Mr. Stanfield: The Stanfield Educational Alternatives Corporation obviously started with me as a child. I was severely learning and reading-disabled and I had significant emotional problems as a child. I went through the typical life-impacting struggles of not being able to read throughout my school years. In fact, I was told in the tenth grade that I should abandon any hopes of ever attending a college because I simply did not have what it takes. Instead of destroying me, as such pronouncements have done to many children, it created a passion deep inside of me to reach the children who are struggling with similar problems in reading and learning. Thus, I began a path that led me indeed through college and graduate school. Not only did I attend college but I earned a BS degree in Elementary Education along with a special state endorsement to work with the mentally handicapped. Later, I enrolled in graduate school at Nova University in Florida and earned my MS degree in Learning Disabilities. I graduated from both schools with honors and was I blessed to be awarded the distinguished education award of Teacher of the Year at the end of my undergraduate work. The passion to help other children avoid experiencing the pain and trauma that I had experienced began to burn deep within me. I began developing a specialized reading system that could provide specialized reading and learning strategies that were in use everyday with reading and learning disabilities in a clinical setting. Later I was employed as the Coordinator of Pediatric Educational Services for a company called New Medico Head Injury Systems located with its home office in Boston, Massachusetts. I worked at its post-traumatic ranch in Florida to which children and adults with head injuries were sent after hospitalization. While at New Medico, I lead a team of specialists in the development of what later became one of the nation's first pediatric public school integrated programs for children with significant head injuries. I also served with the State of Florida in the Department of Health and Rehabilitative Service (HRS) as a case manager and crisis counselor in its Family Protective Services Division. My responsibilities included working with dysfunctional families in crisis. I believe my professional and personal background provides an adequate foundation for the work I now do with The Stanfield Corporation in the development of a global hybrid educational network of franchise Montessori schools and special education tutorial centers under one roof. My passion to help struggling readers evolved into a company called the National Children's Reading Foundation which is a 501C3 Non-Profit Reading Corporation that was founded in 1994. It was clinical setting that was dedicated solely to helping children in public and private school overcome life crippling reading disorders. While continuing to develop my first reading system I used the opportunity to implement the reading system into the reading therapy provided to the children at the NCRF Center. The results were absolutely staggering! I discovered by using my reading system, children were able to increase their reading levels 1-2 years in less than 40 hours of reading instruction. That's a time period that equals less than six school days. This unique and amazing psycho-educational reading system affectionately became known as The Easy Reader System One, named by one of the volunteers who used it in a public school to help at-risk children learn to read. The National Children's Reading Foundation provided services for about five years at which point The Stanfield Corporation was birthed. A gentlemen came along and said there's a big need in the world for what you're doing and the programs you're developing. He suggested packaging the entire educational concept into a marketable form and thus the franchise network of educational centers called The Stanfield Ed-vancement Center was born. The National Children's Reading Foundation evolved into what is today known as the National Organization for Reading and the Arts, called NORA. It's mission is to help public schools and other community facilities that work with children receive scholarships and services from Stanfield Centers for at-risk children who cannot otherwise afford tutorial services. NORA is currently working with the Florida Juvenile Justice Division towards the establishment of a model reading program to help children and youth regain hope and purpose through the implementation of Stanfield's successful educational reading programs. The Stanfield Educational Alternatives Corporation was developed because of a vision to reach children in more than a tutorial setting. It believes that a holistic educational education system is needed to change the self- destructive academic and behavioral patterns of children and youth. Our first reading program proved to be so successful that I developed a second reading system that is focused on the children in grades 4-6, whereas the Easy Reader System-I is focused on the children in grades 1-3. We are able to continually document children increasing their reading levels 1-2 years in only 40 hours of actual instruction. That's less than six school days. That is still amazing to me. So, as a corporation Stanfield began to carefully look at the market in America and realized that the United States is currently spending $740 billion a year on education with 43% of our fourth graders still unable to pass a reading test. As we looked into the matter further, we discovered that half of high-school graduates have not mastered seventh-grade arithmetic. These statistics are appalling. Despite all of the increased attention to reading literacy 42 million adults in our nation are still functionally illiterate. Stanfield knows that its niche is a continuance down the path I have been traveling for more than 30 years; developing and implementing specialized reading and learning programs, materials, and systems for children with significant reading and learning problems. If these children are not reached, they will ultimately become the increase in the statistics of overburdened juvenile courts. This became a major departure from the Sylvan and Huntington type tutorial centers that have immersed America's educational scene. We are a network of Stanfield Reading Clinic. We are educational specialists who develop a full array of effective educational programs and materials in-house. Stanfield operates its own educational research and development center and operates a staff of artists and writers nationwide. Once our new programs have undergone an extensive testing period, they are placed into Stanfield's educational network of franchise schools and reading clinics. The results achieved by the implementation of our first reading program into a public school in Indian River County, Florida, were so awesome that the principal, within six months, called the State Department of Education and recommended that the Easy Reader System-I be placed in all elementary public schools throughout the State of Florida for at-risk children. This, I believe, provides you with the basis and groundwork for where Stanfield Educational Alternatives has evolved. Our vision is to develop a global network of Stanfield Hybrid Educational schools and reading clinics to provide all the specialized educational services that have developed.
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