For the 2025-2026 school year, all decisions are made by the end of day on Friday, March 7, 2025 before Spring Break. For rolling admissions, see next question.
We have rolling admissions throughout the year. Please visit our admissions page at https://briarwoodschool.org/admissions/ to start the process. If your child does not already have an updated (within the last two years) FIE (full individual evaluation) or a comprehensive psychological-educational evaluation, we highly recommend that you make an appointment in order to not delay the admissions process.
Thank you for your interest! Take a tour with us! To register for a tour visit https://briarwoodschool.org/schedule-a-tour/. It is also helpful to submit a full psycho-educational evaluation that has been completed within the last two years to Mallary Lattanze, Director of Admissions at MLattanze@briarwoodschool.org. You can learn more about the admissions process and the evaluations by visiting https://briarwoodschool.org/admissions/.
Yes! We offer a variety of clubs and sports at Briarwood. For example, Lower School offers student council and choir. Middle and Upper Schools offer fine arts programs, sports, student council, clubs, and advisory. You can check out our athletics page by visiting https://briarwoodschool.org/athletics/ and our fine arts program by visiting https://briarwoodschool.org/fine-arts/.
Availability changes throughout the year, so please reach out to Rayna Williams, Athletic Director and Dean of Students, for more information at RWilliams@briarwoodschool.org. Only Middle and Upper School students can participate in athletics. In place of organized sports, Lower School students go to PE class daily.
Small class sizes help to ensure that attention is individualized and focused on helping our students to develop the skills necessary to achieve academic success. Class sizes vary based on current year enrollment numbers. We strive to have ten or less students in core subject classes like science and history, and even less in subjects that are more challenging for our students like math and reading.
The Speech and Language Department screens all newly enrolled students to determine if an evaluation is warranted. Should an evaluation be recommended and space be available, parents will be contacted about enrolling their child in Speech and Language Therapy on campus during school hours. Teachers and parents also refer students to our department throughout the school year. There is an additional fee associated with Speech and Language Therapy.
Our curriculum is a set of beliefs and practices rooted in the direct-explicit instruction our students need to remediate their personal areas of growth, and an array of multisensory Orton-Gillingham based approaches employed throughout all departments and across all grade levels, as research and experience inform us that this is how our students learn best. Our faculty are highly-trained educators and models of the life-long learners we encourage our students to become. The Wilson Language Program serves as a foundation for teachers and reading interventionists to utilize evidence-based programs as a part of the curriculum while tailoring lessons according to the unique learning profiles of students. For more details, schedule a tour or visit briarwoodschool.org/our-curriculum.
The screening process is the process of collecting more data to help us get to know your child better for admissions and/or placement decisions. Screeners do not diagnose nor take the place of an evaluation. An evaluation is a comprehensive assessment of the student’s strengths, weaknesses, and overall functioning. A comprehensive evaluation would include: cognitive abilities, academic achievement, information processing, social and emotional functioning, behavioral assessment, sensory and motor skills, adaptive functioning, psychological processing, and educational and developmental history.
A Full Individual Evaluation (FIE) is also accepted. FIEs can be completed both by your zoned public school or by a private educational diagnostician.
The evaluation helps us determine if your child is the right fit for Briarwood and must have been completed within the last two years. Please send the evaluation to Mallary Lattanze, Director of Admissions at MLattanze@briarwoodschool.org.
Here at The Briarwood School, we understand the importance of being diagnostic and prescriptive for your child to be successful. Using best practices, our teachers and staff are highly trained in the science of reading and math. The rate of progress is determined by your child’s strengths and areas of growth along with his or her diagnoses and co-morbidities.
The Briarwood School is committed to providing a diverse, inclusive and equitable learning experience for our students.We value the diversity of the community and will continue to celebrate, engage, reach and retain as well as explore differences in experiences based on, but not limited to, racial, socioeconomic, gender, age, country of origin, culture, sexuality, physical ability, and religious diversity amongst our staff and students. We promote acceptance of learning differences and disabilities and celebrate the many positive experiences and viewpoints that diversity brings to our school community in all of its forms. Our respect for diversity is reflected in our mission, programming, community involvement, admissions, and hiring practices.