Job Site: Holyoke Drive #4

The students who are part of this program spend their entire day and receive all their schooling at the site, where there is a complete staff, including a special education classroom teacher, a full time teaching assistant, a therapist, and two vocational instructors (one of whom also is the jobsite coordinator).

In addition, all students receive individual therapy from one of the school therapists who comes to the job site. The students also come together weekly with all the staff for group counseling, where they can work on social skills and problem solving involving the entire group.

Those students who have been identified as needing related services such as speech/language therapy are provided that service at the job site or at the main campus at the beginning or end of the day.

The newest home construction project on Holyoke Drive is now complete! This 2700 square foot, two story, four bedroom home, which was started in November 2002, has two and a half baths and a full basement. The first floor contains a family room with a gas fireplace, a formal dining room, a large kitchen with oak Merillat cabinets, a half bathroom and a laundry room. There is also a utility room next to the laundry room that will provide additional storage. The staff and students also installed hardwood floors in the entryway. The second floor contains four bedrooms and two full baths. There is a large walk in closet in the master bedroom and a linen closet in the hall. There are two full porches - one on the first floor and a second that is accessed from the front bedroom on the second floor.

During the past month - when there wasn't falling snow, ice, or mounds to snow that needed to melt - the staff and students began working on what will be the second floor of the house. They have installed both the floor joists and the subfloor for the second floor and are ready to start framing th exterior walls.

Now that the footers have been poured, the foundation installed (which makes up the basement area) and the floor joists and sub-floor for the first floor put in, the staff and the students have begun installing the exterior walls for the first floor. We are also spreading gravel in the basement (about 20 tons of it!) which will be the foundation for the concrete floor of the basement.

The students and staff at the Leary School jobsite have broken ground on their newest home construction project on Holyoke Drive in Annandale, Virginia. The foundation has been dug, the sill plate (which attaches the wood framing to the masonry) is done, and, as you can see from these pictures, the floor joists which will support the first floor have been installed.