independent schools Archives

How Students With Learning Differences Thrive at Frostig School

Published August 27, 2025

One of the first things you learn about Frostig School is that it lives by the motto, “We think about learning differently”. Walk around its Pasadena or West L.A. campuses and you’ll feel that.

Frostig School offers academic, elective and support services for children in grades 1-12 who have been diagnosed with learning differences. It provides a well-rounded education that elevates and celebrates every student on their journey to becoming successful, contributing members of society – and it’s been serving our community for over 70 years.

We asked Dr. Jenny Tucker Mottes, Frostig’s Head of School, what makes Frostig School such a welcoming environment for its families and to share some of the successes of their students.

L.A. Parent: What is the key to Frostig’s success in teaching children with learning differences?

Dr. Tucker Mottes: I think the key to Frostig’s success is really quite simple: We give students what they need in order to learn! For some students, that means working in a small group with other students who are at the same academic level. For others, that means using specialized curriculum that breaks down concepts so students can learn step-by-step. Some of our students learn best with the assistance of technology, so that material is read out loud to them or so they can type or dictate their answers using their device. All of our students benefit from having a small, cohesive, calm environment with students who are accepting, understanding, compassionate and kind. Finally, our amazing staff is a key component to student success because they take the time to get to know each individual student and to understand their strengths, needs and interests. All of our students are seen, understood and welcomed here at Frostig which contributes greatly to their success.

L.A. Parent: What do you look for in a successful teacher?

Dr. Tucker Mottes: When I look at a successful teacher, I see someone who is constantly learning themselves. They take the time to learn about their students – their interests, strengths, and needs – so that they can tailor their instruction to engage, support, and challenge each individual student. Successful teachers also take time to learn about new research in the field of special education so that we are up to date in their instructional practices and curricular decisions. Finally, I think they learn about him/herself each day as they reflect on what worked, what didn’t work and what they can do differently the next day in order to support the students.

L.A. Parent: Are the connections between students and teachers different at your school than, say, a typical school environment?

Dr. Tucker Mottes: I believe our small class size and emphasis on the whole child help us to develop different connections with our students than you might see at a more mainstream school environment. With a 6:1 student to teacher ratio in the classroom, plus additional staff (electives teachers, service providers and administrators) on campus each day, our students receive a lot of individualized attention and support throughout the school day. Additionally, emphasizing the whole child means that we pay attention not only to academic growth, but also to a child’s social interactions, emotional wellness and physical health. Ensuring the health and wellbeing of each of our students allows them to interact with us in a deeper and more personalized way because they know that they are safe and cared for here at school.

L.A. Parent: How are your academics structured in terms of class size, homework, study time, etc.?

Dr. Tucker Mottes: Our classes are capped at 12 students each with two adults in the room leading the instruction and activities of the day. Our elementary program is self-contained with students remaining with their homeroom teachers all day except for PE and electives. Middle- and high-school students change classes for each period of the day in order to give them a chance to switch teachers like they would in a more mainstream environment. All of our teachers have a homeroom class that is not only considered their caseload for IEP purposes but is also their English Language Arts class for the year. Many of our classes are formed with academic levels in mind in order to allow for instruction that is more tailored towards the students’ needs.

Study hall is an important part of our school day, allowing students to complete homework, classwork or simply to take a break so they can be ready for the next class or activity. Homework is individualized and monitored closely to ensure it is neither too easy nor too difficult for the student to complete independently. We are an academic program, fully accredited by the California Association of Independent Schools and the Western Association of Schools and Colleges. The majority of our students earn their high school diploma upon graduation and matriculate into a community college or other post-secondary program after leaving Frostig.

L.A. Parent: Do any students stand out in your years?

Dr. Tucker Mottes: Many students have stood out in my mind over the years. I can picture in my mind the faces of students who:

Overcame tremendous personal challenges to graduate from high school.
Broke out of their anger and resentment toward school and learned to trust teachers again.
Came to an understanding of their own strengths and found ways to overcome their challenges.
Attended Frostig for a short time, took the strategies we taught them and returned to their home school to successfully complete high school.
Attended Frostig for a long time and still cried at graduation because they didn’t want to leave.
Inspired our community with their talents in acting, singing, playing musical instruments, creating amazing works of art, filmmaking, podcasting and graphic design.
Celebrated their first win in competitive sports as a part of our AMASE team
Made their first real friend and felt accepted for the first time.

I could go on and on. The students here at Frostig show their resilience, determination, humor, commitment and personalities each day. School is not easy for them, but every morning they wake up and come to Frostig willing to learn and grow. They stand out in so many ways and are simply the best people I know!

If you’d like to learn more about Frostig School and if it’s a fit for your child, visit frostigschool.org or call 626-791-1255 for its Pasadena campus or 310-574-5096 for its West L.A. campus.

Playa Vista’s Westside Neighborhood School Expands

Published May 30, 2024

Westside Neighborhood School is expanding with a new building and land. PHOTOS COURTESY WESTSIDE NEIGHBORHOOD SCHOOL

Westside Neighborhood School (WNS), an independent preschool-8th grade school located in Los Angeles’ Playa Vista neighborhood, is expanding. The school purchased a 132,000-square-foot building that sits on more than five acres of land just 600 feet from the school’s current campus, which comprises three buildings.

