Blog Posts
Rooted in Reflection, Guided by Growth

A progress update from Fáilte Academy, and a few ways you can help us cross the finish line. Some kids have never had a school where they truly belong. For the past few years, I've been building that kind of place, one neurodivergent learner at a time, inside my own home. A small, mixed-age cohort. A low-demand, relationship-first approach. A space built around children's nervous systems instead of asking their nervous systems to bend around the room. And then we outgrew it.

For the past few years, Fáilte has been held together by something you can’t see on a floor plan: the deep trust between kids, families, and the adults who care about them. Our little school has grown from a tiny experiment, to a microschool, into a nonprofit community for neurodivergent learners who don’t quite fit traditional classrooms—and in our last space, we were officially maxed out. Today, I finally get to share the news I’ve been hinting at for months: St. Luke Unit

If you've been searching for an alternative school for your neurodivergent child in the Philadelphia area — and coming up empty — this post is for you. Or maybe you've been watching Fáilte from a distance, wondering whether it's real, whether it will last — today I have something to tell you. You've probably tried the obvious options. The IEP meetings that went nowhere. The private schools that seemed promising until they weren't. The therapists who suggested a "more support

If you are reading this, you probably didn’t set out looking for something unconventional for your child's education. You trusted your child’s school. You believed in the teachers, the administration, the curriculum, the structure. You assumed that if your child struggled, the system would respond. That’s what it’s designed to do. And when it didn’t — when meetings became tense, when support plans didn’t support, when your child began shrinking or exploding or refusing — you

At Fáilte Microschool , everything begins with relationships. Before academics, before behavior plans, before expectations — we start with connection. When a child walks through our doors, our first goal isn’t to teach them math or reading. It’s to help them feel safe. Because only when a child’s nervous system is calm and they feel truly seen can real learning begin. That’s not philosophy — it’s neuroscience. This is the foundation of Dr. Stanley Greenspan’s Floortime model

For some families, the hardest part of finding the right school isn’t choosing between programs — it’s recovering from the last one. Many of the children who do well at Fáilte come to us after a painful experience somewhere else. They’ve been misunderstood, excluded, or even bullied. Their parents are searching for a safe school environment for children where their child can finally be cared for and thrive. How Bullying and School Mismatch Show Up After a negative school exp

Why Twice-Exceptional (2E) Children Often Have Nowhere to Go—and What Makes Fáilte Different Parents often come to Fáilte with the same question: “Do you think my child would be successful here?” Families on the Main Line and surrounding areas often reach out to Fáilte after realizing there are very few schools that can support both their child’s giftedness and their learning differences. By the time they get to us, we're often their third, fourth, or fifth attempt at findin

When School Feels Overwhelming: A Child’s Point of View You step into a room full of new people. You 're nervous, feeling all kinds of feelings in your body: tingly hands, heart pounding in your ears, butterflies in your stomach. All around you kids YOUR age are talking, running, everyone seems excited to be in this place that for you just seems too loud, too busy, too scary to even think straight. You try to come up with ways to cope. You take a lot of trips to the bathroom.

The Hard Truth: Children Can’t Learn When They’re Dysregulated If your child is refusing to go to school, melting down on the way home, having anxiety at night about tomorrow, or being removed from class for “behavior,” here’s the truth: they’re not learning. When a child is in fight, flight, or freeze mode , their body and brain are working overtime just to survive the day. Learning isn’t possible in that state — no matter how engaging the lesson, how kind the teacher, or ho

When parents first hear about microschools, they often ask me the same questions: 💭 Can a microschool really replace our current public...

When people hear “individualized learning,” they often picture kids moving at their own pace on worksheets or computer programs. At...

When my son started kindergarten, he was full of excitement and curiosity. Every new letter, story, and project was an adventure. But...

I recently saw a post from a public school teacher who gave her second-grade class a “Yes Day.” The idea was simple: the kids could come up with anything they wanted to do—as long as it was safe and they could clean up afterward—and the teacher would say yes. She shared the list her students created and talked about how amazing the day was. The kids loved it. Here’s what they asked for: But here’s what struck me: their “dreams” weren’t wild at all. They asked for things like

I remember being on maternity leave with my son and feeling completely isolated. It was the opposite of what I had imagined—so far from how motherhood is portrayed in movies or the media. Back then, Instagram wasn’t quite the world it is today (or maybe I just wasn’t in it yet). But I often wonder: if I were having a baby now, would it feel even worse? I picture myself at home—covered in spit-up, laundry everywhere, too tired to move—scrolling through photo after photo of ser

At Fáilte we’re not trying to teach kids to behave perfectly. We’re trying to teach kids to know themselves deeply. Kids who can navigate...

We’re honored to share that Fáilte Waldorf Microschool has been named a Family Favorite by Main Line Parent Magazine. This recognition is...

A Conversation Worth Having I don’t typically wade into political discussions because I want this school to be a welcoming place for all...

I watched the boys at our microschool on the swings, and wow—do they love those swings. They spend nearly an hour a day out there, just...

And How Does It Work in PA? If you’ve been researching education options for your child, you’ve probably come across the term...

Let’s Talk Waldorf When I first started homeschooling my son a few years ago, I was searching for a curriculum that truly understood a...