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STEM School Offers Fun Interactive Environment For Special Needs Students

LOS ANGELES CBSLA.com) — Classrooms at the STEM-cubed academy are being prepped for the upcoming school year.

Ellis Crasnow is the director of the academy that serves students who he says may fail to flourish in a traditional classroom.

"Autism spectrum disorder, ADHD, specific learning disabilities. They might be kids with social learning differences: high anxiety, major depression," Crasnow says.

The private academy has been around since 2015. This fall it's Culver City campus is going K-12. Also, a middle school is opening up in Sherman Oaks for kids with greater emotional needs.

"We have interventionists and therapists who will work with them," Crasnow says.

Clare Baek is teaching a cyber security and cryptography summer course at the Valley Village campus. She says she accommodates each student according to their needs.

"Such as, sometime when they get anxious we give them frequent breaks and repeated instruction," Baek says.

Hunter Downden is one of Baek's students. He says he's learned things he can use in everyday life — some top-secret.

"I've also learned something that's interesting about Gmail that Google wouldn't be too happy if I said them right now."

Crasnow says classroom teaching is made to be fun and interactive.

"This is an opportunity for them to learn physical concepts, like friction, gravity, momentum, in a very appealing-play-like way."

You won't see traditional desks at the academy. Students sit around a table. They pull up a chair or they can pick out a squishy cushion or even a bean bag.

Aside from the traditional courses like science, technology, engineering and math, students will be able to learn how to build robots and take art classes.

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