The new acquisition, located at 5340 Alla Road, will be transformative for the school with double the programmatic spaces of its current facilities. The new building includes:

Additional classrooms for the elementary school, enabling smaller class sizes by providing three classes for each grade in kindergarten-5th grade.
Relocation of the developmental kindergarten (DK) classrooms to the Alla Road building, creating a dedicated DK/K educational center and opening up additional space in the Early Childhood Center for preschool students.
Larger DK-8th grade classrooms. Current classrooms average 400-600 square feet. Classrooms in the new building will range from 700-1,000 square feet.
Programmatic expansion including the addition of a dance center, photography and digital arts, ﬁlmmaking, robotics, instrumental music and community meeting rooms.
The 5.13 acres of land will yield twice the outdoor space the school currently has, and will include lunch tables and playgrounds, as well as additional parking.

“We have worked for over 10 years to position WNS to take advantage of a unique opportunity if and when it might occur to own our school property, and this opportunity exceeds all of our expectations,” says Brad Zacuto, WNS’s Head of School. “This is a transformational moment for WNS that will help secure the ﬁnancial sustainability and capacity for essential programmatic growth of the school for generations of preschool-8th grade students to come.”

WNS has partnered with architectural ﬁrm Smith-Clementi on the site’s renovation with an anticipated opening date of fall 2026.

Learn more at wns-la .org.

Private School Village Expands Access for Underrepresented Students

Published March 4, 2024

By Chanté Griffin

Private School Village students enjoy a back-to-school picnic. PHOTOS COURTESY PRIVATE SCHOOL VILLAGE

When Lisa Johnson attended a private school in Atlanta as a youth, she experienced racial and social isolation, a lack of cultural affirmation and countless microaggressions. When she enrolled her children in a Los Angeles private school decades later, her oldest child’s experiences, starting as early as kindergarten, mirrored hers.

Johnson was dismayed, but she was also determined to foster change for Black and brown students in private schools. In 2018, she founded Private School Village (PSV), an organization designed to help Black and brown students in kindergarten through 12th grade navigate life at independent schools and blanket them with culturally rich communal care.

Now, that work is expanding. I recently spoke with Johnson, who also serves as PSV’s executive director, about its new scholarship initiative, the Village Scholarship, and PSV’s plans to serve more students locally and (eventually) across the nation.

Private School Village founder Lisa Johnson (center) with heads of schools Clarke Weatherspoon (The Waverly School) and Mariama Richards (Crossroads School).

When did you first realize there was a need to create the Village Scholarship?

Actually, from talking to an admissions director at a local private elementary school. He made the point that every year, they’re able to find great candidates, but they don’t always have enough financial-aid to support the need. In the conversation, we talked a lot about the financial aid model, and I know that’s a model that works. But I also feel like we’ve kind of gotten set in our ways with respect to the model being what it is. And every year, we hear there’s not enough aid.

How does the Village Scholarship work?

We just launched it and are providing up to what’s in the equivalent of four scholarships for up to $10,000 each for the duration of a private elementary school experience. So that means if you come in at pre-K or K, that’s a seven- to eight-year run. If you come in at grade four, it’s the remainder of your time in elementary school. It’s an annual renewal. Parents apply, and we [award the scholarships] after schools have made their award of aid. We are trying to meet that gap.

It requires us to work collaboratively with our school partners and it also allows us to work closely with the parents because the way we’ve designed this, unlike traditionally when you get financial aid, it’s not portable, you can’t take it with you, you’ve got to stay at the school whether or not it’s a good fit or not because that aid is for that school.

Our scholarship is a portable scholarship in that you can go to another private school and take it with you — at least, take the need with you, and once you get the award there, then we will meet the gap.

How do you select students for the Village Scholarship?

It’s a mix of all of the traditional things you would assume to be true for scholarship, even if they are young. But we’ll be interviewing candidates, we’ll be working collaboratively with the school and, yes, it is hugely important that they understand the notion of this village and that they buy into the fact that we are better and stronger together.

In addition to the new scholarship, are there other ways you help families navigate the process of paying for school?

Yes, we’re having Chloe B. McKenzie [a researcher and wealth justice activist] come speak to us, and one of the things she talks about is the fact that when you have to demonstrate and prove your financial need, you are really being asked to experience your trauma potentially all over again. Just how the language is set up and how we feel about the process can be hugely demoralizing. And this is especially the case because we have a lot of middle-income families who aren’t used to having to ask for help, and tuition is getting more expensive, not less.

Do you have any other new offerings for this year?

The biggest thing on our docket this year, aside from the Village Scholarship, is our national expansion. I feel like for four years I have been telling people, “Wait, it’s coming,” and it is finally coming. We are expanding through a chapter model pilot program. This first year will be a pilot in California so we can learn what we don’t know. The model really is about community and parent engagement and empowerment, and that means you need to be able to get together in person as a community.

Learn more at privateschoolvillage.org.