Trinity Episcopal School is a K-8 Episcopal school in Austin, Texas that offers enriched and rigorous academics in a nurturing and diverse environment. Trinity's core values are a Christian Foundation, Enriched Academic Excellence, a Diverse Community, and Family Commitment. The school was founded in 1999 in a rented blue house near the University of Texas campus. Since that inaugural year, the school has grown from 13 students to nearly 400, moved to a 15-acre (61,000 m2) campus in West Lake Hills and built three buildings.
Trinity's graduates attend some of the nation's finest public and independent high schools, including St. Stephen's Episcopal School, St. Andrew's Episcopal School, St. Michael's Catholic Academy, The Hockaday School for Girls, Choate Rosemary Hall, Avon Old Farms School, and the Liberal Arts and Science Academy (LASA) High School. Trinity has become known for its strong, close-knit community and its commitment to professional development for faculty.
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Trinity's Lower School uses a workshop approach for the teaching of reading and writing. Developed by Lucy Calkins of Columbia University, the workshop approach develops writers who have confidence in their own voices and fluency with a number of different formats and styles. Trinity's rigorous and innovative math program develops math fluency, treating the subject as a language to understand rather than a series of facts to memorize. The vertically integrated curriculum embeds basic algebraic and geometric concepts into the earliest math education and incorporates the workshop approach developed by Catherine Fosnot of the City College of New York. Students also take Think Tank, a program ordinarily offered in gifted & talented programs; Classroom of the Earth, a hands-on science program; music; art; Spanish; and physical education. Third and fourth grade students participate in Project Expert, a major research project that incorporates organization, writing, and presentation skills.
In the Middle School, students have an opportunity to complete both Algebra 1 and Geometry by the end of their 8th grade year. Students can also earn high school credit for a number of other classes, including Latin, Speech, and Integrated Physics and Chemistry.
Trinity's Head of School is Patricia Coughlin Adams. Mrs. Adams was previously the Head of School at the Emerson School in Ann Arbor, MI, an independent K-8 school for gifted and academically talented students. She also spent 27 years at the St. John’s School in Houston, beginning as a second grade teacher and serving as Assistant Head of Lower School, Head of Lower School, and eventually becoming the Head of Lower and Middle Schools. She was nominated by the Klingenstein Center at Columbia University as an outstanding school head in 2007, and served as President of the Association of Independent Michigan Schools.
As members of the National Association of Episcopal School, Trinity embraces the NAES description of Episcopal schools in a recent brochure, "In an Episcopal school, faith and reason are partners in an ethos that places learning solidly in the context of each person's lifelong search for truth. Within a Christian tradition of tolerance and open inquiry, an Episcopal education teaches students to welcome and respect diverse and differing points of view." Trinity offers daily chapel in both the Lower School and the Middle School. The Chaplain is the Rev. Cathy Boyd.
The Trinity Tornado competes in the Austin Inter Parochial League (AIPL) in the following sports:
Girls: Cross-Country, Volleyball, Basketball, Lacrosse, Soccer, Tennis, Track, Golf
Boys: Cross-Country, Tackle Football, Flag Football, Basketball, Soccer, Lacrosse, Tennis, Track, Golf
Trinity is known for having a very high-standard athletics program. Having many great athletes planning on going to D-1 schools for sports.
Trinity has a robust arts program that incorporates both elective courses and extracurricular activities. The school hosts a school-wide art show each spring, has several choirs and solo opportunities, and a drama department that produces a fall drama and a spring musical. Trinity's Varsity Choir won the Best in Class trophy at the 2009 Lone Star Showcase choral competition in Dallas. The school newspaper, "Eye of the Tornado," is student-led and produced.