THE SHADOW PROJECT
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Mission Statement
The Shadow Project makes school more accessible and engaging for children with disabilities so they can achieve their full potential. Working at the intersection of education, disability, poverty, and race, over the past 20 years our programs have fostered academic progress for 17,000 under-resourced students affected by autism, dyslexia, ADHD, and trauma. We partner directly with teachers to transform school into a place where children who learn differently can thrive; and tackle disparities by replacing a one-size-fits-all approach with tools, technology, and strategies tailored to nontraditional learners. Our 3 programs—Goal Setting, Reading Mentors, and SuperSensory Spaces—help students with disabilities achieve key benchmarks, decreasing drop-out rates and increasing graduation rates. We envision an education system that normalizes and celebrates learning differences, and supports every student to thrive in school.
About This Cause
We serve K-8 students in Oregon and Southwest Washington affected by autism, dyslexia, ADHD, and trauma; and also provide trauma-informed training and culturally-responsive support to teachers, classroom aides, support staff, and families. Our current service area comprises greater Portland and Clark and Yamhill Counties. In Oregon today, there are 78,000 school-age children with disabilities, and over 117,000 with anxiety and depression, an increase of 40% since before COVID. Almost a quarter of Oregon children are impacted by adverse childhood experiences, while Black children report significantly more trauma than any other racial group, and children with disabilities are twice as likely to report experiences of trauma. Currently 90% of Oregon students in Special Education score “below basic” on national standardized tests. Students with disabilities are twice as likely to receive exclusionary discipline, increasing their likelihood of repeating grades or disengaging completely. In 2021, the Civil Rights Project found that children of color with disabilities are even more likely to face punitive discipline in school, including referrals to law enforcement, and less likely than white children with disabilities to have their needs recognized and met. For students faced with systemic racism, socioeconomic disparities, and traditional learning environments that don’t meet their needs, our literacy and social-emotional skill-building programs are proven to pave the way for academic and postsecondary success. Our 2023-24 program evaluations showed that The Shadow Project helps kids improve their attendance, their coping skills, and their emotional regulation while making significant progress towards grade-level literacy. Both students and teachers are still grappling with significant pandemic impacts, including understaffed schools, wide-ranging learning loss, delays in social-emotional development, and ongoing healing from the trauma and disruption of the past few years. We believe that COVID recovery for students with disabilities demands a transformation—one that we are ready to help catalyze. In the fall of 2023, demand for our programs was already surpassing expectation. This school year we are rising to meet this demand by increasing staff capacity, recruiting new volunteers, and strengthening community connections. We are excited to be expanding to multiple schools in the Vancouver School District; and embarking on relationship-building and community needs assessments to bring services to Central Oregon in 2024-25. We are already on-track to work with 2,500 students this year, an increase of 25% over last year.