What if we could transform student outcomes and cut costs?

Neuroscience shows us the way forward; join our grassroots movement to follow it.

In this time when public education as a whole is in a blender of uncertainty, school districts are desperately trying to reduce costs for the status quo: a special education framework that presumes disabilities are immutable and thus seeks to accommodate them, or fill the gap between that profile and the abilities of the average child—not close the gap but fill the gap.

One Connecticut Mom and the expert team she assembled at Cajal Academy has proven that we can reduce costs and improve student outcomes, through a new educational blueprint that applies well-established advances in neuroscience to reduce or even remove the disabilities themselves, transforming children’s lives while cutting costs by as much as $100,000 per child per year for the remainder of their K-12 program. 

It’s time to stop debating what to cut and start exploring what works

These ground-breaking innovations could totally redefine the field of special education and secure Connecticut’s place as the leader in educational excellence—but short-sighted local and state-level policies restricting educational outplacements to any school not following the state-approved blueprint hurt Cajal Academy’s efforts to expand its cohort to a size that will allow it to publish and dissemminate this powerful new approach so that local public school children can get the benefits of this breakthrough as well. That’s such an important part of our mission that it’s written right into our non-profit corporate charter.

This is a grassroots solution to a grassroots problem. It didn’t come out of a big research university, it came out of one Mom’s conviction that we have a moral imperative to apply all available science to help our kids—not just the ones that are privileged to be able to afford our program but all children who are struggling with challenges that they didn’t ask for.

It’s time to invest in innovation, because our kids and our towns can’t afford the status quo

We didn’t get into this to be the ‘new fangled thing’ or make a ton of money. We got into it because as parents we felt we had a moral imperative to apply all available science to move our kids forward. In the years since we founded Cajal in 2019, we’ve seen the science on which our program is based become still better known and the awareness of neurodivergent learning needs and the damaging impacts of trauma on learning become axiomatic within the field of education—while the challenges facing special needs families like ours only get worse, fueled by a desperate need to slash special education costs.

The solution isn’t to cut off the spigot, it’s to invest in new educational blueprints that leverage these massive scientific advances in ways that can reduce the needs that are so costly to support.

That’s what happens for the children in our program, but state-level education funding policies and the move towards further regulation aimed at reducing costs inadvertently make it harder to pursue the innovation that can change the equation for children and for taxpayers.

That’s why we need your help. Whatever your time and financial resources, there are things you can do to support our work.

By making a donation to our Scholarship and Research Fund, you help us continue our research work and scale our cohort to a size that will allow us to publish and disseminate our findings, so that all school children can access this innovative approach. By following us on social media and sharing our suggested posts, you help us change the conversation—and show more people what’s possible when we apply modern neuroscience in education. By spreading the word in your communities, you help us reach more families whose children need this innovative approach, or connect to corporations that might be interested in sponsoring our work. By writing to your representatives, you show them that innovation is important and that just like in other fields, we need policy frameworks that help the private sector do that work. Click on the images below to get easy access to email templates, social media posts, volunteer opportunities and other ways you can help our movement grow!

Learn more about our program and the story behind it!