Personalized learning is learning that takes place in small communities of teachers and students, where everyone feels a sense of belonging, and there is a unique identity, curricular focus, and sense of purpose. Through personal connections with teachers and peers, students are better able to understand and address their needs and goals. These connections also provide teachers more opportunities to make curriculum relevant and accessible to each student.

The Springfield Academy of Arts and Academics is built around a particular vision: we believe that students make the most of their learning when they take ownership of their education – when students intentionally choose to take on the challenge real learning entails. We further believe that this ownership most naturally develops within a learning community, encouraged by others who share that commitment.

Creating such a learning community, however, isn’t simplistic. While our common vision has evolved, a few foundational commitments continue to shape our program:

• Integration: While much of American schooling tends to compartmentalize and over-specialize, we are committed to integration: we want students to see their learning, their world, and their lives whole. Thus, we seek to help students make connections within academic disciplines, between the academics and the arts, between their lives now and their lives as they enter the larger global community in a very few years.
• Excellence: With this holistic vision firmly in mind, we also believe students deserve the opportunity to go deep – to develop and pursue a particular passion at increasingly greater depth, guided by mentors in our community who can encourage excellence.

Because such connections take time – and because real community involves relationships – we commit ourselves to this particular group of students over the course of four years and we ask that students make a similar commitment to this learning community.