From Fire Drills to Field Trips: Understanding the Neurodivergent School Experience

The Neurodivergent Owl Presents: Alarms, Assemblies and Accommodations: Inside the Neurodivergent Classroom by Jeffrey P. Snyder

A fire alarm interrupts a lesson. Students head outside, teachers call for silence, and the school practices its emergency procedures. For Jeffrey P. Snyder, the noise and sudden disruption could overwhelm him long after the drill ended.

In The Neurodivergent Owl Presents: Alarms, Assemblies and Accommodations: Inside the Neurodivergent Classroom, Snyder draws on his experiences as an autistic student to explore challenges that educators may overlook or misunderstand and offers practical suggestions for making school environments safer and more accessible to neurodivergent students.

Across fifteen chapters, Snyder considers safety drills, assemblies, school dances and field trips alongside everyday challenges such as lunch periods and crowded hallways. He also addresses classroom participation, relationships with teachers and peers, emotional regulation, and the role of IEPs and 504 plans.

Snyder’s personal recollections offer much-needed insight into how and why these experiences are challenging for neurodivergent children, as well as the support that helped him and the approaches that increased his distress. Preparation and individual support are key. Familiar film and television references and a conversational style make his writing engaging and relatable.

Written for educators, families and school communities, this first volume of The Neurodivergent Owl series encourages adults to listen to students themselves and consider accommodations that make demanding situations more manageable while preserving the purpose of school activities.

Snyder makes a valuable contribution to writing on neurodivergent education by showing how school practices feel to the student experiencing them. His firsthand account gives educators and families a perspective to consider alongside professional guidance, underscoring the importance of including neurodivergent voices in shaping education.