Faculty and Staff

Oakland employs 14 full-time teachers and 4 teaching assistants. All Oakland teachers are certified by the Commonwealth of Virginia with endorsements in Special Education or their content teaching area.  All have received extensive training in the methods and techniques needed to teach learning disabled students.

As part of their first year at Oakland, teachers are trained in the many longstanding, successful teaching methods utilized at the school as well as how to assess a student’s needs and develop an individualized program that will result in optimal progress.  In order to carefully coordinate each student’s program and monitor progress, frequent teachers’ meetings are held to discuss each student and to pool knowledge.

The residential staff plans after-school, evening, weekend and sports activities.  These counselors live in the dorms, serve as dorm parents, and work with children to establish and attain individual social and emotional goals. Residential and teaching staffs meet regularly to ensure that individual student programs are well coordinated. Ongoing communication among all staff members helps to reassure both students and parents that Oakland maintains a warm, caring, and consistent atmosphere in which a child can flourish.

Oakland has a contractual agreement with a clinical child psychologist practice as well as a speech/language pathologist.  Individual therapy, group therapy, and speech and language therapy are available as needed and are billed privately by the provider.  These professionals are valuable resources as they provide services on the grounds and conference regularly with teachers, residential staff, and parents in a team-oriented approach.