6 Best Schools for Students with Emotional Disorders

6 Best Schools for Students with Emotional Disorders

Emotional disorders, like depression or anxiety, can have a significant impact on how successful a student is in school, both socially and academically. Sometimes the emotional disorder is person-specific; other times, ongoing behavioral problems are exacerbated by something at school.

Emotional disorders can manifest in several ways. One student may shut down when called upon, refuse to look up from their book, or decline to engage with the teacher or their peers. Another student might act out (whether to get attention or because they are struggling) when they don’t know how to express their emotions directly or effectively.

For many of these students, finding the right school environment can help reduce their levels of anxiety and depression, allowing them to thrive academically and socially.

The best schools for students with emotional disorders focus on:

  • Investing a large amount of time (especially upfront) to learn about the student’s individual emotional needs and background.
  • Giving the student as much agency as possible in the classroom and over their schedule.
  • Ensuring the learning experience is personalized to the exact needs of the student.

In this article, we’ll provide some examples of schools that go the extra mile in catering to the needs of students with emotional and behavioral disorders (EBD). We’ll start with our own school, Fusion Academy, since our 1-to-1 classes have proven to be a helpful model for students who are struggling emotionally.

1. Fusion Academy: Supporting Students with Emotional Disorders Through Personalized Learning

Fusion Academy homepage: The School That Changes Everything

At Fusion Academy, every student is taught in a 1-to-1 learning environment, with one student and one teacher in every classroom. This enables us to personalize the learning experience by addressing potential triggers, based on the time spent early in the relationship to understand each student’s unique emotional needs.

Fusion Academy has more than 80 campuses across 18 states, including California, Texas, Florida, New York, and Pennsylvania. So, there’s a good chance you can find a campus near you.

Fusion Academy: Find a Campus Near You

For families with children who are looking to develop their education in the comfort and safety of their own home, we also offer a fully remote option called Fusion Global Academy.

Students can attend Fusion full-time or part-time, depending on what works best for them. Beyond our core school programs, we provide post-secondary counseling, remedial interventions for literacy and math, and private tutoring across 300 different courses.

Assessing What Each Student Needs to Succeed

When you first come to Fusion, the Head of School will meet with your family to get a full picture of your child’s individual emotional needs and their previous educational experience. We take these conversations seriously and go as deep as the situation allows to get the best understanding of how to support each student.

One of the first things we ask is where your child’s strengths and struggles lie. We will also ask if there’s been any sort of diagnosis that can impact their time at school. We ask to see their IEP, 504, or any other official documentation that has background information about your child’s behavioral challenges.

Keep in mind that a diagnosis is really just the tip of the iceberg. The more information we have, the better we can assess how we can help your child. So, we also ask questions like:

  • Which strengths does your child have that are lying hidden underneath their emotional dysregulation?
  • What are your child’s biggest triggers? When do they feel most dysregulated?
  • What mitigates their triggers? What makes them worse?
  • When your child gets upset or overwhelmed, how do they behave? What does shutting down look like to them?
  • Who is their support system in their current school environment? Do they have a favorite teacher or nurse?
  • Do they have a school psychologist or therapist? Do we have permission to speak to that person? Can we even share information bidirectionally on an ongoing basis, if it helps your child’s development?

During these conversations, we also assess if we think there is a good mutual fit. We want each student to have a safe environment at Fusion, where they can learn and socialize and be their best self. If a student’s needs at the moment are primarily therapeutic, then they may need a higher level of care before enrolling in Fusion. Once a student is feeling more safe and ready to learn, we can ease them into a learning environment. For example, a student can take classes virtually or part-time to start.

After the conversation, we’ll create a learning plan for your child that takes their particular emotional needs into account. Because this information is communicated to all of the child’s teachers, the instructor can be mindful to limit attention to things that can be triggering. The classrooms even have soft lighting and alternative seating to learn in comfort if they are having a tough day.

Giving Students Agency in Their Education

In a typical American class of 24 students, there’s no room for students’ individual choices. It’s simply not practical for teachers to give each and every student agency over what, how, or when they study. This poses a challenge for all students, but particularly those with emotional disorders, who may already feel unseen, or like so much is out of their control.

At Fusion, our goal is to teach each student how and when they learn best. We’re able to do this because of our 1-to-1 educational model, which enables each teacher to focus on one student at a time. We particularly find that our older, high-school-age students appreciate the respect that comes from being given choice in what and how they learn.

Student and teacher studying

Specific examples of how we give each student agency include:

  • We encourage students to speak up during class if they have a question or something to add, while giving them the space to stay quiet if they need another moment to respond.
  • We work with families to decide when to start and end their student’s school day.
  • We make sure that students have just the right amount of classes and coursework, so that they’re neither bored nor overwhelmed with too many obligations.
  • We encourage students to advocate for their physical needs. If a student needs to go for a walk, take a stretch, or get a glass of water, that’s fine.
  • We assign each student a lead teacher to be an advocate for their needs, and we schedule regular conversations between students and their respective lead teacher.

