The Importance of Educating the Whole Child
Doing what we love, and loving what we do – especially who we do it with and for – our students and families! American Academy is a charter public school (no tuition), serving Kindergarten through eighth grade students at three Douglas County campus locations, and children ages 3-5 at our private pre-schools (KindiePrep). We deliver a solid academic foundation using Core Knowledge curriculum and a STEAM emphasis (science, technology, engineering, arts, and math) in a climate of support and student-teacher connectedness. We teach the whole child, addressing social-emotional wellbeing and growth along with academic achievement, and meeting each student at their own level of readiness. We teach character and manners so students can connect successfully with the world. And we focus on STEAM so we can tie the challenges and skills of science and technology to the creativity of the arts while providing a wide range of opportunities for students to explore diverse interests and passions.
A Solid Foundation
At American Academy, we use the Core Knowledge curriculum to build a sequenced, common foundation of history, world civilizations, geography, art, culture, and music. Our language arts and math curriculums complement Core Knowledge perfectly, developing those skills in an incremental and sequential manner to ensure long-term retention and deeper understanding. Our daily science curriculum and proprietary STEM curriculum (STEM Discovery Weeks and Engineering Academy) are designed to meet Next Generation Science Standards. We round out each day with a regular rotation of art, music, technology, and physical education classes.
A Challenge for Every Child
We know that not all students start at the same level, learn in the same way, or master skills at the same pace. To meet every child at their individual level of readiness, American Academy uses flexible ability grouping. Ability groups allow our teachers to challenge each student with concepts and skills appropriate to their level of readiness while also requiring them to grow and master new ones. To form an accurate picture of whole student readiness, we assess students in several ways in multiple subjects throughout the school year and combine that information with teacher and learning support staff insight. Students move between ability groups over the years as we work to meet their individual needs for support and challenge.
Building Character
The American Academy Character program highlights those character traits which lead to truthfulness, academic and personal excellence, and consideration for others. We teach and encourage American Academy Manners in order to support those character traits and to help students put them into action. These character traits and manners are implemented, modeled, and repeated in and out of the classroom at every opportunity, every single day. The result is a school culture of kindness, respect, and personal responsibility, and a body of students who are able to engage positively and productively with others at school and beyond.
A STEAM Emphasis
Our school-day STEAM curriculum instructs students in core subjects, teamwork, critical thinking, and problem-solving. It also provides students with a safe space to try, fail and learn to persevere. Our extensive extracurricular STEAM programming is divided into two major areas of concentration — STEM and Performing Arts — and provides students with a wide range of exciting opportunities to explore! All students are encouraged to try new things in both concentrations and many programs intentionally connect across these areas of concentration. Some examples of STEAM extracurriculars include acting techniques, instrumental classes, band and orchestra, choir, theater tech, visual arts clubs, school musicals, Robotics Competition, computer-aided design club, yearbook, broadcasting club, music theory, dance, engineering certification, and performing arts certification. American Academy also offers several optional out of state STEM trips, where the learning truly becomes “hands-on”. We are always looking for new ways to challenge and inspire our students with STEAM!
Learn more at www.aak8.org.