Science and Arts Academy

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The Science and Arts Academy is currently located in Des Plaines, a suburb of Chicago, Illinois. It is a school of gifted curriculum and is actually quite small. It was founded by Ms. Helen Bartz and others who also founded the Quest Academy, and it is located in what used to be an office building.

The school is comprised of levels from Preschool to 8th Grade. It is currently under the headmastership of Dr. Mary Christensen. The school has one floor, a band, a multi-purpose room (which is usually used as the gym), a lunchroom, an art room, and two science labs (one for the Upper School and one for the Lower School). It teaches three foreign languages, Spanish and French (both taught until 2nd grade when the students decide which one to study further) and at the 5th grade level, Latin (along with the earlier selected French or Spanish). Some distinguished teachers include Ronald Solberg (Social Studies), Marisa Tinaglia (multiple subjects), and Robert Allen (Music).

[edit] Steps not grades

The school does not have "grades" (e.g. 8th grade; 1st grade), but rather has "steps". The students sometimes debate what grades or steps mean (e.g. "4th step is 1st grade.") It is different for all the students, as some stay in the same class for two years (this is considered "not moving on", some students take it offensively, although the teachers mean no such thing). The school goes from Step 1 to Step 7, and then there are Step Beta and Step Alpha. These have recently been discounted and the names are currently Step 8 and Step 9. Most steps are divided in two (e.g. 7A and 7B) and the only ones that are not are Step 1 and Step Alpha (or 9). Some of the students have noticed that some of the A-Bs are divided by age (e.g. 7A has people that are 9 or 10 and 7B has people that are 11 or 12 year old). In the 2006-2007 school year, the school says they are not using steps, but are instead grouping homerooms by age but each student has their own individual schedule. There are a few classes, like art, where students have class with their homeroom only, but mostly classes are grouped by ability.

[edit] Mascot

In 2003, the teachers had realized that the school had no mascot and decided to get one. They let the students nominate mascots, and then vote between the top five. The top five were: