Shriners Hospitals for Children

Welcome to the Shriners Hospital School Program. Our classroom is located on the third floor of Shriners Hospital for Children in Portland, Oregon and provides small group and individualized instruction to K-12 hospitalized students and their siblings.

Our hospital serves children with orthopedic needs, therefore common diagnoses of our students include scoliosis, cerebral palsy, neurofibromatosis, osteogenesis imperfecta, and spina bifida. Our long-term inpatient students tend to be in the hospital for halo traction, wound VAC treatment, and physical rehabilitation after cast removal. Our long-term outpatient students often come for orthotic / prosthetic adjustments and cast changes. We welcome outpatients from clinics and day surgery and focus especially on patients who are here five days or longer. Our inpatient unit has 29 beds.

We partner with students’ local schools both in and out of Oregon to facilitate the continuation of assignments with the goal that patients will return to school with as little educational lapse as possible. The classroom accommodates patient beds, and staff provide instruction at bedside for patients in isolation.

The MESD education staff can implement IEP goals for students with special needs. We also help facilitate home-tutoring through the local schools after hospitalization for students who must stay at home to heal before returning to school.

The hospital classroom is a place where students not only complete schoolwork but also have the opportunity to connect and develop friendships with each other.  We also offer computers and iPads with internet access for student use, motivating educationally related activities, art projects, and thinking games.