About Open Wings
A community built on believing in every child
Open Wings Learning Community is a neurodiversity-affirming, nonprofit school in southeastern Wisconsin. Since 2012 we have grown from one classroom in Kenosha into two campuses, guided the whole way by a single question: what if school fit the child, instead of asking the child to fit the school?
Our mission
Open Wings strives to provide a progressive educational program for children and adolescents that celebrates and embraces learners’ neurodiversity through individualized instruction and learning in community, with a focus on academic and social-emotional growth.
We focus on the whole child: nurturing deep and meaningful learning through an experiential, integrated program built around every student.
It started with “what if?”
Open Wings opened its doors in Kenosha in 2012, founded by Kim Hufferd-Ackles, PhD, on the belief that neurodivergent children deserve far more than a place that simply tolerates them. From the very first day, everything we do has answered one recurring question.
- What if your child's voice was heard and valued every single day?
- What if their teacher had the time and resources to truly focus on them?
- What if friendships were built on real, mutual respect?
- What if you could go to work without fearing a call from school?
- What if your child sang for joy on the way in?
- What if your child proved them all wrong?
More than a decade later, those questions still shape every classroom, every hire, and every school day. One mother put it best, in words we have carried with us ever since:
“Most schools require the child to fit into the school. At Open Wings, the school fits around the child.”
Our journey so far
A small school that has grown carefully, one community at a time.
2012
Open Wings opens in Kenosha
Founded by Kim Hufferd-Ackles, PhD, as a nonprofit school where neurodivergent children could learn as themselves, not be asked to fit a mold.
2022
A decade of impact
Open Wings marks its tenth year and receives the Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Humanitarian Award for its work in the community.
2025
Open Wings North
The community grows north, opening a second campus in Glendale to serve families across the greater Milwaukee area.
2026
Accredited, and still growing
Open Wings is accredited through the Independent Schools Association of the Central States (ISACS), welcoming K-12 learners in Kenosha and K-5 in Glendale.
A place where everyone belongs
We treat neurodivergence as a difference to understand, never a deficit to fix.
That belief shapes how we teach, how we speak, and how it feels to walk through our doors: regulation, trust, and belonging come before compliance.
Every child and every adult here is welcome exactly as they are. We work to keep Open Wings a place free of harassment and discrimination, where each person is valued and respected, whatever their race, faith, gender, background, age, ability, or who they love.
Open Wings Learning Community provides students and employees a learning and working environment in which the dignity and worth of every individual is valued and respected, free from harassment and discrimination on the basis of race, color, religion, gender, national origin, citizenship status, age, marital status, military service, sexual orientation, disability, or housing status.
Get to know us
There is a lot more to see. Start wherever you like.
Interested in joining our team? See our open positions.
Come meet the community
Words and photos only go so far. A tour lets you feel a calm, individualized school day, and meet the people who would know your child.