While we strive to be flexible and accommodating, we desire to help students commit to a schedule. We work to reinforce a student’s executive functioning, including time management, organization, and seeing assignments through to completion.

Fusion Academy is fully accredited, so there are requirements to meet toward graduation; however, we are able to create a timeline that meets those goals while still prioritizing each students’ needs.

Learning That’s Personalized to Each Student’s Emotional Needs

Imagine that a 9th grader is struggling with anxiety in a regular school environment. Large class sizes limit what a school can do to help, but many schools make accommodations by giving extra time during tests. Sounds reasonable enough — but what if the student is a perfectionistic type who will use the extra time to agonize over the perfect choice of words? And what if it’s the pacing of the class itself that’s the source of the anxiety? The school could provide all the support it wanted outside the classroom, without ever addressing the source of the problem!

At Fusion, we go to great lengths to treat students as individuals and make whatever accommodations they require emotionally in order to thrive academically. Unlike in the above example, we’re not limited by large class sizes, so our teachers are 100% focused on personalizing the learning experience for each individual student. For example:

  • If a student gets headaches from the harsh, fluorescent lighting that’s common in most traditional classrooms, Fusion uses softer lighting and natural light to easily remove the trigger.
  • For students with sensory processing disorder, the teacher can build sensory breaks into the lesson to support their individual preferences.
  • If students find the experience of reading emotionally taxing, the teacher can focus the lesson more on audio-visual files — still exposing the student to reading at a speed that doesn’t overwhelm them while building their stamina and capacity to read over time.
  • Students with anxiety sometimes find comfort in doing something with their hands while learning. If this is the case for your child, they can draw while listening, engage with fidget toys, etc all while ensuring that they are still understanding and mastering the material.
  • Students with ADHD sometimes find it difficult to sit down for an entire lesson, and can easily refocus with a movement break. While each class is 50 minutes, it’s not a requirement to sit in a lecture the whole time; we want to ensure that our students are actively engaged in learning no matter what it looks like for them.

Outside the classroom environment, we can also personalize each student’s schedule to suit their preferences.

For example, if a student finds a traditional schedule too long and taxing, we can adjust the schedule to less hours per day or less days per week to ensure that all needs (both academic requirements and social-emotional needs) are met.

Alternatively, if a student is triggered by math, but loves theater, we could schedule math classes next to theater electives, so as to make the experience of math less emotionally overwhelming.

These practices align with our learning philosophy: “Love, Motivate, Teach.” Very often, we find that we need to show students love first, in order to create the right environment for learning to follow.

A Campus of Social-Emotional Learning

For students with sensory processing issues, the social aspect of school can become completely overwhelming with too many people, confusing social norms, and loud hallways. This leads the more neurodiverse students to feel like social outcasts: misunderstood and isolated from their peers.

Students with emotional difficulties often feel more accepted at Fusion than they do at other schools. Because every human is uniquely different with their own responses to stress and pressure, everyone has their own story. The whole school feels like one big alternative family, in which everyone is welcome. Each lesson begins with a check-in (rather than taking attendance) to see how students are doing and how they’re feeling about class today.

Where students often fall through the cracks socially in regular schools, Fusion’s teachers go out of their way to help them connect with like-minded peers. For example, if a teacher notices that two of their students enjoy the same type of music, they will look for opportunities to introduce them to each other and connect them through their shared interest.

Outside the classroom, the social part of campus life takes place in two Homework Cafés. The first one is a quiet space for doing homework, while the second one is a social space for collaboration, playing games, and hanging out with like-minded peers. Students frequently organize clubs and activities in the social Homework Café, including yoga, photography, DnD, and movie nights.

Students Studying at the Homework Café

For students with emotional disorders, the two Homework Cafés are particularly valuable. If a student is feeling in need of some quiet time alone, they know that they have a safe, calm space in the Quiet Café. On the other hand, if an extroverted student needs to re-regulate by blowing off some steam with some friends, they can go to the social Homework Café. Either way, there’s always a member of staff on hand to ensure that they stay safe and are taken care of.

Beyond the Homework Cafés, Fusion also organizes field trips and community activities. There’s something here for everyone, with excursions including hiking, museum visits, laser tag, community service, volunteering at animal shelters, and more.

