Best Special Needs Schools in Encino, California (2026)

Founded in 1983 as Landmark West School, Westmark School in Encino serves students in grades 2 to 12 with dyslexia, dysgraphia, dyscalculia, and other diagnosed learning differences. We are a college preparatory school organized into a Lower, Middle, and Upper School, and we admit students on a rolling basis throughout the year. Our teachers differentiate instruction throughout the school day instead of pulling students out for support, and all faculty are trained in multisensory methods. Classrooms follow Universal Design for Learning, and our reading intervention draws on the Orton-Gillingham Approach, Lindamood-Bell Learning Processes, and the Slingerland Approach to teach phonology, syllables, morphology, syntax, and semantics through explicit, systematic, cumulative instruction. Social-emotional learning and executive function training run through the curriculum, and since 2022 our faculty and staff have trained in RULER, the Yale Center for Emotional Intelligence approach to SEL. Students also take arts and athletics, from ceramics to team sports, and our university research partnerships connect neuroscience to how we teach.

• Private school for students with learning differences (grades 2-12)
• Dyslexia
• Dysgraphia
• Dyscalculia