Acacia is an accredited private therapeutic day school approved by the Illinois State Board of Education for out-of-district placement, which means some families enroll privately and others arrive through a district IEP. Instruction is individualized, with certified Wilson Reading specialists on staff and a student-teacher ratio the school reports at roughly three to one.

The La Grange Highlands campus houses grades 1 through 12. The Burr Ridge campus houses the transition program for ages 18 to 22, which focuses on academic, vocational, and independent living skills. Students come from districts across northern Illinois.

Cove serves students with complex learning disabilities across the full K through 12 span, which makes it one of the few Chicago-area options a family can stay with from the early grades through graduation. Roughly 150 students attend from more than 50 school districts across the region.

Because students arrive through district placement, the referral conversation typically begins with a family's home district rather than with the school directly.

Everstone Academy, known as Redwood Schools until its 2026 renaming, offers three distinct models rather than a single program. The Everstone Day School is a full-day K through 8 program on North Sheridan Road. A therapeutic day school run with Black Bear Academy adds embedded occupational therapy, speech-language services, social work, and a classroom psychologist for students who need clinical support alongside academics. A third option pairs a half day of Everstone instruction with a half day of Montessori academics and enrichment at Alcuin Montessori in Oak Park.

Instruction is built on named programs, including the Wilson Reading System, Woodin Math, and SRSD for writing, with daily blocks for assistive technology and social-emotional learning. Classes typically run one teacher to three to five students. As with the other K through 8 programs on this list, the stated goal is transition to a less restrictive setting, so families are generally planning a next school as well. Everstone is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit and families apply directly.

Hyde Park Day School is built around transition rather than long enrollment. Students of average to superior intelligence with moderate to severe learning disabilities attend for an average of about two and a half to three years, then return to a public, private, or parochial school in their home community. The school reports a five-to-one student-teacher ratio and is a Wilson Accredited Partner.

Because the program ends at eighth grade, families using it are generally also planning a high school search. It is a member of ISACS and the Lake Michigan Association of Independent Schools, and it operates the Bright Futures Scholarship Fund for families who need tuition assistance.

NewHope, part of the SESI Schools network, works with students whose learning challenges come paired with emotional or social ones. The school specifically identifies twice-exceptional students, those with executive functioning difficulties, and students whose anxiety or school avoidance has made a traditional classroom untenable. The reported student-teacher ratio is five to one.

The therapeutic model means academic instruction runs alongside clinical support, which is a meaningfully different structure from a school focused strictly on academic remediation.

Summit is a nonprofit therapeutic day school approved by the state under section 14-7.02, serving students in the categories of specific learning disability, other health impairment, emotional disability, and autism spectrum disorder. Students are placed by their home districts according to their IEPs and tuition is set by the Illinois State Board of Education rather than paid privately.

Around 60 students attend at a given time, drawn from more than 25 districts across northern Illinois. The stated goal is transition, either back to a home district or into work or further schooling after graduation. A separate early learning center serves preschool-age children.

Wolcott is a four-year college preparatory high school for students with diagnosed learning differences. Unlike the transition-oriented programs on this list, students enroll for all four years and graduate from Wolcott, which places the emphasis on college admission and college readiness rather than a return to a mainstream school.

The curriculum covers standard college preparatory coursework with instruction adapted to how students learn, alongside direct work on self-advocacy and executive functioning. Families enroll privately. Wolcott draws students from Chicago and from suburbs across the metropolitan area.