Best Special Needs Schools in Cahokia Heights, Illinois (2026)

JTC Academy is a non-public therapeutic day school for students ages 5 to 21 with IEPs, partnering with more than 21 school districts. Our East Campus on North 88th Street in Cahokia Heights houses JTC East High School, and a West Campus on Market Street serves additional students. We are the sister organization of Transitional Center Inc. We are approved to serve students with learning disabilities, other health impairments, intellectual disabilities, emotional disabilities, speech or language impairments, developmental delay, multiple disabilities and autism. Teachers deliver academics at each student's instructional level, and high school students can recover lost credits through individualized academic planning. Licensed professional counselors, clinical professional counselors and clinical social workers provide individual and group counseling as written in IEPs. Our trauma-informed milieu model draws on Cognitive Behavioral Therapy, Aggression Replacement Training and Think Trauma, and a child and adolescent psychiatrist and school nurse are part of the team. Students earn points toward rewards in our student store, and therapy dogs Bella, Dash and Coco are training for animal-assisted therapy groups.

• Private therapeutic special education day school (K-12)
• Learning differences
• Emotional disabilities
• Autism