Eight-year-old Xander DeLeon could not have been more surprised if he had walked up the gangplank into Noah’s ark.

There were camels in pasture, a gigantic wingless emu, shrieking peacocks on the dirt paths, a pen stocked with miniature horses and donkeys. There were owls, falcons and an Andean condor with a 10-foot wingspan, as well as every conceivable breed of farm animal housed in the barns, cages and outdoor enclosures that dotted the campus of what might be his new school.

For his mother, Leslie DeLeon, that first visit to Green Chimneys, a school for special-needs children located on a former dairy farm outside in Putnam County, N.Y., seemed the answer to her prayers.

“He was like, ‘Oh, I can watch the chickens lay their eggs and sit on them,’” she recalled. “I was crying, because I knew that I had finally found the right place for my son.”