Students at the Academy create their own map for high school education. With guidance and support from your faculty mentor, you’ll develop academic goals each year. We believe that education is all about learning what you need to learn to go where you want to go, and self-directing your annual academic plan allows you to take ownership of your education in a way that checking off required boxes could never do. Working with your mentor, you’ll develop a plan to demonstrate measurable growth toward your goals over the course of the year as you build a fundamental set of skills and knowledge. You may have academic goals (“I want to get all As,” “I want to improve my math SAT score,” I want to become a better writer”) as well as personal goals (“I want to get more sleep on the nights before class,” “I want to stop procrastinating and manage my time better,” “I want to complete my art portfolio to submit for a scholarship competition”), and your goals may be related to work at the Academy or elsewhere—your mentor will work with you to figure out how a volunteer project, NaNoWriMo effort, or cosplay design might fit onto your transcript. Because this kind of education is, by its nature, individualized, students in the same class may have vastly different goals and assignments.

The contract lays out a student’s goals for the coming year, but monthly meetings with mentors help students work steadily toward those goals and adjust them as needed. Mentors provide support, suggestions, and accountability for students’ contract goals. At the end of the term, mentors and students together evaluate how successful a student has been at accomplishing his or her goals.

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