Best Special Needs Schools in Newark, Delaware (2026)

Christina Early Education Center is a public early childhood education center within the Christina School District located at 620 E. Chestnut Hill Road in Newark, Delaware. It serves children ages 3 and 4 in preschool and prekindergarten programs, including both typically developing children and those with special needs who have IEPs. The center provides inclusive education with certified early childhood and special education teachers. Students with special needs receive speech, physical, and occupational therapy as determined by their IEP teams. Programs include full-day and part-day options, and the Early Childhood Assistance Program (ECAP) offers free preschool for income-qualified 4-year-olds residing in the district. Enrollment is available for children with disabilities by contacting the main office and for others through screening and eligibility processes. The center participates in the Delaware Stars for Early Success program and emphasizes developmentally appropriate, hands-on learning in a safe environment.

• Public early childhood education center
• Public school

The Delaware School for the Deaf is a public program within the Christina School District that educates deaf, hard of hearing, and deafblind students ages 5-22 using rigorous academic standards and bilingual instruction in American Sign Language and English. Located at 630 East Chestnut Hill Road in Newark, the school provides day programming with an extended day and residential option primarily for students living below the C&D Canal. Statewide services extend support from birth through age 22 via the Early Learning Program and outreach. Instruction follows the Christina School District curriculum and Delaware content standards, with each student's Individualized Education Program (IEP) guiding goals. The approach emphasizes language access, literacy, independence, and self-determination in a safe, culturally sensitive environment. Families are partners in education, and the school offers speech and language therapy along with audiology support. Placement occurs through local school districts via the IEP process. The school operates on a PreK-12 model with services extending to age 22 for transition programming and maintains operations for the 2026-2027 school year.

• State school for the deaf
• Deafness
• Hard of Hearing
• Deaf-Blindness

The College School began in September 1970 as Beechwood, a Wilmington school for children who needed extra help acquiring basic skills. We moved to Newark in 1985, and in 1988 joined the University of Delaware's College of Education and Human Development as its laboratory school, taking our current name. Today we serve bright students in grades 1 through 8 who have learning differences, on UD's Children's Campus on Wyoming Road, with the goal of preparing each student to return to a mainstream classroom. Small classes and small-group instruction let teachers build on each child's strengths. Literacy instruction runs from phonological awareness and decoding through fluency and comprehension, and math uses Reveal and Connected Math. Every classroom has a 1:1 computer ratio with Read & Write and Bookshare, and our team includes an occupational therapist, a speech-language therapist and a school psychologist who provides testing, short-term counseling and social groups. Tuition for 2026-27 is $26,780, with limited need-based aid. We offer before care, after care, Homework Club, clubs such as Lego, drama, ASL and STEM Explorers with UD engineering students, and summer camps open to the community.

• Private school for students with learning differences (grades 1-8)
• Learning differences
• University laboratory school
• STEAM