Sloan Todd Cooper has always known she wanted to help people, but wasn’t sure exactly how or where or in what capacity.

But in 1993 after being involved in a terrible head-on car accident, she realized it was time to act on the ideas she’d had thought about for years.

“I was lucky, extremely lucky. I had my seatbelt on, and while it was a very bad accident neither of us was permanently hurt.”

The accident caused her to realize how delicate life is and motivated her to go to College of Charleston and get a bachelor of science degree in Sociology.

She’s since dedicated her life to helping those with special needs and now has more than 12 years experience working with children and adults who have varying developmental disabilities.

Cooper served as the service coordination supervisor for the Disabilities Board of Charleston County and managed Medicaid waiver budgets while supervising a team to ensure local families and consumers received quality services. She has served on several local charity boards and received the Outstanding Service Award from Protection and Advocacy for People with Disabilities.

Her journey has brought her to meet four women and join in their dream of opening a school for children with special needs that incorporates therapies with a quality education. Pattison’s Academy for Comprehensive Education is set to open this August in a building at Rutledge Baptist Church in West Ashley.

Cooper and her husband John live in Mount Pleasant and have two boys William, 9, and Nathan, 6.

Tell me about your family.

My husband John is the most remarkable father and amazing husband. He is working very hard to get his business, Cooper Woodworks, off the ground but yet always makes sure he has time for us. There is no better view than being out on the Wando River looking at the backs of my children while he is teaching them to throw a cast net. It is a beautiful sight.

What made you decide to work with people with special needs?

My grandfather was over the state department of mental retardation. I always wanted to help people. I didn’t know in what capacity, but I knew I wanted to be in that field. But back in 1993, I was hit head-on by a drunk driver … that was kind of one of those “aha” moments of “OK now’s the time to do what you want to do.” So I went back to school after that. I graduated from the College of Charleston with the idea that I wanted to do some type of social work … to work with other people and make people’s lives better – or try to.

How did you get involved with Pattison’s Academy?

Shortly after I graduated I got a job with the Disabilities Board of Charleston County and moved up to become a supervisor over the MRRD waiver program, which is the mental retardation-related disabilities Medicaid waiver program, and was asked to join the board of Pattison’s Academy. I’d known Cindy Dodds, who is a physical therapist and founder, and Pam Sloat, whose daughter “PJ” the school was named after. I served on the board until they were ready to hire an executive director, and I applied for the job.

[When I met them] I admired what all four of those women [have done] … I learn from them on a daily basis. And it’s awesome to have a job when you’re constantly learning and growing and when you have people that will listen to your ideas and give you feedback and they have their ideas … we’re all very different women, but it works and that’s a very good feeling to have.

Tell me the history of Pattison’s Academy.

Pattison’s originated by four amazing women that had a huge passion. It basically evolved around a little girl named Pattison Sloat. When PJ was growing up and started getting closer to school age, Pam started noticing the resources and the opportunities for PJ were limited – and she really wanted to do something about that. So she got together Cindy Dodds, Debbie Lamb, who’s an occupational therapist, and Kimberly Wilson-Kascak, who is a special education teacher at James B. Edwards, and developed this idea of Pattison’s Academy. The idea was always to open a school, but they started with a summer camp [in 2006] to really understand what was involved with helping children with severe multiple disabilities on that type of scale. It’s one thing to have one child in therapy or to have a couple of children in a classroom, but it’s completely different to have them in a large program.

Tell me about Pattison’s Academy.

It’s a charter school open to any child who’d like to attend. Our target population is children with severe multiple disabilities. Really what that means is that most of the children have some type of cognitive delay and some type of orthopedic impairment. In each classroom, we will have one teacher, one teacher’s assistant, and one volunteer or additional teacher assistant. So there will be three adults and each classroom will have six children. We’re incorporating therapy, so there will be therapists all around the school all day long. The ratio is really even higher than that if you incorporate the therapists.

What’s the building like?

It is gorgeous. When I walked in for the first time it was a moment of “Wow! This is amazing and it really gave me chills. I kept looking at the pastor saying, “Really? This is really it?” It was built to have these kids. The hallways are huge. The bathrooms are handicap accessible. It’s full of light.

How many children are going to able to attend Pattison’s Academy?

The school will start off with 32 children, and we will grow as funding allows us to grow. We’ll be K through eighth grade and we hope to [eventually] go up to 12th grade – again as funding allows. So next year the hope would be possibly being able to go up to 9th grade and add an additional six kids. Then we’ll just move up from there.

What do you do for fun?

Wow. My husband would say “Not much! She works!” I enjoy my friends – my friendships with the amazing women in my life – and I play with my boys. We have a boat, and I love going out with them on the boat and watching them enjoy the Lowcountry and all it has to offer. I read. I’m a huge reader. I read probably a book a week at night. That’s kind of my way of separating my workday before I go to sleep at night.

Favorite Book?

“The Help,” by Kathryn Stockett. It’s about the South back in the ’60s, about the women that took care of families – the maids, the nannies. It’s from their perspective and it is amazing. Good book.

What are your favorite things about your children?

Their imaginations and their ability to turn the smallest item into an amazing thing. My youngest Nathan can take a plastic bucket, fill it up with water, put his LEGO boats in it and all of a sudden it becomes the ocean. And their smiles. They wake up with smiles on their faces and they go to bed with smiles on their faces – that’s really all you can ask for. They’re very energetic. They’re all boy – wow! But they’re just fun! Rays of light. You can be having a bad day and go home and look at them and say, “You know what? It’s all going to be OK.”

What is your favorite thing about your job?

The families and the children. At the end of the day you have to remember why you’re doing this. And you have to be able to stay in touch with the people you are affecting …You can get bogged down in the minutia of the paperwork and the rules and regulations and budget cuts – all the things that affect your ability to move forward. But at the end of the day when you get that call from a parent who says, “Thank you, we are so excited to attend camp,” or “I can’t tell you what this school’s going to mean to me and my child.” It makes everything else OK and you can continue to fight for another day.

What do you want to say to readers that they might not know?

The difference we want to make and why. So often people say, “Well you’re opening a charter school, so you’ll get federal, state and local dollars,” and they don’t realize that while that is fantastic and we’re very grateful for that, that’s not all the money you need to serve these children, certainly in the environment we feel they deserve.

We want to integrate the education with the therapeutic side to ensure these kids can have a good quality of life. It’s not just about the education and it’s certainly not just about the therapy. It’s about molding those two worlds together in an integrated environment. A good example is, say they need to be able to hold a pencil, but they also need to be able to hold their head up. You can’t have one without the other. If they can’t see what they are doing or they can’t see the button they’re pushing on their communication device because they can’t hold their head up… both of those is very important. Or if the children aren’t not sleeping at night because their positioning isn’t right. Then they come to school and they’re tired and all they want to do is sleep. So you need a therapist to go into the homes and help the families with the positioning … not just dealing with the problem while they’re at school.

It’s including both of their environments, making them work together. I think sometimes people – for lack of knowing how those worlds can come together and should come together – don’t understand that. I think that collaborative model is very important and people understanding that while we are a charter school and we do get those dollars it’s not enough to really fulfill our mission of fulfilling the quality of life for children.

Want to learn more?

Visit Pattisonsacademy.org

Click HERE to watch the Pattison's Academy video