Built for kids
on the spectrum.
An online school designed around how autistic kids actually learn - small cohorts with familiar faces, predictable rhythm, calm environment, deep-interest-driven curriculum, and a mentor who stays with your child across years. ESA and state funding can cover up to full tuition for qualifying families.
What traditional school keeps getting wrong.
Autism isn't a learning problem. It's a fit problem. The traditional school day is, structurally, the worst-case environment for many autistic kids.
Hallways, fluorescent lights, fire drills, group projects, lunchrooms. By 2pm your child has spent the day surviving the building, not learning.
Schedule changes, surprise assemblies, substitute teachers. The unpredictability that flattens an autistic kid is invisible to a typical school.
A deep, persistent interest is the most powerful learning fuel an autistic child has. Most schools treat it as off-task behavior.
The research, in your child's corner.
The shape of school that consistently helps: small classes with tutoring-style support, adaptive pacing, mastery before progression, and projects that channel a child's interests into real work.
In Bloom's original study, students taught 1:1 or in small groups with mastery learning outperformed conventional peers by two standard deviations. Modern meta-analyses still find tutoring among the most reliably effective interventions in education (avg ES 0.37 across 96 RCTs).
A 2024 meta-analysis of K-12 adaptive learning systems found a pooled effect of d = 0.755 - substantial gains across student populations whose attention, processing speed, or pacing needs don't match the average classroom.
Mastery learning requires students to demonstrate proficiency before moving on. Traditional pacing leaves gaps that compound; mastery loops back until the concept is solid, which is especially important for students whose attention or processing speed varies day-to-day.
A 2023 meta-analysis of 66 studies found project-based learning produced an effect size of 0.71 on academic achievement - a medium-to-large gain - alongside improvements in collaboration, problem solving, and critical thinking.
A school built around how your child learns.
Every component is here for a reason - and the reason traces back to the research above.
The same few kids, the same teacher, the same rhythm each week. Calm, low sensory load, paced to your child - and 1:1 support when a subject or a day needs it.
Same mentors, same time slots, week to week. We tell your child in advance when anything will change.
Trains, code, marine biology, dinosaurs, history of opera - we build the academic spine through your child's deep interest, not around it.
Stays with your child across years. Learns their patterns, their tells, what works and what doesn't. The opposite of a new teacher every August.
A real person on our team,
within one business day.
Tell us a little about your child. We'll confirm your state-funding award, walk through what's covered, and figure out together if Recess is the right fit.