderman fished apples with a mesh sieve from a water-filled crate.
It had been a tough week at Serendipity Center, a K-12 therapeutic school that serves students with behavioral and emotional challenges, with students kicking walls in the hallway, yelling expletives at teachers and throwing things on the playground.
The half-acre garden and orchard offered a much-needed respite. Children ran under the trees and made popcorn in an old-fashioned machine using corn they had grown themselves. Sanderman, 15, and several others ground the apples in a wooden press, then pressed and strained the pulp to make cider for all students to share.
At Serendipity, "big behaviors" are common and expected - the school is often a last resort for children deemed too disruptive and unsafe for public schools. All of its students have disabilities, including autism and attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, or mental health issues. Some have experienced trauma, including abuse and neglect.
Here, specialized staff and teachers help them stabilize, heal and learn how to regulate their emotions. And innovative programs like therapeutic gardening, cooking and art therapy, coupled with individualized mental health support, give the students a sense of community and allow them to practice social skills.
"It's really easy for people to say, 'Oh, these are bad kids.' They are not. They are doing the best they can with the limited tools that they have," said Serendipity's executive director Matthew Berryessa. "These kids need highly skilled, highly capable, highly empathetic adults to help them out."
Serendipity Center, a beneficiary of The Oregonian/OregonLive's 2024 Season of Sharing holiday fundraising campaign, is in outer Southeast Portland. Known in the past as Serendipity Academy, it currently serves 70 students from 18 Metro area school districts - though some come from as far as Woodburn and Vancouver. The students are referred by their districts, which pay tuition for each student and bus them to the school.
> Donate to Serendipity Center or the Season of Sharing general fund. You can also Text the code Season2024 to 44-321.
Many of the students have cycled through multiple schools and treatment programs and have been relegated to homeschooling. Some attend Serendipity for a short period - on average, three years - and return to their home districts, while others stay until they graduate. The school is free to families.
Serendipity launched as a nonprofit in 1979 with just three high school students and a tiny staff, then expanded and added an elementary and middle school wing in 1989.
Its annual budget is now $7.6 million, with payroll by far the biggest expense because many of the staff are highly educated and licensed. Last year, about 85% of the budget came from district tuition, with the remaining 15% covered through fundraising.
The school's guiding philosophy is based on Re-Ed, a set of principles that focus on building on children's strengths rather than dwelling on their weaknesses. Its staff and teachers believe that "big behaviors" stem from a lack of skills, not will - and that children are not giving adults a hard time, they are having a hard time.
Serendipity's secret to success lies in its low student-to-staff ratio and highly specialized employees. 71 therapeutic teachers, clinical case managers, coaches, behavioral interventionists and aids, among others, work directly with the students; an additional 23 staff hold administrative duties. The school even has a dedicated team to handle students' individualized education plans, a task shouldered by busy classroom teachers in public schools.
The environment, too, is specialized. The walls at Serendipity are made of plywood and doors of highly durable Plexiglass so that students can safely express their emotions without causing permanent damage.
"They do not have to worry that the staff is going to judge them if their behaviors pick up. We understand. We get it. We're ready," Berryessa said.
But Serendipity also aims to be as school-like as possible. It offers kids the opportunity to join the Student Council, a Dungeons & Dragons club, a music club, a student newsletter and a gender sexuality alliance.
Much of the work at Serendipity happens through relationship building between the students and the staff. That's been the key to success for Sanderman, a sophomore at the school, said his mom Renn Sanderman.
As a child with autism, Turner was overwhelmed by public school despite being academically on par with his peers, she said. He kicked, hit and yelled. He bit an administrator. He threw a laptop across a classroom. And he isolated himself, depriving himself of the very social interactions he needed the most.
"Every day when I took a shower, I set my phone on the toilet because as soon as I got in, I would get a phone call from the school and I would need to go and pick him up," his mom said. "And then he would lose the rest of his school day."
Though he was part of the special education program starting in first grade, his teachers were wonderful but overworked and the school district still expected Turner to join the mainstream classroom, his mother said. As difficult behaviors escalated and he was additionally diagnosed with anxiety and attention deficit disorder, the district suggested Serendipity. He was 13 when he enrolled.
The program has been a godsend, Renn Sanderman said. Turner has formed tight relationships with his case manager, teacher and aides. He has practiced social skills and learned strategies to regulate his emotions, including by attending the garden class every morning where he likes to spread wood chips and play chess in the greenhouse. Produce from the garden forms the basis of the meals served at Serendipity's cafeteria.
"Because of his disability, his behavior literally is no fault of his own. He just can't handle whatever's going on and needs additional support," his mom said. "At Serendipity, he's learning to gather himself back together and to re-enter the classroom. They're not allowing him to completely opt out of people."
The school also has allowed him to try new things. He's on the Student Council. He helps to organize the annual dance. Recently, he recorded a professional video tour of Serendipity, writing the six-page script himself.
"I am proud of myself and my team, that we have come a long way. I needed the support and I got it here," Turner Sanderman said.
After graduation, he hopes to become a TriMet MAX train operator - and the family, no longer overwhelmed with daily outbursts, can now focus on planning for his future. Over the past two years at Serendipity, his mom has been called to the school just twice.
"He's not going to grow out of his neurodiversity," Renn Sanderman said. "But things have really turned around quite a bit for this kid."
$100: Provides a student "welcome kit" with sensory need supports, academic tools, visual aids, and alternate classroom activity options.