2. Robert Louis Stevenson School

Robert Louis Stevenson School homepage: Manhattan's Therapeutic College Prep Independent School

The Robert Louis Stevenson School (RLSS) is a therapeutic college prep school on the Upper West Side of New York City that serves 80 students in grades 8-12. The school has designed its curriculum specifically to maximize the well-being of students who are dealing with anxiety, depression, autism, and other behavioral disorders. For example, the school day starts at 9am, not earlier, and is paced so that students never have more than two classes consecutively without a 15-minute break. RLSS has also gone to great lengths to build principles of Dialectical Behavioral Therapy directly into the classroom environment.

Students attending RLSS receive a huge amount of support from highly qualified staff members. There are five full-time psychologists, one psychology doctoral intern, multiple learning specialists, and a college counselor. This doesn’t even include the faculty — and with a student-to-staff ratio of 4:1, there are plenty of teachers for students to lean on as well. In fact, teachers double as advisors to the students, and students are able to meet with their advisors three times a day as part of an individualized education program.

3. Shepherd’s Hill Academy

Shepherd's Hill Academy homepage: Premier Christian Boarding School for Teens in Crisis

Located about two hours from Atlanta, Georgia, Shepherd’s Hill’s behavioral interventions combine a Christian boarding school with a therapeutic wilderness program that includes therapy with horses. The academy serves adolescents aged 12–17.

When students arrive at Shepherd’s Hill, they are segregated by gender and enrolled in the wilderness program. Removing electronics can be challenging at first, but often ends up creating space to contemplate the more meaningful parts of life. Students need to collaborate in order to meet basic daily needs, and this is a great opportunity to build their emotional skills and improve their mental health.

Once students have shown sufficiently positive behavior towards themselves and others, they are transferred to a residential program on the Shepherd’s Hill campus. This involves a large amount of counseling, behavioral therapy, and working with an accountability group, but it’s also a space to catch up on grade-level classes and even prepare for SATs.

4. Hampshire Country School

Hampshire Country School homepage: Place of Possibilities

Hampshire Country School (HCS) is a boarding school in Rindge, New Hampshire for boys aged 8–17, and is particularly suited to students in middle school. The school is known for pioneering the concept of “milieu therapy.” This is when a change in environment is used to create a calming, therapeutic effect on students who have experienced a lot of anxiety, anger or trauma.

HCS achieves these therapeutic benefits for its students thanks to its natural school setting. The school is set in a peaceful forest, surrounded by nature, and so offers numerous opportunities for the boys to destress through camping, hiking, exploring the forest, and even working on the local farm. There’s also a wide range of on-campus nursing services to support the students further with whatever learning disabilities they have. Most boys attend HCS for 3–5 years before transitioning to other educational options.

5. Lawrence Hall Therapeutic Day School

Lawrence Hall Therapeutic Day School homepage: Foster autonomy, experiential learning, and skill mastery.

The Lawrence Hall Therapeutic Day School serves young people from elementary school up to age 21 in the Chicago area. The school delivers individualized instruction to students who suffer from a range of emotional disabilities as a result of adverse childhood experiences (ACEs). Lawrence Hall students have had an average of 5–7 ACEs, and often struggle with the long-term effects of serious trauma.

The school’s curriculum is customized to each student on the basis of their IEP, but typically focuses on promoting mastery of academic, vocational and social skills. The academic curriculum is complemented by an extensive visual arts and therapeutic recreation program, which has proven to be especially good at helping students with anxiety to relax and recondition their nervous systems.

Beyond their school, Lawrence Hall also offers numerous other support services to students with emotional disorders, including a Child and Family Treatment Center, various creative therapies, and help with transitioning to living independently. Lawrence Hall also has various partnerships with local public schools, whose students they work to support.

6. The Gifford School

The Gifford School homepage: A Massachusetts approved therapeutic day school educating students with complex social, emotional, and learning challenges.

The Gifford School is a coeducational, therapeutic day school in Weston, Massachusetts for students in grades 4–12. The majority of Gifford students struggle with various emotional impairments during the school day. Gifford addresses this with a milieu approach, so that students can receive guidance from staff regarding self-awareness and self-regulation in the moments that they need it most — whether that’s in the classroom or on the soccer field.

Gifford’s special education is also strengths-based, meaning that the school believes in fostering each student’s unique gifts, and involves parents actively in decision-making.

The Gifford School has also been recognized for the therapeutic value of its Enrichment Programs. These provide a safe, interactive environment for further learning outside the classroom. Popular activities include exploring a tide pool, getting to know birds of prey, Chinese acrobatics, and even using improvised comedy to discuss bullying.

Finding a School Where Emotional Needs Are Respected

Choosing the right school for a child with an emotional disorder isn’t easy. We hope that there’s a school in this article that resonates with you and is close enough to where you live to be viable.

If you’re based in one of the 18 states where there’s a Fusion campus, come visit us! We love to see students excel when all their emotional needs are respected from day one.

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