About The Legacy School
A school built on a question: What would school look like if it were actually built for children with dyslexia and language-based learning differences? Legacy is the answer, and we have been building it since 2011.
Our Story • Approach • Our People • Campus • Looking Forward
OUR STORY
How Legacy started and where we are today.
How we started
Legacy opened in 2011 with seventeen students whose families had been turned away by other schools. The conviction behind it was simple: every child can learn, and the right environment is the difference between a child who shrinks and a child who thrives.
The school did not begin as a building. It began as an argument Jamie Caplan kept having on behalf of families — fighting school districts to win services for children with dyslexia who were falling further behind every year. At a certain point, fighting the system stopped being enough.
That question became Legacy. The methodology behind the school did not start in 2011, either. It had been refined across three decades of work with children with dyslexia and language-based learning differences, by educators who had seen what does not work in a mainstream classroom and built something different.
"What if, instead of just fighting the problem, we got together and created a solution?"
— Jamie Caplan, Founder, Head of School
Where we are today
Today, Legacy serves students across grades one through eight on an eight-acre campus in Sykesville, Maryland. Every classroom holds a one-to-three student-to-teacher ratio. Every student has daily one-on-one tutoring built into their schedule. The faculty are specialists, trained in the methods that work for children with learning differences.
The methodology lives in the walls, the staff, and the systems — not in any one person. That is what makes Legacy an institution, rather than a single good school built around a single person.
“Not every child can figure it out on their own. I just have a real heart for children who struggle, and I know it does not have to be that way.”
— Jamie Caplan, Founder, Head of School
OUR APPROACH
Built for how your child actually learns.
Legacy is not adapted from a mainstream model. The methodology was built from scratch around the way children with dyslexia and language-based learning differences thrive: structured literacy delivered through Orton-Gillingham and other evidence-based approaches, multisensory learning across every subject, daily one-on-one tutoring, skill-based pacing, and embedded counseling.
OUR PEOPLE
The people who make Legacy, Legacy.
Legacy faculty are specialists, not generalists. They are trained in the methods that work for children with dyslexia and language-based learning differences. They have chosen, often after years in other settings, to teach this population. They stay because the work is the work — small classes, individual pacing, real relationships, and a school that lets them do their best teaching.
OUR CAMPUS
Eight acres, and room to be a child.
Legacy sits on eight acres tucked off a quiet cul-de-sac in Sykesville, chosen for exactly the kind of space a school like this needs.
Outside are grassy spaces to study, play, and gather, a basketball court, a playground, and a Gaga Ball pit, with a swimming pool open to students during summer camp.
The Main Building is the original home of the school. It houses the school coordinator, the lockers and classrooms the Rotational students move between, individual tutor offices, and the school counselor’s office.
The Barn opened in 2021 on the site of a former barn that once stood on the campus. It holds the upper-elementary classrooms, math tutoring rooms, a shared tutoring and pull-out space, the community room, and the gymnasium. Just outside is the Cafe, a patio of tables used for lunch, breaks, and outdoor learning.
The Admissions House holds primary classrooms, specials classrooms, and offices for the Head of School, Dean of Students, and speech pathologist. It is home to the music room and the art room, with a separate entrance for older students so the youngest learners are not disrupted. Its garage has been converted into a shared learning space for recess and breaks during rain.
LOOKING FORWARD
The next fifteen years.
Legacy is building toward a campus that matches the methodology — more classrooms, more children served, the infrastructure to keep doing this work well into a second generation.
COME SEE LEGACY FOR YOURSELF
Most families know within ten minutes.
The best way to understand Legacy is to walk through the door.