You’ve been accepted! What does inclusion and acceptance mean for neurodiverse students — and how can they find it in Montgomery County private schools?
You researched the school, asked the questions, went through the application process, and the good news arrives: “Your child has been accepted!” But what does acceptance into a private school really mean? Being asked to sign a contract and to be part of a new school community is exciting and often a step into the unknown for families of neurodiverse kids. For some parents, the word “acceptance” is a sigh of relief: a belief that the community will embrace the child for all that he is, regardless of how he thinks and learns. But in reality, a parent’s interpretation of acceptance may not align with a school administration’s vision. And until schools and families can agree upon a definition, all parties will continue to struggle — including the ones most affected: the students.
As the population of neurodivergent learners continues to grow, schools are having to rethink how they teach and support this population. The understanding of learning, social and emotional and even physical differences is expanding, and yet it sometimes feels like school cultures and technology are struggling to keep up. That’s not to say there aren’t amazing strides in tools and accommodations to meet these neurodivergent students’ needs. But knowing about these options, embracing them and implementing them into the system remains challenging for many schools, including those in Montgomery County, Maryland.
Private vs. Public
In Montgomery County Public Schools (MCPS), more than 22,000 students receive special education services, representing about 13.9% of the total student population, as of the school’s most recently available annual report released in 2024. Private schools are not governed by the same special education laws as public schools. While private schools might offer a service plan or accommodations, they are not legally binding like a public school IEP.
Regardless, some parents with neurodiverse children seek out private schools for their more individualized educational approaches — to find educators who can respond quickly to student needs, collaborate closely with families and provide hands-on instruction tailored to their child’s learning style.
“Many schools promote caring teachers, relationship-based approaches and specialized programs designed for students with language-based learning disabilities or executive functioning challenges,” says Stacy Ganz Kahn, an educational advocate and consultant who works with families navigating special education, neurodiversity and school placement decisions throughout the DMV. In fact, parents are drawn to the promise that their child will be “not just a number” at the private school. But Kahn notes that there is often a gap between what schools believe they can do for a child — who they ultimately only know on paper — with what the child’s actual needs turn out to be in a classroom setting.
Brie Entel, of North Potomac, is the mother to a 10-year-old who has complex neuroendocrine condition and a formal diagnosis of autism spectrum disorder (ASD), ADHD, developmental coordination disorder and atypical anxiety. Her daughter was overwhelmed by the public school kindergarten experience in 2021, so Entel looked for alternatives. Great at masking and highly intelligent, her daughter came across as a delightful, bright child during private school interviews. She was told by several schools that they would adapt to the child and accommodate her anxieties.
“The school head had a clinical psychology background that we thought would be helpful in our experiences,” Entel told Washington Family. But in practice, she says, the school lacked staff to accommodate things like differentiated learning or extra social support at recess. Ultimately, Entel says she wishes that the school had just rejected her daughter and been upfront that they could not meet her needs, rather than offer false hope.
“Schools need to pay attention and stay true to what you’ve done well and adjust your enrollment and expectations accordingly,” says Cathey Patterson, the director of enrollment management at the McLean School in Potomac, a private school that serves kids with language-based learning challenges (often with ADHD and anxiety).
“Trying to take in students that the staff is not prepared for waters down the system and leaves teachers, staff and families frustrated,” she says.
However, it can be an issue for schools even with the best intentions to be equipped to serve students with a wide range of ability levels.
McLean School goes beyond typical support services for its neurodiverse students, offering a resource center, learning specialists and counselors. Supports are implemented at the classroom level, teachers are trained to help students with diverse needs and they integrate these skills into daily lesson plans.
But Patterson also acknowledges that neurodiversity covers a wide spectrum
of needs and learning styles. Therefore, private schools cannot be everything
to everyone.
Susan Werner, of Potomac, is the mother of a second grader with ADHD, dyslexia and physical delays. Werner found looking for a private school especially difficult given her child’s competing needs. And once he was enrolled in a school, she was disappointed with several of his teachers.
“Private school teachers are not required to have the same amount of training as public school teachers,” she says. “So, finding highly qualified wonderful teachers who are trained and experienced can be problematic.”
In some cases, private school educators can come in with a higher degree of education than public educators, depending on the hiring requirements of the individual schools. But the level of consistent professional development and accountability can vary between private schools, whereas it is mandatory and standardized for public schools. In Maryland, state certification is not required to teach in private schools.
The national teacher shortage has also made it difficult to find qualified teachers for Maryland schools, with special education being one of the fields with the highest vacancies — though special education vacancies in Maryland decreased by 21.4% in 2025-26 compared to the previous year, according to the Maryland State Department of Education.
Erica Palermo, of Derwood, whose teen is diagnosed as a twice-exceptional learner — academically gifted and with learning differences, including ADHD and autism spectrum disorder (ASD) — was also seeking support for competing needs. She noticed early on that her son loved learning, so her family sought out private schools that could foster that, while providing support for learning differences. Ultimately, research into private schools concluded that certain schools provided support in one area but not another. Very few schools could support the whole child.
