All students enrolling at Cajal Academy receive our specialized programming preparing intellectually-gifted students with the skills they will need for a future defined by their strengths. This includes our Vision to Voice Curriculum developing the executive function, peer collaboration and self-care skills that naturally innovative thinkers need to realize their unique visions. For students enrolled at Cajal Academy for their senior year, this includes our Senior Capstone Project giving the students agency over the learning process for a project within their own interest area, and our team’s support through the college admissions process.

Those students who are already able to access and employ their gifts may enroll directly at this programming level. For those students who have an area of learning, social-emotional, neurophysiological or chronic medical difficulties, we develop a highly-individualized Student Growth Catalyst employing our unique, comprehensive approach to reducing or even removing their challenges while increasing access to their gifts. These Catalysts are faded over time as the student’s abilities develop, until the student is ready to re-enroll in a subsequent year at the base tuition level.

Tuition: $47,500

Students who enter at or evolve to Stage 4 of the Catalyst process typically have strong neurocognitive foundations and frameworks, but may be experiencing difficulties within a relatively isolated sphere as a result of skill deficiencies in a “splinter skill” that’s at a higher level of the neurodevelopmental chain. Students may join at this stage, or evolve to this level based on earlier work in the program at a more foundational Catalyst level. At this stage, accommodations are being faded out as the data in the child’s profile shifts, with Agency and Growth Mindset Coaching focused on helping the student see, and own, their own development.

The add-on cost for a Catalyst at this stage ranges from $10-$27,500 per year, depending largely on the number of splinter skill deficiencies holding the child back, and the academic and social-emotional support required to help them master this final stage in the process.

Students who enter at or evolve to Stage 3 of the Catalyst process have established efficient foundational skills but may struggle with mid-level skills that form a basis for common academic and life experiences. This includes, by way of example only, motor coordination skills that can reduce the child’s access to their high analytical skills during tasks that include a motor demand; the body discrimination skills that allow us to efficiently engage in writing and reading tasks; and sensory-motor organization within the body that is essential for sensing and advocating for one’s own needs. Students may join at this stage, or evolve to this level based on earlier work in the program at the Foundations Catalyst level. At this stage, accommodations are utilized to maximize students’ access to curriculum through their high analytical skills while minimizing the demand for skills they find more challenging at this stage. Students may see a dramatic jump in skills at this level, but will require additional time in the program to make those skills more resilient through our Refinement and Activation Catalyst stage.

The add-on charge for a Catalyst at this level, including all assessments, monitoring, consultation and services by our licensed therapists, ranges from $30-50,000, depending largely on the number of splinter skill deficiencies holding the child back, and the academic and social-emotional support required to help them access their strengths while this work proceeds. This may include as much as $35,000 in direct therapeutic services, ongoing formal and observational assessments monitoring the child’s progress and dynamic adjustments maximizing therapeutic benefits in sync with the child’s progress to optimize their growth, all of which are integrated into the school day and are included in the cost of the child’s program. The student’s progress is reassessed at the end of the academic year to develop their program, and cost, for the following year’s Catalyst; often this cost reduces year on year, as the child prepares to transition to the Refinement and Activation Catalyst stage.

Our Foundations level programs are for students who are unable to enjoy their academic or social-emotional potential because of under-developed skills that lie at the earliest stages of the neurodevelopmental chain and that therefore impact multiple areas of school and daily living activities. For these students, our neuroplasticity work starts with integrating any retained primitive reflexes and developing core neurocognitive abilities that are essential for classroom activities, while offering both accommodations and social supports to help them begin to experience success in areas that they have previously found challenging—thus laying the groundwork for a growth mindset. Many bright and gifted students who have complex learning profiles impaired by challenges at these foundational levels develop maladaptive coping strategies in other settings, from task avoidance to low frustration tolerance. Students at this Catalyst Stage receive significant coaching to help them become more aware of these patterns and learn more functional approaches to self-monitor, self-manage and self-advocate for their needs.

Student Growth Catalysts at this stage incorporate significant sessions with our licensed physical and occupational therapists to fill steps that were missed in the child’s neurodevelopment: work that can have out-sized benefits for the child not only academically but social-emotionally, as these skills are essential to all learning. Correcting these neurocognitive inefficiencies often acts as an accelerant increasing the rate of change across other spheres. In many cases this will include significant social-emotional improvements, as they find that life is becoming more “doable” across multiple spheres—thus, a Foundations Catalyst should be seen as an investment in opening up a less encumbered future for your child, possibly with reduced support costs thereafter. The add-on cast for a Foundations Growth Catalyst is $47,500-$77,000 per year; for context, this often includes as much as $45,000 or more in direct therapeutic services, and some students will be ready to transition to a higher (and less expensive) Catalyst stage in as little as a single school year, depending on how many foundational level skills require this redevelopment work.

Many twice exceptional students who have complex learning profiles develop maladaptive coping mechanisms such as school refusal, and at times these can have significant impacts on their family systems as well, thus distorting the interactions between the home and school environment. Students who come to Cajal with a notable history of low-to-no school attendance require a different level of student and family support. Where these issues are complicated by complex chronic medical conditions, this support may also include collaborating with the student’s medical team to ensure a single, cohesive care plan is in place. Significant Agency & Growth Mindset Coaching are the cornerstone of our Access stage Growth Catalysts. In the past, we have been highly-successful in helping students overcome even well-established patterns of task avoidance, pathological demand avoidance or school refusal, often in a matter of months. That said, once a student has established a history of task avoidance, regression is common and thus this collaborative framework is maintained as the student progresses to less intensive Growth Catalyst stages.

Access Catalysts are priced on a case by case basis. These concerns should be discussed during the admissions process, and a custom program and Catalyst cost will be developed incorporating all therapeutic, parent education, academic differentiation and Coaching required to help students transition from this mode of school dis-engagement to one of full participation.