School Named ‘Alex’ Is in Session

The first thing Alex Tempel did after waking up Monday morning was to mark off the final day on the makeshift calendar he’s kept next to his bed the last 300 days. Then he flew home.

The calendar is actually a long sheet of construction paper on which his father had written rows of numbers, from 300 to 1. At 14, Alex is still learning the concept of weeks, months and years. But by marking off each number, he knew he would be another day closer to leaving Randolph, Mass., where he has attended a school for brain-injured children, and returning home to Orange County.

Scott and Cheryl Tempel of Laguna Niguel gave the calendar to their son in July, promising they would have a specialized school for him close to home at the end of 300 days. Alex, who suffered a brain injury after surgery to remove a brain tumor when he was 3, has been attending the May Center near Boston the past three years. Before that, he attended special education classes in the Capistrano Unified School District.

“He’s always been wanting to know when we’d find a school for him out here in California,” Scott Tempel said.

The Tempels came through on their promise. But they never found a school for their son; they founded one.

The Alex Center is the only school in the western United States with a residential component that’s devoted exclusively to brain-injured children and adolescents with acquired and traumatic brain injuries. Its grand opening in Tustin is today and Alex, who arrived home Monday night, will be its first student.

Funded in part by $350,000 raised by the Alex Foundation for Brain Injury, which the Tempels formed two years ago, the Alex Center will offer a traditional school calendar of 180 days plus a six-week summer school session.

Nine computer-equipped classrooms each will accommodate six students in the 17,000 square feet the Alex Center is leasing from the adjacent Tustin Rehabilitation Hospital on North Myrtle Avenue. The facility includes a physical/occupational therapy room, a family resource room and medical offices.

Center officials plan to rent or purchase several residences in surrounding communities to house some students.

Most of the students will be placed by their home school districts, which, by law, must pay for special education services for their students.

The Capistrano Unified School District, which has been funding Alex’s schooling at the May Center, will continue paying for him to attend the Alex Center. School districts will contract with the center, which will charge $205 per day for basic special education and behavioral intervention. Counseling and physical, occupational and speech therapy are an additional $85 per hour. That does not include room and board, which will depend on individual students’ needs.

Certification for the Alex Center is pending with the special education division of the state Department of Education. The school is a subsidiary of New Jersey-based Bancroft NeuroHealth, a nonprofit organization for people with neurological disabilities.

The Alex Center ultimately will accommodate as many as 54 students, ages 5 to 22. At least half of them, including Alex, who requires 24-hour care, will live in the school’s off-campus homes.

Several school districts already have inquired about the Alex Center, director Sharon Grandinette said. She expects the center will continue adding students and should have 12 by September.

Wendy Aguilar of Fullerton, whose 11-year-old son, David, suffered a brain injury when he fell out of a baby walker when he was 6 months, has her son on the waiting list.

She said she will meet with David’s teachers and the principal of the school where he attends special education classes later this month to discuss David’s educational future.

“I couldn’t wait for the center to open because there’s nothing like this out here for children, and David is so misunderstood by the school,” she said. “They think he’s perfectly fine and should be mainstreamed. They just don’t realize the things he needs.”

It’s a need many parents feel, experts said.

“We’ve been waiting for a long time for a school like the Alex Center that can work with the children we see at CHOC who have significant brain injuries,” said John Watkins, director of neuropsychology at Children’s Hospital of Orange County. “The Tempels have converted what was an enormous tragedy in their own life into something that will help children like their son for years to come.”

Roger Light, a neuropsychologist at Daniel Freeman Memorial Hospital in Inglewood, said the Alex Center “gives us an option of gearing the programs to the needs of the individual students.”

Alex was 3 when he was diagnosed with a brain tumor in 1989. After undergoing two surgeries, he contracted meningitis, then epilepsy, which causes him to have about 15 seizures a month. The Tempels say doctors are unsure whether Alex’s severe brain injury occurred as a result of the operation or his meningitis.

The youth suffered two seizures on the plane Monday as he headed to Los Angeles International Airport with a chaperon. As a result, he was subdued when the Tempels, with their 17-year-old Larissa, greeted him with wide smiles.

“I had a seizure today,” he said quietly as his mother hugged him.

From the time Alex returned to preschool after his brain injury, the Tempels have been determined he receives an education. But he had difficulties learning and interacting socially, they said.

Throughout his years in special education classes in the Capistrano Unified School District, Alex proved a challenge to teachers and family members.

He has trouble filtering out noises, sights and smells, and can become overstimulated by any of these, especially in crowds, his mother said. He used to lose control and yell, hit and kick.

Alex attended special education classes in four schools in the Capistrano district through fifth grade. “They kept trying to figure out what school environment would be best for him,” his mother said.

When he was in fifth grade, the school district hired a psychologist to evaluate him. The psychologist recommended that the Tempels enroll Alex in the May Center.

It wasn’t an easy decision to move their son 3,000 miles away.

“It was the hardest thing that I’ve ever had to do,” Cheryl Tempel said.

But the May Center, through a combination of techniques, “turned his life around,” she said. “Within a month, his aggressive and self-abusive behavior decreased by more than 90%.”

It cost the Capistrano Unified School District nearly $200,000 a year for the switch, including the Tempels’ monthly visits and Alex’s twice-a-year trips home.

At the same time, the Tempels decided to push for a school in this region so California families would be spared their experience.

Among the donations received by the Alex Center is $100,000 from the Samueli Foundation and a $100,000 challenge grant from the Weingart Foundation. The challenge grant has been matched.

Alex, who also is to undergo corneal transplant surgery in both eyes within the coming weeks, will live at home until the fall when he moves into the center’s first residential home. However, he is scheduled to start classes at his new school this week.

He’ll no longer have 3,000 miles separating him from his family. And for Alex, that’s all that matters.

On the phone to his mother a few months ago, he quoted a line from his favorite movie, “The Wizard of Oz,” to let her know how much this means to him.

“I’ll never leave home again,” he told her. “Oh, Mommy, I love you so. There’s no place like home.”