History

Using her degrees in psychology and education as a basis, Mrs. Streit spent several years traveling the country from Purdue to UCLA looking for effective programs for educating children with special needs. She took the best ideas, recruited a special education teacher, an art teacher, and a physical therapist, gathered six students into her backyard, and started teaching. By fall, the enrollment had tripled, and the school moved to Memorial Drive Baptist Church. Soon parents were bringing children who were not handicapped but had struggles to learn in “traditional” class settings and were frustrated schools that were not able to address their children’s learning needs. Thus, the unique concept of having both populations in one school began. The Briarwood School broke ground in its current location in west Houston in 1972. In 2015, our school for our developmentally delayed students became known as The Tuttle School. Today, we are enthusiastically continuing the Streits mission by empowering students in a traditional school setting that caters to each individual’s needs, while teaching age-appropriate academics.