Giving bright and gifted teens the toolbox they’ll need to chart their own course in college or on whatever path they choose

Cajal Academy is one of very few schools in the country for kids who have very high analytical reasoning and/or creative thinking skills with expert programs for students who have learning, social, emotional, neurophysiological and/or chronic medical differences. Because of their unique profiles, our students naturally see things differently and make connections that others don’t. As kids, they may be told they don’t fit in—but as adults, we call them innovators.

Cajal Academy was started by a former corporate litigator who grew up in a family of twice exceptional children, was educated in an extraordinary public gifted education program in Columbia, Maryland and is “mom” to two twice exceptional kids. In short, this is her tribe. Every element of our program is infused with a singular focus: to give kids agency over their own learning, social, emotional and physio experiences, so they can define their own futures based on what will be satisfying in view of their gifts. This drives our commitment to apply all available science and expertise to identify and reduce the challenges that hold them back, so they go forward with fewer obstacles to manage and stronger tools with which to do so—which in turn translates into more choice over their future settings and pursuits.

Cajal has a limited number open enrollment for its high school program; contact us today to find out if our program might be a good fit for your teen.

Preparing bright and gifted thinkers with the executive function and social skills they need to turn their unique ways of seeing things into thought leadership

Our academic curriculum was specifically designed to leverage our cohort’s “superpowers” in analytical reasoning to engage deeply with standards-based academics. More than that, they are designed to give our cohort of bright and creative thinkers a toolbox that they can use to turn their innovative ways of seeing the world into thought leadership that can benefit us all—whether that be a new scientific discovery, a social movement or an emerging cultural icon. This requires executive function skills, the ability to collaborate with others and the ability to communicate your ideas in a way that will lead others to want to follow you and support your progress. Here’s how we build those skills at Cajal, while preparing students to be successful independent learners with agency over their academic careers in college and beyond.

The understanding, tools and state-of-the-science strategies you need to gain agency over your challenges and access to your gifts

Cajal Academy offers exclusive, state-of-the-science interventions and protocols to meaningfully address kids’ challenges—not just accommodate them. Attending high school at Cajal isn’t about being “in a bubble” and then hoping you can make it in the real world. Rather, it’s about taking the time to identify and tackle the things that make you feel like you aren’t able to achieve your full potential. That way, you’re prepared to go forward to college or other educational and professional environments with fewer obstacles to manage—translating to greater choice over the pursuits and the settings where you can be successful.

This process starts with a deep dive by our multi-disciplinary, expert team into the data in their evaluations to get beyond labels like ADHD and identify the specific challenges holding back their learning, social and/or emotional experiences. From there, we create custom programs that comprehensively address these needs, including executive function supports, personalized social emotional programs and our exclusive interventions to address learning difference through neuroplasticity. All our students collaborate closely with our internationally-recognized clinical neuropsychologist and highly-experienced psychologist Steven Mattis, PhD, A.B.P.P. and expert physio therapy team, forming collaborative partnerships in which the focus is not only on helping each student to unlock their gifts, but on giving them the scientific and therapeutic understandings they need to gain agency over their ongoing therapeutic growth and journeys.

We fuel social-emotional development through self-regulation, a growth mindset and scientific understanding of what it means to be human

A holistic and highly-individualized approach to social-emotional development is at the center of our program. Each child’s program starts with a deep analysis of how the many pieces in their neuropsychological and neurophysiological profiles fit together to influence their life-lived experiences. We use a trauma-informed approach to help each child understand their learning, psycho-social and neurophysiological ‘triggers’ and personalized strategies that they can use to interrupt those processes and optimize their own learning, social and emotional experiences. We share the science behind all of this with the children themselves, giving them the rational basis for a true growth mindset.

College admissions support from a whole team who knows you {really, really} well

Preparing to leave your childhood home and independently pursue your own path—whether that be at college or otherwise—-is terribly overwhelming. Many bright and gifted kids head into their high school years with fully-baked ideas of where they are headed and what they want to be doing, but may struggle with self-imposed perfectionism and anxiety over whether they will be able to make good on their dreams. Others head into high school aware only that right now, unsure even what path they want to pursue, and lacking the self-awareness and tools they need to figure that out.

At Cajal, it is literally not possible to fall through the cracks. All students form close collaboration and partnerships with our tight-knit team of educators, therapists and thought leaders who can help you discover what makes you you, and the future path you’d like to pursue—and then how to communicate and convey that to a college admissions team. Preparation to help you tell this story is built into the DNA of our academic programming. Students receive in-depth, competency-based reports include extensive narratives helping college admissions teams understand each child’s mastery of not only the academic content but the growth mindset and agency skills that make the difference for kids “leaving the nest” for the first time. Each student’s work is added to a digital portfolio, giving them tangible evidence they can use to demonstrate skills and abilities that correlate to real world success at a level far beyond what a GPA can convey. This comes together through a Senior Capstone Projects: a graduation requirement and rite of passage through which Cajal seniors transfer their knowledge and executive function skills to design, execute and present their own multi-disciplinary project, building the skills they will need in college and beyond to pursue their own unique interests at a college level.

A diverse community of bright and gifted students, with the expertise to not only accommodate but meaningfully address special education needs

Cajal Academy is a mixed age cohort by design, because we know that many twice exceptional students build rich friendships with kids who share their intellectual interests, regardless of their ages, and may even struggle to do so with same-age peers. Unlike other special education schools, we define our cohort by the superpowers in analytical and creative thinking that hold them together—not the diversity of differences that set them apart. The opportunity to learn with other very bright teens through ability-based academic classes enriches our collaborative learning and helps students who may feel socially-isolated in mainstream environments find kinship and develop connection. Being a small school can itself be a catalyst for teens working through social and/or academic anxieties to work through their fears. Meanwhile, our community-wide projects and mixed age cohort helps students who naturally connect with students older or younger than themselves more easily than with same age peers to form natural kinships, with opportunities to mentor and lead.

Our high school program is designed for students with very high analytical reasoning skills who are looking for more learning stimulation and close teacher/mentor relationships, and/or who have executive function, learning, social-emotional, neurophysio and/or chronic medical differences. All Cajal Academy students must have very high analytical reasoning skills, as evidenced by very high to superior scores on normed neuropsychological assessments of verbal, visual-spatial and/or fluid reasoning. We do not rely on full scale IQ or prior identification as “gifted.” Within this cohort of kids, we work with students who have a wide range of learning, social-emotional, neurophysiological and/or chronic medical differences as part of a single, mixed age community of bright and gifted kids. These include students with therapeutic programming to reduce the learning and social-emotional impacts of under-served conditions including dyspraxia, sensory processing disorder and Ehlers-Danlos Syndrome and other connective tissue disorders. Cajal Academy is not an appropriate setting for students with substance abuse issues. Because we are a mixed age community, we cannot accommodate students at the high school level who have physical or emotional violence or aggression.