Porter Academy, Inc

Porter Academy is a non-profit 501c3 private school for children PreK through eighth grade with learning or developmental differences.

We envision a world where every child is understood, valued for who they are, and empowered to take responsibility for their choices, solve their own problems, and grow into kind, capable citizens who thrive wherever their path leads.

Working with each family, Porter Academy strives to create an accepting community that meets each child where they are academically, developmentally, socially, and emotionally and challenges each child as much as is appropriate for that child at that time. Our goal is to remediate weaknesses and foster strengths, enabling children to leave here with a strong foundation and confidence in their own abilities.

At Porter Academy, we take an individualized, whole-child approach. We understand that no two children fit the same mold when it comes to what they need to succeed. Teachers, therapists, and administrators work together to build a comprehensive understanding of each child — academically, socially, emotionally, and developmentally — and use that understanding to determine the most effective path forward.

We help children experience success in two ways: through modifications, which allow for immediate success, and through remediation, which addresses underlying difficulties for lasting success. Both build self-esteem and internal motivation to learn — and together, they’re the foundation of everything else we do.Our program is structured in the ways children need predictability: consistent daily schedules, clear teacher expectations, and consistent consequences. In other ways, it’s highly flexible — designed to accommodate different learning styles and to meet the physical, academic, social, and emotional needs of each student.

Students are grouped by developmental level, not age. Within each class, students are further grouped into smaller academic groups specific to each subject, so every student gets a “just right” level of challenge in every subject. These academic groups overlap across classrooms, allowing us to place each child in a setting that fits them academically, socially, and emotionally — not just where their age would otherwise place them.

Before a child can attend to a teacher, follow a lesson, or engage with peers, they need to feel physically settled and emotionally regulated. At Porter Academy, this isn’t an afterthought — it’s built into the structure of every school day. Two research-based frameworks, Zones of Regulation and Social Thinking, give our entire school a shared language for this work, and our specials and therapies — Social Skills, Art, Music, PE, and Occupational Therapy — actively build the skills these frameworks teach. Together, they prepare children, physically and emotionally, to be able to attend to instruction — which is what makes academic progress possible in the first place.

Many students arrive at Porter Academy carrying a painful label they’ve given themselves — the “bad kid,” the “stupid kid” — built up from years of struggling in settings that didn’t fit how they learn. Rebuilding that self-esteem is one of our most important jobs, and it happens in two ways: by giving students many different kinds of experiences — PE, Art, Music, Occupational Therapy, and a full range of academics — so they can discover areas where they genuinely excel, and by giving them the right supports and consistent, positive encouragement so they can find real success at tasks they’d previously struggled with or believed they couldn’t do.

A student doesn’t have to be strong in every subject to feel proud of who they are. A child who struggles with reading might discover real talent in art, or find they’re a natural leader during a PE game, or feel most like themselves in a music session. Those moments of success build confidence that carries over into the areas that are harder — and over time, students stop defining themselves by what’s difficult and start recognizing what they’re genuinely good at.

At the same time, with the right supports in place, students often find real success at tasks they’d previously failed at — sometimes tasks they’d come to believe they simply couldn’t do. That shift is powerful. It’s not just about finding a new area of strength; it’s about proving to themselves that the things they struggled with before aren’t permanently out of reach — they just needed the right support to get there.

“What I love about Porter Academy is that there are high academic expectations along with a loving and supportive environment.” - Porter Academy Parent