Mission & History
Carroll welcomes students exactly as they are—with all of their strengths, talents, challenges, and lived experiences — and changes lives forever.
Our mission is empowerment.
Carroll School empowers children with language-based learning differences, such as dyslexia, to become academically skilled students who are strong self-advocates and confident lifelong learners. Carroll is an inclusive community committed to embracing diverse strengths, identities, and lived experiences in order to give each child what they most need to thrive.
Carroll School Values
How we fulfill our mission changes constantly. At the heart of every decision we make is the 454 students that come to Carroll. We strive to give each of them exactly what they need to become confident, happy, lifelong learners. They are what drives our choices for how we design curriculum, how we train our teachers, how we strengthen the brain, how we hire employees, how we support our culture of giving, and so much more.
By focusing on the following core values, we aim to keep meeting the needs of each and every student.
- Deeply Individualized Approach
- Thinking Differently & Fostering Belonging
- Neuroplasticity: Human Brains Grow and Change
- Cultivating and Supporting Exceptional Educators
- Advancing Research and Outreach
Deeply Individualized Approach
Thinking Differently & Fostering Belonging
Neuroplasticity: Human Brains Grow and Change
Cultivating and Supporting Exceptional Educators
Advancing Research and Outreach
Carroll Connection
Who will you BEcome? At Carroll, every pathway is paved with possibilities. Because when you belong, you can be anything.
As humans, we all have a deep yearning to belong: to be seen and heard. Belonging is crucial to our happiness and essential for learning. We integrate what we know about belonging and how students learn best, creating an environment where students thrive. Belonging does not just magically happen; we work intentionally to cultivate it.
Our diversity makes us stronger as a community at Carroll School—and today it plays a critical role in our mission. On each campus, our staff and faculty are finding new ways every day to put diversity, equity, and inclusion at the heart of all we do.
Our Belief Statements
We Believe...
...that our Orton-Gillingham approach and understanding of neuroplasticity drive our diagnostic, prescriptive, multisensory, and student-centered teaching. We give each child what they most need by building on students’ strengths while addressing learning differences.
Learn about our Structured Language Approach
We Believe...
...Carroll School is a highly-skilled community of compassionate adults working in concert to guide our students. Combining data and empathy enables us to give each child what they most need while holding each child to challenging expectations. Our goal is to create confident lifelong learners, strong self-advocates, and empathetic global citizens.
We Believe...
...that social-emotional well-being is essential for both academic and personal growth. We actively create an inclusive community where students feel safe, valued, and connected by acknowledging and celebrating difference. Fostering this sense of belonging enables our students to continuously discover who they are as individuals, within the Carroll community, and beyond.
We Believe...
...that academic excellence is directly tied to a deep understanding and purposeful engagement in diversity, equity, and inclusion practices. The intersectionality of our identities reflects a variety of cultures, races, ethnicities, family structures, gender expressions, socio-economic backgrounds, and learning differences. We value and lean into the challenging, ongoing nature of DEI work in order to create an empathetic community that is safe and reflective of the rich and robust diversity of the 21st Century world.
Learn about our commitment to Diversity, Equity & Belonging
We Believe...
...that the use of data is a crucial factor that helps tell the story of the whole child and inform their educational path. While at Carroll, the longitudinal profile evolves for each child in partnership with parents, teachers, and students. These data alone are just one chapter of a student’s journey that helps to make student growth visible.
Learn about Data-Informed Instruction at Carroll
SCHOOL HISTORY
All stories have a beginning.
Our story begins with Dr. Edwin Cole, a neurologist from Mass General whose specialty was children with learning challenges. He heard the best work was being done in New York City. Cole packed up and headed to Manhattan where he worked with Dr. Sam Orton and psychologist and teacher, Anna Gillingham.
Orton and Gillingham’s techniques working with children struggling to read were cutting edge and showing results. Impressed with Orton and Gillingham’s proven methods, Cole headed back to Boston and opened a clinic and private practice. Over the years, he helped families to encourage schools to offer academic supports to the students he worked with.
There was never a "best" solution until ... 1966.
When Dr. Cole met F. Gorham Brigham. Brigham was helping two longtime friends, Vernon Alden and Samuel "Junie" Lowe, to find appropriate school placements for their dyslexic sons. Brigham heard the Miss Carroll School was closing its doors in Newton and he invited Cole to take a look. In an instant, Cole realized the solution - a school designed for children with dyslexia.
The Carroll School was born.
Once the building was acquired and the new school formed, they hired Dean Roberts, who had previously led Browne & Nichols' lower school as its first Head of School. Thanks to the dedication of the three founders—Cole, Brigham and Lowe—and Orton and Gillingham’s groundbreaking work, the school began to take shape. Dr. Cole credited new trustee Noah Herndon for his optimism and energy for getting things done with his banking and business background. He and fellow trustee Vernon Alden both had children with dyslexia and were dedicated parents. The Herndons would host trustee meetings in their Weston home. With their commitment and generosity as trustees as well as being parents who were desperate to find a school where their children could thrive, the new Carroll School opened with 7 students in the fall of 1967.
50+ years later, a lot has transformed.
The school has expanded its capacity and footprint with three campuses and 454 students. The Carroll today aims to give each child what he or she most needs. By working in tandem with researchers, doctors, and scientists, faculty are able to infuse the data to re-shape the curriculum, in real time, emphasizing what kids are good at.
The Carroll School of today will not be the Carroll School of tomorrow.
We look forward to shaping the Carroll of the future.
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