In addition to academic courses each day, Lakeland students participate in Essential Life Skills (ELS) beginning in Middle School and continuing through High School. Teachers use the Functional Independence Skills Handbook (FISH) as one of the tools to guide instruction. The FISH contains a series of 421 tasks organized according to seven domains: Adaptive Behavior Skills, Affective (or Emotional) Skills, Cognitive Skills, Sensorimotor Skills, Social Skills, Speech and Language Skills, and Vocational Skills. Documenting student independence with these skills, for all students attending Lakeland School, has allowed teachers to monitor progress and build lessons to enhance skills the students will need in order to become more independent as adults.