Affording a Cajal Academy Education — Cajal Academy

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Empowering kids to optimize their own learning, social & emotional outcomes

Programming Levels and Tuition

 

Core Program Level

Tuition: $47,500

Students who do not have learning, social, emotional or neurophysio differences that interfere with their access to academic or social activities, and therefore not requiring a customized program or services beyond those that are integrated into the environment for all students will be offered the opportunity to enroll at our Core Program Level. This level offers all the benefits of our project based learning curriculum, small class sizes, close teacher relationships and Body-Informed Learning.

For all those students who do have areas of academic, social-emotional or physio needs (whether or not they may have an IEP), our team will create a custom program tailored to address the specific challenges identified during the admissions process. Because of the success of our program, many students have initially enrolled at Cajal with fairly substantial programs (and accordingly high tuition levels) but have seen their child’s needs dramatically reduce over the course of as a school year, resulting in declining tuition rates for each successive year. That is the purpose of our program!

We created our Core Program Level to offer our families an alternative, priced equivalent to mainstream private schools in our community, that would allow intellectually gifted kids the opportunity to access our standards-based project based learning, small class sizes, close teacher relationships, Body-Informed Learning and coaching to prepare our college-bound students to manage their physio and social-emotional needs in an independent environment. Students who initially enroll at Cajal at higher tuition levels will “migrate towards” this programming level as their needs are addressed.

 

Custom Program Levels

Graphic showing decrease in tuition in concert with students' decreasing needs and school's increasing capacity to serve more kids

Cajal Academy’s tuition model allows us to support more families, with a wider diversity of profiles and needs, by aligning the tuition levels to the child’s programming demands, and declining over time as learning and social-emotional needs are addressed.

For students who do have learning, social, emotional or neurophysio differences interfering with their access to academic or social activities, which our team believes would require customization beyond what is integrated in our Core Program Level, we will create a custom program based on one of our four custom program levels (Learning Interventions, Complex Educational Profiles, Journeys and Medically Complex Profiles). The clinical understandings & supports are integrated into all aspects of the program, curriculum design, scheduling approaches  & the classroom, and the type & quantity of services shifts over time as the child’s profile evolves: decisions and adjustments that are made seamlessly by our team.

Tuitions are set accordingly, and reflect the level of complexity of the student’s profile, proportion of our clinicians’ time, the extent to which 1:1 instruction may be required (either due to the uniqueness of the learning profile or due to social-emotional challenges) and other factors impacting our capacity to accept additional children into the program at this time that we are scaling our student body. This is fundamentally different from the way public schools (and many private schools) deliver and contract their services; it is not possible for Cajal to provide a breakdown of our tuition levels on an hourly basis. This assessment starts through our admissions process; should there be a significant discrepancy between your child’s presentation at school and the materials provided to us during the admissions process, a tuition adjustment may be required.

Please use the links below to learn more about our four custom program levels, or scroll down to read sample programs for common profiles within the community that we serve. We have provided tuition ranges to give a sense of the scale and criteria of our tuition levels, however as noted above each student’s program is customized within those programming tiers, based on the complexity and intensity of the programming needs.

Flexible tuition arrangements & affording a Cajal Academy education

Special education programs are costly, but there are a number of ways that families can get assistance, depending on their child’s needs and circumstances, including tax deductions, school district funding and flexible tuition payment schedules.

Tuition and Financing Frequently Asked Questions

 

Affording a Cajal Academy education

As parents ourselves, we recognize that the cost of a Cajal Academy tuition may be prohibitive for many families; unfortunately, it is inherently expensive to provide highly-specialized special education programs with licensed therapeutic providers.

By the same token, the fact that we are a special education school with licensed therapists on staff opens up a number of financing options that may help to defray the cost of a Cajal Academy tuition for many families. Here are some of the ways that other families have approached this challenges; we cannot advise on these matters but recommend that you contact a special education attorney or tax advisor to explore your options.

 

Integrated therapies

For some families, the fact that expert-level occupational, physical and psychological services are integrated into our program through on-site services significantly reduces the effective cost of our program, by eliminating the need for additional community-based services (and leaving kids free to “be kids” after school!).


School district outplacements

Many families are successful at securing reimbursement for their Cajal Academy tuition and/or transportation from their public school districts.

Whether public funding is available will depend on the facts of your child’s needs and your district’s ability to meet them—but families successfully secure funding for their children’s outplacement tuitions every day. We are unable to advise on these matters and urge you to consult with a special education attorney about your particular circumstances.

 

Tax deductions for special education school tuitions

Additionally, depending on your child’s diagnosis, tax benefits may be available to help defray the costs of your child’s program. For some families, this may include a deduction for tuition as a medical expense. Please consult a qualified tax advisor to find out more about whether this is an option in your child’s case.

 

Flexible Tuition Arrangements

We are a tuition-funded, non-profit school—and we were co-founded by a special education mom who knows just how daunting outplacement tuitions can be on a family budget. For families who do not have access to outside funding sources, we have a number of flexible payment options. These include:

  • Payment in one annual installment

  • Payment and enrollment on a semester-by-semester basis

  • Payment in 10 installments

Families paying in any way other than a single annual installment will be charged a non-refundable, 3.19% insurance fee.

In addition, it may be possible for some portion the therapeutic services delivered as part of our custom programming levels to be separately billed so that they may be submitted to your health insurance provider. Whether or to what extent this is an option will depend on your child’s diagnoses and programming needs. This option is not available for therapeutic services that are embedded within classroom instruction through our therapist co-taught classes and other approaches. These options should be discussed with us in the admissions process if this is of interest to you.