Apply Today to See What School Can Be…
Accepting applications the 2025-26 school year for immediate and mid-year placements : apply today!
〰️
Accepting applications the 2025-26 school year for immediate and mid-year placements : apply today! 〰️
Find out how we can help your child unlock their gifts, and prepare them for a future defined by their strengths
Cajal Academy is a small, innovative school at the heart of a non-profit dedicated to educational innovation. We offer a pioneering program for bright and intellectually-gifted students in grades K-12 who have high analytical reasoning and/or creative thinking skills, including students who have an area of learning, physio, neurological, social-emotional, connective tissue and/or chronic medical differences.
Other public, private and special education settings accommodate these complex profiles, filling the gap between the child’s disabilities and the mainstream expectations. We transform them, through a neuroscience-based and research-backed approach that reduces the gap itself, using a neurodevelopmental approach available only at Cajal Academy, while developing the super-sized critical thinking, executive function and leadership skills that these inherently innovative thinkers will need to realize their unique ways of seeing the world today, in college and as the adults they will become. Our small, nurturing community and mixed-age cohort play a key role in giving students the space and peer support required to make these transformations possible, shifting them from social learners to social leaders.
We are the only full service school in Connecticut or the suburbs of New York City that works with this group of kids. We are the only ones in the world to offer this transformational approach.
Come see what’s possible.
How to Apply to Cajal Academy
1. Apply Online
2. On Site Interview Day
3. Admission & Tuition Decision
Rolling Admissions, with Multiple Ways to Experience Cajal’s Unique Program
Mid-year Placements
We have openings for immediate enrollment in our elementary, middle and high school programs. Programming and tuition levels are determined through the admissions process, so interested families are encouraged to complete our online application.
Diagnostic Placements
The transformational change students make with our Student Growth Catalysts starts with a paradigm shift in how we understand student needs, and a second paradigm shift in what we do about it. Make a diagnostic placement to Cajal to get the benefit of our approach, and highly-expert therapists working with students every day.
Summer Program
Discover new interests, make new friends and unlock and develop your gifts! Project-based learning, social connections and expert therapies combine to empower students in our unique summer program for exceptionally bright kids with specialized needs.
Workshop Wednesdays Enrichment Program
Students from the community are invited to join our new Workshop Wednesdays series to gain social & executive function skills in a 3-hour project-based learning “sprint” with our currently-enrolled students!
3 Ways to Learn More:
1) Attend an Information Session In-Person or Online
2) Browse our New Video Library
3) Schedule a Zoom with our Head of School
Affording a Cajal Academy Education
We decrease student tuitions as their capabilities and choice of settings increase through our unique Student Growth Catalysts. Learn more!
Affording a Cajal Academy Education: our Unique Declining Tuition Model
At a time that other private school costs are soaring, our student programming fees decrease—sometimes by as much as $30,000 or more—as your child’s abilities increase and they progress to the next Growth Catalyst Stage. In many cases this will bring Cajal within statutes permitting school districts to contract with schools not on the “state approved” list.
Make a Referral to Cajal Academy
Visit our Referral Center to get quick access to what you need to know to evaluate whether Cajal would be an appropriate placement for your families, or book a 15 minute “Quick Fit Consult” with our Head of School to talk through a particular student’s profile.
Referral Center for Placement Consultants, Providers, Attorneys and Advocates
Get quick facts about our program, download materials you can give to your families and book a time to speak with our Head of School.
Information for School Districts
Visit our Resource Center for school districts and professionals for more information about placing your students at Cajal Academy, and new public-private partnerships we are developing to bring the benefits of our work to a broader base of families and educators.