Leading the way for over 35 years.
For years, a small group of families in Orange County shared a common concern. Their kids were smart. Curious. Funny.
And their schools weren't working for them.
These were children with ADHD, ASD and executive functioning challenges. The kind of kids who get called a problem before anyone bothers to understand them. These families found something different at the University of California, Irvine. For many of them, it was the first place their child felt genuinely successful. Not managed. Not tolerated. Successful.
That's where our story really starts.
Our start at UC Irvine.
The UC Irvine Child Development School spent decades studying one question: what do students with ADHD actually need to learn well?
Not in a therapy office. Not in a controlled lab. In real classrooms, with real teachers, behavioral specialists, peers, and the ordinary demands of a school day. Over more than thirty-five years, that work produced something rare in education.
An approach to teaching these students that was tested, refined, and proven to work.
Most schools are built on convention. On the way things have always been done. Ours was built on what the research actually showed.
That's our difference and, for our families, it changed everything.
New location. New direction.
In 2019, due to the construction of the UCI Health hospital (on the exact space where the Child Development Center was located), the university program closed.
For the families who had lived it was the loss of the one place that finally fit their kids. So they did something about it. A group of parents came together with a single goal... to make sure the next generation of students could have what theirs had.
They founded an independent nonprofit called The Children's School that was structured around the UCI approach.
Same goals. A new, permanent home.
The name changed. The program didn’t.
As the school grew, the name grew with it.
In 2022, The Children's School became The Craig School. While, the name changed, the mission didn't.
Everything we do is still grounded in what those decades of work taught us about how these students learn, regulate, and grow.
Our mascot says it all.
People think a chameleon changes its appearance just to blend into its surroundings. That's only a small piece of what it can do. It also shifts its colors to communicate and to regulate itself. A chameleon also sees the world in a way nothing else can. It's built differently on purpose, and that's exactly what makes it remarkable.
That's our kids. They take in the world differently. They notice what others miss. Somebody may have once called that a problem. They aren't. They're just built different.
At TCS, we don't ask a child to camouflage who they are to fit the room. We built the room around how they actually learn, so they can stop performing and start thriving, full color showing.
That's why we're Chameleons. Our kids come in many colors. And, they can proudly show them at TCS.
