Best Special Needs Schools in Evergreen, Colorado (2026)

Evergreen Country Day School began in 1971 as Evergreen Creative Preschool. After years in rented church space and a leased storefront in Bergen Park, the school was reincorporated under its current name in 2003, and our permanent campus was purchased and built in 2005. Today we are an independent, coeducational school of 240 students, from 18 months old in our early childhood program, The Nest, through 8th grade, with a 6 to 1 student-to-teacher ratio. Our 11-acre campus has three buildings, a gym and performance center, three science labs, a greenhouse, outdoor learning labs, an athletic field, and an on-site caterer for school lunches. Learning support runs in three tiers, from differentiation in every K-8 classroom to Student Learning Plans with accommodations for students with a diagnosed learning disability and small-group pull-out support four times a week. Gifted students receive extension work, pull-out or push-in enrichment, and mentoring. Our outdoor education program takes students rock climbing, backpacking, ice climbing, and fly fishing, and more than 25% of families receive financial aid.

• Independent school (18 months to grade 8)
• Learning differences
• Gifted and talented
• Outdoor education

Vertical Skills Academy is a nonprofit private school in Jefferson County for students in grades 2-8 with dyslexia and related reading or writing challenges, including dysgraphia, dyscalculia, and ADHD. The school provides full-day literacy immersion: about 3.5 hours of literacy instruction each day, Orton-Gillingham methods used across subjects, and a daily one-hour OG tutoring block at a 3:1 ratio. Elementary classes are capped at 8:1 and middle school classes at 10:1. Staff train in Yoshimoto Orton-Gillingham. English language arts uses unit studies with grade-level social studies texts and the Releasing Writers literacy framework. Math uses Eureka Math2 with manipulatives and daily checks for understanding. Social-emotional time uses Everyday Speech and explicit instruction in self-advocacy around dyslexia. Most students attend for a few years and then return to their home school. The current campus is 4000 S. Wadsworth Blvd. in Littleton. A summer reading partnership with Every Child Reading also operates in Littleton, Denver, and Vail.

• Middle school
• ADHD
• Dyscalculia
• Dysgraphia