Ask Jodi Amaditz, Chartwell’s Interim Head of School, why so many bright students struggle in school, and she explains: students do not all learn the same way. Students have different learning profiles and benefit when their strengths are leveraged and their challenges are met with targeted instruction.

A student who has difficulty learning to read may need direct, explicit, systematic instruction. A student who has difficulty with writing may need direct instruction in how to plan, organize, and develop their ideas. Identifying a student’s areas of difficulty is an important first step, but what matters most is what happens next: giving them the skills, strategies, tools, and mindset to succeed in school and beyond.

What students learn about themselves along the way matters to that success. “By the time many arrive at Chartwell, they’ve spent years believing that they’re ‘bad at school’— and that belief is often a larger barrier than the learning difference itself,” Amaditz says.

Chartwell exists to change that belief. A California-certified nonpublic school since 1988, it serves 143 students in grades 1 through 12 with dyslexia and related differences such as dysgraphia and dyscalculia, as well as ADHD, autism, executive functioning, and processing challenges.

Some students attend through district placements, when a public school IEP team decides a child needs specialized instruction beyond what local programs offer. More than 60 percent of families receive need-based tuition assistance, with $1.5 million awarded this year. Families commute from as far as San Jose, and some even relocate for the school.

READING, TAUGHT THE WAY THE BRAIN LEARNS

Chartwell was founded on Orton-Gillingham, a structured, multisensory approach to teaching students with dyslexia, and Amaditz brings a background in the Science of Reading. In a typical literacy lesson, a group of no more than six students works on reading, spelling, and handwriting at once, using what they see, hear, and do. Teachers set the pace through ongoing diagnostic assessment, so students develop proficiency in  each skill before moving to the next.

If Amaditz could tell every Monterey County parent and teacher one thing, it would be this: Dyslexia has nothing to do with intelligence, effort, or motivation. Many people with dyslexia show real strengths in spatial reasoning, interconnected and dynamic thinking, and narrative reasoning. Research shows that intensive, targeted instruction changes the brain’s reading pathways alongside real gains in reading. Early intervention matters most, she says, but it is never too late.

A student’s social and emotional needs get the same direct support at Chartwell. It’s hard to focus on fractions when something at recess is still weighing on you, so the school’s Social Emotional Academic Development program teaches students to recognize when they’re overwhelmed and what to do about it. When things go sideways, staff help kids reflect, repair relationships, and rebuild trust rather than simply handing out consequences. Chartwell calls it “structured flexibility”: clear expectations, adjusted when needed.

EARLY IDENTIFICATION IS IMPORTANT

Although many students begin at Chartwell after second grade, learning differences can often be identified much earlier and should be addressed as soon as possible. California’s statewide early literacy screening requirements for students in kindergarten through second grade create an important opportunity to identify children at risk for reading difficulties and provide targeted intervention before they fall behind. Early, evidence-based support can strengthen foundational skills, build confidence, and improve long-term learning outcomes. “We are beginning to see more families interested in Chartwell at younger ages,” Amaditz says. Many students stay two to three years to build skills before returning to local schools. Students who enroll in middle or high school are more likely to stay on through graduation.

STARTING FROM STRENGTH

Chartwell starts by meeting each student where they are. Teachers learn what a student does well, what sparks their curiosity and how they learn best, then use research-based instruction to build from those strengths into new skills. Students get real choices in how they learn and show what they know, with clear goals to guide them.

The aim is simple: early success builds confidence, and confidence makes it possible to take on challenges, push through difficulty, and stretch beyond what feels comfortable. That approach doesn’t stop at the classroom door.

WHERE LEARNING CLICKS

Many Chartwell students do their best thinking when they’re moving, building or outside, and the campus is designed for that. Trails connect directly to Fort Ord National Monument, and students use them daily for Fitness and Wellness, mountain biking and mindfulness.

The trails double as a science lab. Students monitor cameras on barn owl boxes, check trail cams for deer and turkeys, and read a seismograph built by an alum. A straw bale field station with digital microscopes brings lab work into the woods, and students tend a garden, orchard and chicken coop with volunteers from CSU Monterey Bay. Now in its fifth year as a NOAA Ocean Guardian School, Chartwell teaches students how caring for inland habitat connects to the health of Monterey Bay, visible from their classrooms.

Indoor projects follow the same pattern: a real question, then hands-on work. In the lower school’s Lightbulb Project, students formed companies to answer one: what could they make to help people understand energy? They built solar-powered Bug Bots, rigged a tandem bicycle to run a smoothie blender, and raised $986 for the SPCA.

ROOM TO TRY

At a small school, there are fewer barriers to joining in. No experience is required, and many students discover a strength they didn’t know they had.

Musical theater draws students from every division. Last year’s The Wizard of Oz brought the whole community together, and Peter Pan is next. Some students find they love to sing; others shine building sets, sewing costumes or running lights. The high school athletics program, launched in 2020, now competes in the Santa Lucia Division of CIF-CCS against similarly sized schools, and many players are trying a sport for the first time.

STRETCHING FURTHER

Confidence built in one place shows up in another. The robotics team, BrainShift, now in its third FIRST Robotics season, built a mission along with its robot: championing neurodiversity in STEM. Since 2025, the team has reached event finals, won Spirit and Rookie Inspiration awards, and qualified for district championships.

Seniors finish with a capstone project or internship driven by genuine interest. Recent seniors have interned at a physical therapy office, run campus tech support, restored a 1970s Schwinn and built an electric go-kart, then presented their work to the public at Retrospective, a year-end celebration. Alumni say the experience made college group work and public speaking far less intimidating: the stretch the whole approach is built toward.

WHAT FAMILIES NOTICE FIRST

For parents, the change often shows up at the curb. “For the first time in four years, I feel genuinely relieved when I drop our child off at school,” one current Chartwell parent says. “I know she is somewhere she feels supported, understood, and excited to be.” There have been tears during the transition, the parent adds, “but they have only been happy tears.”

After years of learning what she couldn’t do, this child is finally finding out what she can. That shift is exactly what Chartwell is built for. Whether a student spends a few years here in elementary school or stays through graduation, the aim never changes: Teach each child the way their brain learns, start from what they do well, and never let the hard parts become the whole story.

“Our only regret,” the parent says, “is that we didn’t find Chartwell and get her there sooner.”