Speech & Language Pathologist

Cajal Academy seeks a Speech & Language Pathologist to join our team!

Cajal Academy is looking for a part-time speech and language pathologist to join our expert, inter-disciplinary team of experienced educators and licensed therapists, including an internationally-recognized neuropsychologist. This is a unique opportunity to take a leadership and therapeutic role within a small, visionary non-profit special education school. Our model updates educational and therapeutic practices to match current neuroscientific research, with transformational effects for our cohort of bright and gifted kids with learning, social-emotional and neurophysiological differences that actually reduces their disabilities—not just accommodating them.


About our School:

Cajal Academy is an innovative, nonprofit small special education school for bright and gifted students with high analytical reasoning skills, along with a wide range of learning, social-emotional, neurophysiological and/or chronic medical conditions. This includes first-of-their-kind programs for under-served cohorts of high intellect students, including dyspraxia and heritable connective tissue disorders such as Ehlers-Danlos Syndrome.  

Cajal Academy is a new kind of special education school. Cajal Academy was co-founded by an occupational therapist and a social entrepreneur who is mom to two very bright but neurophysiologically complicated children and with direction from a recognized neuropsychologist. Together, we developed a novel approach that moves beyond accommodation to actually reduce children’s disabilities, by leveraging the connections between children’s neurophysiology and their learning and social-emotional experiences. PT and OT therapies are integrated into academic and social-emotional therapeutic approaches, such as increasing core muscle strength to improve academic focus; pairing movement with academic instruction to increase learning retention (embodied cognition) and increasing a child’s capacity to perform targeted cognitive tasks by pairing them with gross motor movements (neuroplasticity). Meanwhile, cranio-sacral therapies provided by our team of manual PT experts and coaching to help children learn how to self-monitor, self-manage and self-advocate for autonomic and sensory regulatory challenges are a core piece of our social-emotional learning. 

Ours is a small school with a mixed-age cohort of bright, gifted and twice exceptional students in grades 3-12, growing towards a full K-12 school. Instruction is provided in small groups of 6 students or fewer; total enrollment for fall, 2023 is not expected to exceed 15 students. Over time we hope to grow the school to a total of approximately 50 students. All staff members form close and nurturing relationships with each of our students, using a trauma-informed approach. Cajal Academy is not a "behavior management" or ABA school and does not implement ABA approaches. We do not accept students who are physically aggressive towards staff or peers.

Cajal Academy was granted Candidacy status by NEASC in June, 2023 and will strive to achieve full accreditation over the coming year.

Responsibilities of the Position:

Our speech and language pathologist will bring a new area of expertise to our multi-disciplinary team, and will have the opportunity to not only work directly with students having communication disorders, but to fully infuse their speech and language expertise into our curriculum. Specific responsibilities will include:

  • Identifying, assessing and diagnosing speech and/or language disorders within our cohort of students, as part of a multidisciplinary diagnostic and treatment team, to develop a comprehensive understanding of the child’s learning and social-emotional profiles;

  • Providing direct services in 1:1 or small group settings to address speech and language disorders;

  • Participate with other members of our therapeutic staff to extend application of our Neuroplasticity Interventions to targeted foundational/cross-cutting skills affecting speech and language challenges;

  • Assessing and documenting student progress with respect to identified speech and language challenges;

  • Collaborating with our English Language Arts instructor to ensure that reading and writing instruction aligns with research regarding the development of language, communications and expression;

  • Providing cross-training and support to academic instructors and other therapeutic experts to understand, predict, accommodate and help to address students’ identified speech and language challenges;

  • Supporting our accreditation process by contributing relevant expertise to our “self-study” report and documenting therapeutic and curricular approaches;

  • Collaborating with academic instructors and other therapists in developing potential topics for our multi-disciplinary project-based learning units that will integrate relevant language skills and standards across the curriculum; and

  • Comply with requirements for ongoing renewal of active Connecticut speech and language pathologist license.

Requirements:

Our speech and language pathologist will bring a new area of expertise to our multi-disciplinary team, and will have the opportunity to not only work directly with students having communication disorders, but to fully infuse their speech and language expertise into our curriculum. This role will begin as a part time position, with 10-15 hours of service time to be delivered during school hours (M-F, 9-3), as well as participation (remote or in-person) at our weekly after school diagnostic and treatment planning team meeting. This may transition into a full time opportunity for the right candidate, as our school continues to grow.

In general, we are looking for creative problem solvers who are strong analytical and cross-disciplinary thinkers, and are passionate about making a difference for bright and gifted children who have learning, social, emotional or neurophysiological challenges. All Cajal Academy team members must be flexible thinkers with strong attention to detail and an eagerness to embrace new educational practices that have been developed by our team.

All Cajal Academy staff members must be flexible thinkers with very high analytical and organizational skills, and strong attention to detail. Successful candidates will be comfortable with the fluidity that is required to provide highly-responsive, quality education to children with complex needs. Our model has brought transformative results for students, but it requires our teachers to think about differentiation, scaffolding, curriculum development, behaviors and social-emotional growth in a whole new way.

This is an opportunity to be at the forefront of our work to modernize education but requires that you be open-minded to learning new social-emotional and instructional approaches, and excited to merge them with your expertise in speech and language pathology. All Cajal Academy staff engage directly in our project-based learning efforts, which provide the “glue” across our academic and therapeutic programming.

All Cajal Academy staff must also be prepared to meet children where they are, and to support children struggling with anxieties, atypical neurophysiological regulation and/or prior school-based traumas.

The successful candidate must also be a team player who is excited to work collaboratively in a fluid, startup environment. This may include developing lesson plans outside of school hours, participating in admissions events, supporting our accreditation process, and "pitching in" to help do what needs to be done within a lean startup environment.

Cajal Academy was granted Candidacy status by the New England Association for Schools and Colleges in June, 2023; we will actively pursue full accreditation in the year ahead.


How to Apply

Interested applicants should complete the Employment Application available on the Cajal Academy website, including a resume and 3 references. Applicants are encouraged to apply as soon as possible.