Distinctive Features

Kirby’s college preparatory educational program is distinctive:

  • Small classes (averaging twelve students) provide flexible pacing and individual attention and afford teachers and students the opportunity to forge close working relationships. Teaching is vibrant, innovative, and hands-on.
  • We believe that creative expression is fundamental to the human experience and that work in the arts enhances learning in other areas. Visual and performing arts are an integral part of our academic curriculum, offering students the opportunity to broaden their horizons and enhance learning in other areas.
  • Study of high school-level foreign language begins as early as seventh grade.
  • Math placement is based upon level of mastery (not grade), enabling students to work at a pace appropriate for them.
  • Optional high school Intensive Path programs provide guidance for in-depth study in the arts, science and technology, languages, or the humanities. Information on each is available in this catalog in the respective academic division.
  • In an Individual Study class, high school students may focus on a particular project or course of study.
  • High school students choose from an array of rotating electives and advanced coursework; juniors and seniors are offered a wide range of semester-long electives to complete their English requirements.
  • Senior Seminar is a culmination of each student’s educational experience. It is a forum for reading and discussion about ethics, values, and the decisions that students must make as they stand on the threshold between high school and college. It includes mentorship for a senior project that makes room for journeys along alternative roads to human excellence.
  • Learning goes beyond the classroom, encouraging students who are engaged and involved. Sophomores bring their reading of The Grapes of Wrath to life through historical research and taped interviews with community members. (See their website www.gowrestored.com). The study of sound involves taping music in Kirby’s recording studio. Journalists chronicle issues important to our community in INK, the award-winning school newspaper.
  • In the annual science fair, students work with an outside mentor who is an expert in his or her field. This sometimes involves professional collaboration, such as a project working with NASA on a computer modeling project to analyze the rings of Saturn. Students with computer technology expertise applied their programming skills to create Kirby’s website and developed internal portals for student, teacher, and family communication. Art and music students perform in multiple school and community productions and competitions.