Uncategorized – Sophia Academy

Sophia Academy Plans for Re-Set for 2026-2027

Many families struggle to find an educational environment that meets both the neurobiological needs of their children and their desire for a Christ-centered, relationally rich education. Traditional schools, Christian or otherwise,—while strong for many learners—often lack the staffing ratios, therapeutic expertise, and neurodevelopmental structure needed for students with dysregulation, developmental delays, trauma histories, anxiety disorder, executive-function deficits, and other neurodevelopmental differences.

Sophia Academy has long been committed to awakening the unique genius in students with learning and developmental differences through a multisensory, hands-on curriculum and targeted interventions in reading, math, executive function, and social-emotional learning.

Families consistently praise the school’s compassionate environment as well as the academic and personal success experienced by their students. Sophia Academy’s current registration as a high school restricts our services to grades 9-12, but the need for deeper, more clinical, and more relationally-structured interventions is great in the community and across the school years.

Our art-based school enables students to work with both sides of their brain

Sophia Academy is working to transition to a Christian therapeutic-education school grounded in the Interpersonal Whole-Brain Model of Care (IWBMC™) from the Jacob’s Ladder Group serving grades K-12. The school would continue to offer our multi-sensory, hands-on education with small class size (5–7 students), individualized interventions (1:1 or 1:3), executive function coaching, SEL curriculum, and on-site counseling/social work support, We would add the neuroscience-based IWBMC model to target root brain-based challenges (not simply symptomatic behavior) leveraging neuroplasticity and whole-brain integration.

What is IWBMC?

Multi-faceted, whole child support
Supports neurobiological goals. Specialized testing enables us to design a curriculum that works for each student.
Belief in growth possibilities
Individualized curriculum for social, emotional, relational, physical, and academic needs
Wide Application: dyslexia, ADHD, trauma-related disorders, developmental differences, anxiety, and more

Middle States Accreditation Now Official

Unisys Engineer Introduces Students to the Amazing World of GIMP

Teaching computer skills and tech to Sophia Academy students thanks to Unisys Cares!

This week Mr. Tom Tomer, electrical engineer with Unisys, shared exciting tech advancements and computer skills with students.

He and some of the seniors had a great time learning how to use the free computer graphics tool GIMP. The students were thrilled to see how they could place pictures of themselves in different visual settings and occupations, and improve photographs and works of art.

Supporting Students with Dysgraphia

As a school serving the educational needs of students with learning disabilities, we often find that our students have dysgraphia, a neurological disorder of written expression

There are two main types of dygraphia: difficulty with the physical mechanics of writing and difficulty getting knowledge in the brain organized and down on paper. The first is seen more often in children, while the second in seen more often teens and adults.

Between 5-20% of students struggle with some form of dysgraphia, and we often find that those with dyslexia or ADHD are more likely to have this struggle.

Why must we pay attention to dysgraphia?

Handwriting is an important skill for success in school and beyond: if a student is unable to “show what they know,” they are condemned to failure and low self-esteem. What’s more, the act of writing often helps the brain remember, organize, and process information.

What Can Sophia Academy Do?

For students having trouble with the physical act of writing, we work with occupational therapists to determine if there is a visual-motor problem. Some of our students have been helped through eye therapy. Sometimes we help the student work around the difficulty by creating slanted notebooks for them, to help them see the board and their paper at the same time. Other accommodations, especially for those with difficulty getting knowledge onto the paper is to help them use a voice-to-text app or even scribing for them.

In every case, we find that students with dysgraphia have lots of knowledge stored in their strong brains. At Sophia Academy, we work to help them express that knowledge.

Different Year, Same Warmth

Different subjects, same hands-on discovery. As we welcome new students into our midst, we also are happy to report that we are now offering Spanish as a language option, joining the Latin we have offered for nine years. Spanish 1 is taught by Mr. Hazelton, our newest teacher.

Classes are bonding well even though we are only on day 4 of the new school year. This is what Sophia Academy is known for: a safe and welcoming environment where students who have experienced difficulty and failure in the past find academic and personal success.

Largest Class Graduates with Gratitude

Graduations are always exciting. Graduating five seniors who have shown incredible growth and achievement in their years at Sophia is extra special. Seniors are moving on the college, trade school, and into jobs.

Our salutatorian had this to say on graduation day: “Sophia Academy helped us realize we have more potential that we had thought when we were younger.” He confessed that when the class came together in 9th grade, they had not always liked each other, but through the kindness of both teachers and other students, along with an encouragement to share vulnerabilities, this class formed a tight bond with each other. He also expressed gratitude on behalf of his fellow classmates for the patience of the faculty, the safe space that Sophia provided, the acceptance each student felt, and the educational help given to each.

Our valedictorian shared that for her, the “future is a collection of our hopes and dreams [that have been] slowly blossoming . . .the seed that we’ve planted throughout our time at Sophia.” She reminded her fellow classmates that no matter where each student goes, God has already gone before them and knows their future. She concluded by encouraging them all to keep planting, keep growing, and to embrace all there is to love and to fight for.

All the City Has to Offer

Sophia Academy loves to use the resources of our city to help students learn and prepare for the future. Here, junior and senior students visit a the Philadelphia Technical Training Institute where post-high school students learn one of seven trades such as building houses

And here the art students use watercolors to paint the Wissahickon Creek.

Whether we take trips to museums, check out geological features of local creeks, use the park behind the school for PE classes, or head to the Free Library’s central branch, Sophia students enjoy outside the classroom learning.

Community Changes Lives

Four years ago, four scared fourteen-year-olds arrived at Sophia Academy. They didn’t know each other and they didn’t trust each other. “Play nice,” their science teacher kept telling them. That first year, we had meltdowns and tears, anger and frustrations along with laughter and kindness, calm and encouragement. At some point the four became five and at another point five individuals became a cohesive, warm-hearted and tight-knit group of friends who supported each other, listened to each other, and cheered each other on academically. In their senior year, we found them discussing Physics together, teaching each other concepts. We saw them using skills learned in both Executive Function class and Social-Emotional Learning to navigate relationships. We heard them advocating for themselves when the content of a class made them uncomfortable, and then pushing through the discomfort to find meaning.

What made the difference? Honestly, a combination of warm-hearted teachers who believed that each student had great potential along with the student’s own growing maturity, prayers of family and faculty along with the students’ own perserverence have all played a part in changing struggling young teens into confident young adults.

The senior class of 2025 will be attending college, trade school, and entering the work force. We are so proud of who they have become and look forward to hearing of their successes in the future.

Cooking With Garbage

Sophia students participate ever year in the Philly Service Award project. This year, students in STEM classes are building –from scratch–a methane digester that can be used as an outdoor lamp or stove. It will be powered completely by organic trash. Anyone living in a city knows that there is usually plenty of trash to be found. Students have gone into the neighborhood multiple times to pick up trash, thus meeting two needs at once: beautifying the school’s neighborhood and securing a stash of free fuel for the methane digester. Win-win. Just another way for Sophia Academy students to use all their senses and abilities to learn.

Unanimously Recommended for Accreditation!

Sophia Academy is on track to receive accreditation after the site visit team unanimously recommended us this week for accreditation from Middle States Association and Christian Schools International. This caps over a year and a half of rigorous self study.

Here is one commendation the Accreditation Site Visit Team gave us:

“Teachers understand the learning differences of students. Students and parents are thrilled to be in a school where there is a focus on awakening genius and where the student is identified as an image-bearer of God with a lot of potential.”