At The Barred Academy, we believe in the “meta” of things. Using a metacognitive and metalinguistic approach we incorporate collaborative learning opportunities that directly teach standards for our community space, the people in our space, and the norms of our space. Maintaining a holistic, person-first, and meaningful approach that favors individualized, strengths-based, innovative methodologies over scripted, cookie-cutter social-skills curriculums, we ensure that our space is safe for our scholars to be vulnerable and open to a growth mindset. Through well-established routines and models that accept first, and teach second, we have established a learning community that supports the development of a wide variety of social communication, interpersonal, self-regulation, self-esteem, and self-awareness needs.