this is a school that helped trouble teens from all diffrant states..we were all family wehen we had none... The Kolburne School was established on July 6, 1947 on a twenty-acre estate in Norwalk, Connecticut by Stella and Luma Kolburne and their daughter, Jeane Kolburne Weinstein. The School specialized in the “education, guidance and training of children who, for various reasons, cannot get alon
g satisfactorily in the regular schools.” To cope successfully with the different types of challenges faced by these students, the Kolburnes “devised individual programs as well as methods of instruction and guidance of a therapeutic nature.” Those that could, “pursued the standard school curriculum,” while others were directed toward the “development of self-sufficiency and independent living.” In 1963, Jeane Kolburne and her husband, Sydney Weinstein, purchased a 260-acre farm nestled beneath Woodruff Mountain in the Town of New Marlborough, Massachusetts. In 1968, however, with real estate development encroaching on the Norwalk campus, the Weinsteins decided to move the School to New Marlborough, and build their program on what today encompasses 800 acres and includes an educational center with classrooms and indoor swimming pool, a residence hall, a remodeled barn as vocational center, and playgrounds, hiking trails, and sports fields. Under Jeane and Sydney’s stewardship, Kolburne became a fully licensed Special Education School and Residential Treatment Facility, serving thousands of at-risk and high-need students by creating a caring community and therapeutic learning environment where children, adolescents, and young adults can develop the skills necessary to support transition and move forward. In 2011, Jeane Weinstein retired as Kolburne’s executive director, laying the foundation for the next phase of the organization’s development. Although much has changed over the last six decades in the field and in terms of better understanding the issues that challenge the students and residents we serve best, Kolburne’s core mission of enhancing personal growth and development, building character and encouraging personal success in a safe, caring, therapeutic environment, remains unchanged.