“The school failed to provide the social-emotional support that so often
comes with 2E and learning differences profiles,” Palermo told Washington Family. “Our child was often ‘in trouble’ for symptoms of their disability. The school
dismissed our concerns and quickly negatively labeled our child. There was a lot of back and forth trying to educate the school about learning differences?” Ultimately, it became clear to Palermo that the school could not meet the needs of her child’s learning profile. The educators were not trained to teach children with learning differences or were not given the resources or the support to do so, she says. And what happened with her child and so many others was that the school ultimately asked the child to leave.
Suspensions and Expulsions
Looking at the 2023-2024 year, students in Maryland with IEPs accounted for about 12% of the student population. According to the Maryland Department of Education, special education students accounted for 1,372 out of 5,942 suspensions in the state in 2024 (in alignment with national trends), meaning neurodiverse students accounted for 23% of suspensions even though they only account for 12% of the population. They were about 1.85 times more likely to be suspended than a student not receiving special education.
“In both states where I conduct research (Maryland and California), students receiving special education services are persistently overrepresented in suspension/expulsion numbers,” says Rebecca Cruz, an assistant professor and researcher at the Johns Hopkins University School of Education. “This is consistent with national research and is compounded when a student is also racially minoritized.” Cruz says she believes that schools rely too often on suspension and expulsion, at the detriment of the student, and can have a long-term impact on that child’s future.
What Do Parents of Neurodiverse Students Want Schools To Know?
“The parents are trying their best,” Entel says. “We are stretched to the limits physically, emotionally and financially.” And when things don’t go as planned or a child steps out of what the school deems as normal behavior compliance, the parents feel blamed, and it often leads to a child’s suspension or expulsion, and trauma for the child and the family.
Also, parents of neurodiverse students are desperate for more school options.
“There aren’t enough private schools,” Entel says. “We need more options for neurodiverse students — microschools, hybrid, lower pressure, self-directive, creative, virtual, alternative, progressive, nature-based — whatever that looks like.”
What To Look for in a Private School
There are steps schools can be taking to prepare and nurture the growing neurodiverse population of learners. According to Stephanie Slater, the change starts with the school culture at the ground level.
“You need to talk about it openly and honestly among staff and the children themselves,” says Slater, a social worker and the founder of The Rooted Child who has 30+ years of experience supporting children and families.
And then, the acceptance of neurodiverse people should be continually discussed daily, she says. Most importantly, there needs to be buy-in from all staff members. Slater is often asked to come in and train early childhood educators about inclusion for children with special needs. But she says it’s not a one-off training. It’s ongoing conversations.
“You must have value-based conversations with your teachers,” Slater says. “If they feel like a kid doesn’t fit in, nothing I teach them is going to change.”
The Best Schools for Neurodiverse Learners in MoCo
Kahn says that the strongest schools for neurodiverse learners in MoCo tend to have small class sizes, highly specialized instruction and staff who deeply understand different learning profiles. These schools also tend to individualize instruction, teach students at their actual instructional levels and provide consistent support.
“They also tend to incorporate related services and wraparound supports such as speech language therapy, occupational therapy, counseling and executive functioning support into the educational program itself,” she adds. “Many of the best programs also prioritize creativity, movement, flexibility and relationship building, which can make a tremendous difference for neurodiverse students.”
Slater recommends that schools budget for ongoing professional development or risk falling back into the same comfort zone of how they were teaching in the past. Plus, she encourages private schools do a deep dive into what they really have to offer and who the students are that they can truly accommodate before advertising which types of learners they can accept.
“This way, they can be much more implicit about who they can serve,” Slater says. She also says that schools should be proud of the ongoing work they do to accommodate alternative ways of teaching and learning. This includes being transparent with families in their community about ongoing conversations and professional development happening behind the scenes.
“A school does not need to be able to serve every student, but families deserve a clear understanding of what supports are realistically available,” she says.
Kahn agrees that private schools in MoCo need to be changing to accommodate parents’ desires for customized education. Parents of all students — not just those who are neurodiverse — are looking for schools that can truly individualize instruction by staff who understand a wide range of learning profiles. Kahn says parents need to trust the educators, and this trust comes from transparency, flexibility and trained staff who understand the whole child.
“Over the next five years, I believe families will continue prioritizing schools that embrace neurodiversity, invest in specialized supports and create environments where students feel safe, understood and capable of succeeding,” Kahn says. “Families are also becoming much more informed consumers. They are asking harder questions about staffing, training, supports and how schools actually implement accommodations day to day.” Kahn applauds the schools that are supporting neurodiverse learners. And she notes that when the right match of a school and student environment meet, it can be transformative for neurodiverse learners.
“The school that are most successful are the ones that recognize neurodiversity as a part of human diversity and intentionally build systems that allow students to thrive academically, socially and emotionally.”
Jacqueline Renfrow lives in Rockville, has master’s degrees in education and journalism and works as an educator, advocate and writer in Montgomery County. She currently serves as adjunct faculty at the Johns Hopkins University School of Education and as a consultant for its Center for Technology in Education. She is also the mother of three neurodiverse teens, two of whom attend Montgomery County Public Schools and one who is still on the hunt for his perfect school placement.
