The School for Advanced Studies is grounded in the following 4 Core Pillars:
WORLD LIBERAL ARTS
– The New American Conversation: Discussion and debate, encouraging students to take an active and responsible role in the ongoing conversation about what it means to be an American.
– Our Global Intellectual Inheritance – We provide a true liberal arts experience with deep study of seminal and foundational readings across all core academic disciplines, including math and science.
– Core Reading Lists – Books and texts from across time and geography that illustrate the inherent value of varied lived human experience.
BEYOND TEACHER QUALITY
– Every Teacher is a Student; Every Employee is a Teacher – our educators are students of their subject, of knowledge and skills more broadly, of teaching, and of their own students.
– Highest Quality Professional Development – RISE, AP, Curriculum Training, Pre-Service, Compliance, Special Programs, Bi-weekly teacher coaching meetings
– Polymaths and Autodidacts – We find teachers who are intellectually voracious, highly qualified experts in more than one field, and curious about the world.
STUDENT SCHOLARSHIP
– Meeting Students Where They Are – With patience and perseverance from students, parents, and educators, any child can reach their potential, and we provide support and clear, consistent goals to achieve it, without short-cuts.
– Hands-on and Minds-on Intellectual Engagement – We believe in the immense intellectual capacities of young people.
– High School Concentrations – modeled on university-level liberal arts programs exposing students to a variety of content across disciplines. Our students choose from three concentrations: Fine Arts, Humanities, or Math and Science.
– Transformative Senior Experience – daily college counseling, advanced coursework in their concentration, a semester-long service-learning project, and a Senior Oral Defense.
ENGAGED AND AUTHENTIC
STUDENT CULTURE
– Authentic Student Voices – Students explore their developing beliefs in a safe and supportive atmosphere where critical thinking is balanced with civility and acceptance of differences.
– Self-Expression – We do not have school uniforms, but have a basic dress code, while encouraging students to express their unique identities.
– Service Learning – Students engage with their campus and community through regular and frequent service projects.
Course Overview
An Arkansas-specific set of courses, promotion and graduation requirements, electives, and areas of concentration that have been curated to:
– Set graduates up for success in the finest colleges and universities in the world
– Mold character and change lives
– Meet or exceed all the Arkansas state requirements.
