About Us
History
Part 1. Beginnings (2009 to 2019)
Children’s Academy was founded in 2009 as an independent 501(c)(3) school, established within a developmental pediatrics practice on East 82nd Street. The school began with two students and a single conviction at its center, one that has remained constant ever since. Children with speech and language differences thrive when therapy and academics are integrated rather than separated. From its earliest days, Children’s Academy placed licensed Speech-Language Pathologists inside the classroom rather than down the hall, a model that would come to define the school’s identity.
Over the following years, the school grew steadily, expanding from its founding cohort into an established kindergarten through eighth-grade program on East 82nd Street.
Part 2. A Flagship Home, a Pandemic, and a K through 12 Vision (2019 to 2023)
By 2019, with growing demand and a board vision to serve students well beyond the eighth grade, Children’s Academy established itself in its own flagship campus at 317 East 50th Street in midtown Manhattan, in partnership with Saint Albans, whose congregation had previously occupied the building. The space was thoughtfully retrofitted to serve as a school, including a purpose-built sensory gym made possible with the support of the board. With the new home came a new academic chapter. Children’s Academy expanded beyond the eighth grade and, for the first time in its history, served students from kindergarten through twelfth grade.
That new chapter arrived faster than anyone could have planned for. Within months of settling into the new building, the COVID-19 pandemic forced schools across New York City to close. Children’s Academy pivoted to remote learning, navigating the uniquely difficult challenge of delivering integrated speech-language and occupational therapy to children for whom in-person, multimodal instruction is essential. Through that period, our teachers, clinicians, and families worked together to keep students engaged, supported, and learning. The school emerged with its model intact and its community closer than before.
In 2022, Children’s Academy graduated its first class of high school seniors, a milestone that affirmed the school’s kindergarten through twelfth-grade vision. The school stabilized post-pandemic and began preparing for the next chapter of its growth.
Part 3. A Flagship for the Upper School (2024)
In 2024, on the school’s fifteenth anniversary, Children’s Academy opened a second campus at 109 East 50th Street, occupying the fourth and fifth floors of a building owned by Saint Bartholomew’s Church. The new space gave the Upper School a flagship of its own and allowed each division to grow into the right physical environment for its students. The expansion nearly doubled the school’s footprint. It was the culmination of strategic planning that had named additional space as a priority for the school’s continued growth.
Today, Children’s Academy serves students from kindergarten through twelfth grade across two campuses on East 50th Street. The Lower School is at 317. The Middle and Upper School is at 109. Both campuses are built on the same foundation that has guided the school since 2009. Speech and language are at the center of every classroom, and every student is met where they are.
