Announcing the Next Phase of our Innovations & New Programming Levels for 2022-23!
Cajal Academy is proud to announce the next step of our innovation process…and new programming levels making our neuroscience-based approach to education accessible to more students!
When we set out to create Cajal Academy, it was clear to us that traditional educational models don’t work well for the bright and gifted kids we serve—and that there was a need for a new model integrating new scientific understandings to help all kids be more successful.
We approached this work with a commitment not just to educating the individual children before us, but to developing a scalable model that could be used to facilitate success for a wide range of kids who are currently struggling within mainstream environments.
We are excited to announce the next step of that innovation process. Beginning in fall, 2022, we will begin opening up two new programming levels giving a broader range of students access to the methodologies that have proven successful through our work over the last several years with learners having highly-complex profiles. These include:
A new, “Core Program” level for students for whom the core Cajal Academy program, environment and approach should suffice to address the challenges currently being faced within more mainstream educational approaches and environments, at a new tuition level of $47,500 and
A new, “Learning Remediation” level for cohorts of 4-6 students having specific special education needs at a level of $57,000-$72,000 depending on the needs of the cohort, which includes Neuroplasticity Interventions and other programming elements tailored to remediate identified learning differences.
In addition, we will continue our work with students having complex profiles: the wellspring of our work to modernize education through innovative, neuroscience-based approaches to meet the needs of more of the kids in the room. These will include highly-individualized, custom programs for students who require additional customization or supports beyond those that are integrated into these cohort-based programming levels. These programs may include 1:1 academic instruction where necessary, however all students collaborate together on our community-wide project-based learning and in our enrichment classes—in other words, “custom” doesn’t mean “isolated.” Our custom programs are priced based on the level of expertise, customization and multi-disciplinary therapeutic collaboration required and fall into the following general categories:
Complex Learner Program for students with multiple learning disabilities and other complex learning profiles, beginning at $72,000;
Journeys Program for students requiring integrated programs to diagnose and address social-emotional challenges interfering with their access to academic and/or social experiences, beginning at $89,000; and
Complex Medical Programs for students who have complex medical conditions, including chronic conditions causing variable cognitive (including among others the complex connective tissue disorder Ehlers-Danlos Syndrome) with and/or social-emotional availability and major surgical rehabilitation, beginning at $72,000.
One community, with a spectrum of programming levels
All students, regardless of programming levels, will continue to collaborate together as one unified community, collaborating to solve real world problems through our project-based learning, participating in fine arts and athletic programs and learning together in ability-based academic programs with small class sizes of 6 students or fewer. And, all students will benefit from embedded services and expertise from our team’s diagnostic and therapeutic experts.
Equally important, this means that students don’t need to lose their community when their needs change. Students may enter with a complex, custom program and later shift to a cohort-based Core Program or Learning Intervention program as needs are remediated. Conversely, additional programming supports and direct services can be added to fluidly support new needs as they evolve or are identified.
Admissions criteria and deadline
All students must have very high to superior analytical and/or creative reasoning skills and must meet our other admissions criteria. The deadline for priority consideration for our new, cohort-based programming levels is March 15. Admissions thereafter will be done on a rolling basis. Submit your application online to find out if your child is eligible for this new programming level, or to begin the process of creating a custom program for your child!
