In many cases, yes—although whether your child is eligible for tuition support from your school district for any school outplacement will always be heavily dependent on their specific needs and other circumstances. Under federal education law, every child is entitled to a “free and appropriate public education.” If your school district is unable to provide a program that is appropriate to your child’s needs, they will look first to the list of state-approved special education outplacement programs. However, if there is no program appropriate to your needs on that list then they will consider an outplacement to a school that is not on the approved list. This requires that they make a placement via a consensual settlement agreement rather than via a “PPT placement,” but the effect is the same.

We started Cajal Academy because Connecticut and Westchester County lacked a special education outplacement setting where intellectually-gifted students could access services from licensed therapists without sacrificing academic programs appropriate to their abilities. To our knowledge, we are also the first in the world to offer programs tailored to helping children who have both very high cognitive skills and chronic medical conditions learn how to monitor, manage and advocate for hidden internal events that can variably impact their learning, social and emotional availability. Thus, for many students Cajal Academy will be the only appropriate outplacement setting available within our community.

You can learn more about these matters and find attorneys specializing in special education from the Council of Parent Attorneys and Advocates.

Yes, assuming we have space in our program to conduct a diagnostic placement at that time. Our team of licensed therapists were specifically-chosen for their expertise in not only treating but diagnosing learning, neurophysiological and social-emotional challenges. By building a school for gifted children around a multi-disciplinary clinic, we are able to identify and make programming recommendations for students who have complex profiles with overlapping challenges. This includes students who have multiple concomitant learning disabilities, dysregulation triggered by sensory processing disorder and other hidden neurophysiological events and more. Our Director of Programs is a recognized clinician, academic, researcher and medical school professor with direct ties to the neuropsychological research community including over 70 peer-reviewed papers. With his guidance, we have developed a systematic process for analyzing overlapping areas of special education need, developing treatment protocols to address them and prioritizing that program to maximize the student’s academic and social-emotional development.

Please note that Cajal Academy does not enter into direct financial relationships with local school districts, however we do enter into agreements with families who are independently reimbursed by their district. This applies to diagnostic placements as well.

Yes! Cajal Academy welcomes referrals from school districts in Connecticut and New York state. Interested district leaders in finding out about potential outplacement opportunities for a student may contact our Head of School directly, at (203) 244-6575. We are happy to set up an information session for members of your staff to share more information about our unique program. Please note that Cajal Academy does not enter into direct financial relationships with local school districts, however we do enter into agreements with families who are independently reimbursed by their district.

Likely yes. Our entire program is informed by our co-founder’s determination that we should apply all available science to remove the obstacles standing in her own twice exceptional children’s way, so they can go forward prepared to thrive in whatever educational and professional environments they choose. Thus, we are focused from day one on giving kids the tools they need to chart their own course: a commitment to helping them discover and develop their gifts that goes beyond transitioning them back to mainstream environments.

Our spectrum of programming options facilitates this. We assess a child’s needs during the admissions and intake process and then make an admissions offer at the programming level that our team believes most appropriate to addressing their needs. However, beginning with the application itself our goal is to address the challenges holding a child back, through our unique combination of a learning environment and pedagogy aligned to the neuroscience of learning, and our team’s innovative, neuroscience-based interventions to remediate neurocognitive deficits. For many students, this combination will allow them to gradually transition towards our Core Program level, which is priced equivalent to many mainstream private schools in the area that lack our academic focus on intellectually-gifted kids, our team of expert occupational, physical, language and neuro/psychological experts, and our trauma-informed environment. Some may elect to stay in our community at this programming level in preparation for a mainstream college experience, while others will elect to transition back to public school and other mainstream environments. Our goal is to remediate the challenges standing in a child’s way so that this becomes a matter of choice.