Garden Street Academy offers students and their families the best of two educational worlds. Over our decade-plus existence, we have designed and built a substantial academic program that offers a wide range of experiences and challenges comparable to those available in a larger school, but we do so in a smaller school environment.
As a smaller school we provide individualized attention provided by highly qualified faculty and staff, who concentrate on supporting student achievement through positive school relationships. No one falls through the cracks or goes unattended in a caring, smaller school. On the other hand, the enriched opportunities of a well-resourced program enable students to create an academic path they enjoy with a pre-professional, competitive edge. Smaller schools are able to accommodate student and family choices in order to develop students’ unique gifts and interests, and to listen to students’ needs and preferences. Well-resourced schools have staff and infrastructure to support a high level of proficiency and achievement. The amalgamation of the two which we have created provides scaffolding that helps students discover the many ways they can learn, explore, and create. It provides modeling knowledge about what others have tried, and the results; it gives access to archives of knowledge, artifacts, history, story, art and music.
Our built resources include, for example, a school library of around 40,000 volumes, two dedicated performance spaces with professional lighting and sound, a professional-level teaching kitchen for a culinary elective, dedicated dance, art, music, and fashion studios, well-equipped science labs, and extensive athletic fields and courts. Our methodological choices are based on sound educational research, and we keep a professional library of such research current and available to support our curriculum and instruction. We include a component of social and emotional learning in our activities and instruction, because we know that a kind and caring environment is essential to student well-being, emotional health and academic success. The continuing proof that we have achieved such a supportive and joyful environment is demonstrated by how happy our students are to attend school every day.