Private School Spotlight: Academics West

I recently visited Academics West in Manhattan for a tour and meeting with our friends there. AW is a small, therapeutic K-12 school that particularly focuses on kids who have failed to make progress in other, less supportive settings. A sizable plurality of the kids are behavioral, and the staff does an incredible job attending to their needs. In fact, while I was there, there was a behavioral incident in the hallway that evaporated under the gentle guidance of the faculty. This incident clearly had the potential to become something out of control, but in the event it was over almost before it had even begun.

In talking to Jeffrey Kassinove and Liz Sinclair, we learned that this school really prefers testifying by affidavit because it reduces much of the guesswork, hassle, and pressure on their calendars that is associated with making staff available for lengthy testimony. Although it's certainly my preference to have witnesses testify live, we're going to accommodate them in that.

We also talked about challenging parents — with love. All of us believe that there’s no such thing as a bad kid; so when you have a kid who's behavioral, it's not unusual for them to have picked up some of that from a third-party source. We talked about some instances where professionals have had clients who never learned to grease the wheels of life with kindness, and what was learned from living those experiences with them.

We pride ourselves on meeting people where they are, financially as well as personally. It’s evident that the team at Academics West does the same thing.

Academics West recently took one of our clients who was counseled out of his previous placement on short notice. We're very grateful to them for their hospitality and generosity of spirit in leaping into the fray to make sure that this kid continued to receive an appropriate education, considering the DOE completely abrogated its responsibility to him.?

Academics West boasts a fascinating group of people on their staff, with a great sense of humor. It was just a really nice experience to see that these kids who just aren't cut for a typical school can still get targeted academic intervention along with the socio-emotional support and structure that they need to maintain engagement, consistently, over the course of their academic career.?

We really hope to work with them and hope to see them expand in the years to come.