THE HISTORY OF THE COMMUNITY SCHOOL

The Community School is a special place. Separate elementary and high school programs provide bright students with learning disabilities and attention deficits a strong specialized academic program. The program is individually designed to meet all the content, remedial and developmental needs of the learning disabled student.

At The Community School, skilled and sensitive teachers using effective methods, encourage the learning disabled/ADD student to develop to his or her full potential.

Approximately ninety percent of Community High School graduates go on to college despite their disabilities.

Over the years, it has been Community School's mission to work with hundreds of children and young adults, helping them become independent learners.

We are steadfastly committed to the school's mission that each and every one of our students can excel and that all of them deserve the opportunity to reach their fullest potential.

Dr. Beatrice Lieben, a clinical child psychologist and true pioneer, founded The Community School, a non-profit, private educational facility in 1968 in Englewood, New Jersey. In her private practice, she specialized in the diagnosis and treatment of children with learning problems. Recognizing early on the lack of educational options for children who failed to learn despite good intelligence and motivation. Dr. Lieben launched Community School as an innovative and specialized program intended to serve bright students with learning disabilities and attention deficits.

The school was designed to demonstrate how a strong academic program can successfully meet the remedial and developmental needs of the learning disabled child and to demonstrate how bright learning disabled/ADD children placed in an appropriate setting and taught by skilled and sensitive teachers using effective methods can develop to their full potential.

Starting with two classrooms, a handful of students and two teachers, Community School over the past 35 years has grown into a model program with an elementary school and a high school in Teaneck, New Jersey.

The Community School educates approximately three hundred students, privately and publicly funded, from over seventy sending districts throughout five New Jersey counties, New York City, Rockland and Westchester Counties.

At both campuses, through small group instruction and innovative teaching, The Community School programs expose students to wide ranging information and activities available in the educational mainstream.

Community School (Kindergarten thru Eighth Grade) has evolved into a model of special education, serving children with high potential who present difficulties in attention, language, perceptual-motor development and learning disabilities. This intensely focused program is unmatched anywhere in the state.

Community High School (Ninth thru Twelfth) is a unique college preparatory school, providing a complete high school experience for bright adolescents with attention deficits and learning problems, preparing students for studies at the college level, with nearly ninety percent of the school's graduates continuing on to college, despite their disabilities.

The Community School is a private, non-profit educational facility approved by the New Jersey State Department of Education and by the New York State Department of Education and holds many accreditations and memberships.