For a first-time teacher, teaching kids barely out of Pampers can be a lot like herding cats — only with fewer hairballs. Maja Petras found herself in the role of cat-herder, er, primary school teacher earlier this month. Petras, made a pre-kindergarten class at the Villages Elementary School her proving ground for auditioning her solo […]

When it comes to getting around, there’s riding … and then there’s riding in style. Heather Wohlfeil figured the Beacon community would prefer the latter. Enter the “Beacon Bike.” The funkiest set of wheels this side of the Partridge Family’s magic mushroom school bus is a “functional art bike” that Wohlfeil, a learning specialist at the Leesburg, Fla. college, donated to the athletic department on behalf of her late aunt, Carol “AC” Holcombe.

Beacon College officials dedicated Fogg Hall, the nonprofit liberal arts school’s academic hub, during a January 25 ceremony saluting the continuing generosity of The Edward C. Fogg, III and Lizbeth A. Fogg Charitable Trust. The college acquired the 12,000-square-foot storefront space two decades ago to serve as its academic focal point. With the help of generous contributions from the Fogg Charitable Trust, the school transformed the space that houses nearly 90 percent of the college’s classroom and laboratory space and more than half of faculty offices into an educational space with a more traditional college feel.

The familiar slogan for the eponymous organization that champions childhood literary declares reading is fundamental. Fundamental, but not always easy. Particularly for the students who learn differently and attend Beacon College in Leesburg, Fla., America’s first accredited college or university to award bachelor’s degrees primarily to students with learning disabilities, ADHD, and other learning differences. […]

College graduation is at once an exciting time of accomplishment and a nervy realization that it’s time to navigate the world independently as an adult. Not that everyone is ready to launch. Some 20 percent of college graduates with learning differences and attention issues stumble immediately after graduation in making successful transitions to full independence and to rewarding careers. This reality undergirds Beacon College’s pioneering pilot program, the First Career Community.

Student ambassadors Kendall Augustine and Lianne Smith assist guests a recent Beacon Salon Speaker Series event. If visitors have questions, they’re the flesh-and-blood Siri. If visitors are lost, they are a compass. If visitors need a welcoming sign, they are the welcome wagon. They are the navigators in blue (and gold), the face of Beacon […]

Nearly 100 educational professionals from 24 states descended on Beacon College this week to learn more about the school and its pedagogical strategies during the college’s “Professional 2-Day Fly-in” session. The eclectic mix of high school counselors, high school transition coordinators, educational consultants, psychologists and other professionals support more than 15,000 students with learning disabilities involved in the college search process.

Beacon College historian Dr. Christopher Huff will return to Washington, DC in January to the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum for a faculty seminar exploring how Nazis also targeted the disabled for genocide. “Disability, Eugenics, and Genocide: Nazi Germany, Its Antecedents and Legacy,” the centerpiece of the 2019 Jack and Anita Hess Faculty Seminar, examines the history of persecution of persons with disabilities, according to the museum.

Beacon College President George Hagerty in October discussed the continued growth of the college campus-wise and programmatically in his annual State of the College address during Parents Weekend.

The Beacon College community Saturday saluted a pair of benefactors and celebrated their generous legacy — one that each year writes new chapters of success — during the dedication of the Robert & Jane Weiner Writing Center. Staged during the college’s annual Parent’s Weekend, Beacon staffers, students, and members of the Weiner family joined together to reflect on the generosity of the couple whom family members described as “warm, caring, loving and generous” and the tangible results of their gift.