Empowerment at Polaris Academy | Arizona's Premier Autism Academy

Managing a child with autism or other neurodivergent conditions can be a challenge, so when it came time to put our son into school we knew there would be hurdles. Our local elementary school was highly rated and we quickly fell in love with the teachers, administration, and convenient location.

The public school provided every resource they could for our son and sincerely wanted to help him succeed. But the challenge was that this school, and its curriculum, was designed for typical kids. No matter how hard our son worked or how much help he received, his measurement and perception of success was overshadowed by the progression of peers around him. He was having success at a rate that was great for him, but in contrast to his classmates it seemed as if he was failing.

Next, we tried home-schooling which was amazing, frustrating, rewarding, and exhausting all at the same time. Autistic children really do require a village of specialists, therapists, and educators, and I did my best to provide him tutors and therapists to meet his needs. But managing the schedules across so many disciplines became complicated and extremely expensive. Recreating the support system provided in school was just not feasible, and although I love working with my son, trying to wear all of those different hats on my own did not work out to his favor or mine. Combine that with missed opportunities for socialization and we knew we needed to find a more specialized school for our son.

We tried a number of private schools that we thought might be a good match. We were excited our son was having good peer interactions with children more like him, but other issues arose. Some were reluctant or unable to change or adopt different teaching methods to better suit his needs, others did not have added resources for speech, ABA, or other therapies. And some that appeared to have everything we needed unfortunately had no more room for our son. So we were left with the decision to either continue home-schooling while we waited for an opening in a preferred school, place him in a school that was still not meeting his needs…. or start our own school.

That’s when Polaris Academy was born. Schooling for autistic children shouldn’t be a challenge, it should be an opportunity. So our task was to create a school where neurodivergent children could relate, socialize, and thrive in an environment physically designed for focused learning, academically designed to be flexible and promote out-of-the box thinking, and filled with professionals driven by a passion for our students instead of mandated goals and standards. Our vision was fortunately shared by our founding group and with their collective efforts our dream has now become a reality. We are so excited to share what we have learned, developed and created with you and your children and hope you will let us be a part of your amazing journey.