What to ask when you tour a private school for students with autism.

A tour is where a school stops being a website. It's also short, and it's easy to walk out realizing you forgot to ask the thing you most wanted to know. These are the questions worth bringing, grouped so they're easy to keep on your phone.

Before you go

Bring whatever paperwork you have: your student's evaluation, a current IEP or 504 plan, and recent report cards. A school can tell you much more about fit when it can see what your student needs now.

It also helps to write down three or four things about your student before you arrive. What they love, what wears them out, and what went wrong at their last school. That list is how you'll know whether an answer actually fits your student, or just sounds good.

If you can, tour while classes are running. An empty building tells you about the furniture.

What to watch for on the walk

Some of the best answers on a tour are never said out loud. While you walk, notice:

• How loud the halls get between classes, and whether your student would cope with it.
• Whether students look engaged, or just quiet.
• How adults speak to a student who is struggling.
• Where a student could go if a room got to be too much.

Questions about fit

• Who is this school built for? Do all of your students have autism?
• What does admissions need from us, and how do you decide whether a student is a good fit?
• Can my student spend a day here before we decide?
• Is there space this year, and what happens if a class is full?

At Gateway, every student has autism and every student is academically capable. Both are true on the same day, and that's what the school is built around. Admissions looks for an autism diagnosis. The decision is never made over the phone. Next comes a shadow day, when your student joins classes for a day and meets the students they'd be learning with. Gateway holds to 12:1 in middle school and 14:1 in high school, so a full class means a waiting list rather than an extra seat.

Questions about the school day

• Where does support happen? Inside the school day, or as something a student leaves class for?
• Is social skills taught, and by whom?
• What does a student do when they're overwhelmed in the middle of a class?
• What happens at lunch and between classes, when there's less structure?
• Who are the teachers, and what are they trained in?

At Gateway, support happens inside the school day. Counseling, social skills, executive functioning, pragmatic language and sensory strategies are part of every day, not sessions a student leaves class for. The teachers are certified subject-matter experts, and special education sits with our Learning Support Coordinator. See how support works at Gateway.

Questions about the hard days

• What happens when my student has a hard day?
• Is there somewhere quiet to go, and who notices that a student needs it?
• How will you tell me how my student is doing?
• What happens to my student's IEP once they enroll?

When a Gateway student needs a break, there's more than one place to take it: the Peace Room, a walk around the atrium, or a visit with Apollo and Athena, the school's therapy dogs, who are on site every day. Once a student enrolls, Gateway writes its own individualized plan: a secondary readiness plan in middle school, and a college and career readiness plan in high school. Families receive it at the December parent conferences.

Questions about academics

• Will my student be challenged, or just kept comfortable?
• What diploma do students graduate with?
• Can students earn college credit before they graduate, and does it transfer?

Gateway is a college-prep school with three routes to graduation, and students often combine them: the college-prep diploma, ASU Accelerate dual enrollment, and a Penn Foster career-technical diploma. On college credit, the answer is every student in grades 8 through 12, 100% of them, through ASU courses taken on the Gateway campus. In Arizona as a whole, it's about 25%. The credit transfers. Read more on the Early College page.

Questions about life after graduation

• Where do your graduates go?
• How do you prepare students for college or work?
• Are life skills taught, or left to families?

Gateway's answer fits in one sentence: 100% of our graduates go onto college, university, or a specialty program. Getting there includes visits to colleges, universities and specialty programs every month, and life skills taught at school rather than left to families: driving, banking, grocery shopping and self-advocacy.

The practical questions

• How do families pay for it? Do you accept Arizona ESA?
• How do students get to school?
• Can we start mid-year?

At Gateway, the tour ends back in Ms. Robin's office, where families ask whatever they didn't on the walk. The question families ask most there is how their student will get to school every day. For many families the answer is a carpool. Others ride Paratransit, at $8 a day for the round trip.

On cost, ask any school whether it accepts Arizona ESA. Gateway does, and for qualifying students that means $0 Tuition with Arizona ESA. Our step-by-step ESA guide covers the application, the Award Letter and ClassWallet. Starting mid-year is fine too, because admissions is rolling.

After the tour

Listen to how your student talks about the visit on the drive home. A school can answer every question well and still not be the right room for your student, and their reaction counts as much as any answer you got.

Gateway is at 3939 E. Shea Blvd. in Phoenix, at the base of the Phoenix Mountain Preserve. Families come from across the Valley, including Scottsdale, Paradise Valley and North Phoenix. Tours run throughout the school year. Schedule a tour whenever you're ready, and bring your student.

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