Tempe Preparatory Academy

Tempe Preparatory Academy
Location
Tempe, Arizona
United States
Coordinates 33°23′33″N 111°55′07″W / 33.392611°N 111.918514°W / 33.392611; -111.918514Coordinates: 33°23′33″N 111°55′07″W / 33.392611°N 111.918514°W / 33.392611; -111.918514
Information
Type Public (charter) secondary
Motto Verum, pulchrum, bonum
"Truth, beauty, goodness"
Established 1996
Grades 6–12
Enrollment

High School: About 240 students.

Junior High School: About 200 students (May 2015)
Mascot Knights
Accreditation North Central Association, American Academy for Liberal Education
Website http://www.tempeprep.org/

Tempe Preparatory Academy is a public charter school in Tempe, a suburb of Phoenix, Arizona in the United States. Founded in 1996, Tempe Preparatory Academy (also known as Tempe Prep or TPA) offers a Great Books, core liberal arts curriculum centered on Western tradition, history, language, and literature. Its motto is Verum, Pulchrum, Bonum, meaning Truth, Beauty, Goodness. It is also the founding model for the Great Hearts Academies schools, with which it is otherwise unaffiliated. Tempe Prep is an independently-governed public charter school. The current headmaster is Dr. Wayne Porter. Past headmasters include Dr. Thomas Butler, Mr. Andrew Zwernaman, Dr. Daniel Scoggin, Mr. Ron Bergez, Ms. Julie Boles, Mr. Hugh Hallman, Dr. Torren Baker and Dr. David Baum.

Tempe Prep's Mission Statement

"The mission of Tempe Preparatory Academy is to educate students for the lifelong pursuit of truth, goodness, and beauty. TPA graduates have a foundation in the liberal arts of grammar and rhetoric, logic and mathematics, history, natural science, and philosophy. Graduates will also have practiced the fine arts of music, drawing and painting, and drama. TPA graduates are thus prepared for every career, every course of advanced or specialized study, and every kind of leisure".[1]

Tempe Prep also declares, "Our mission is to enable students, grades 6th-12th, to acquire critical reasoning and communication skills and to explore the cultural and scientific achievements that are at the heart of the liberal arts and sciences… ".[1]

School Philosophy

As a charter school, Tempe Prep offers a rigorous liberal arts education centering on fundamental texts in the Western Tradition that is the same for all students. Tempe Prep's philosophy includes small class sizes (maximum of 23 students) and education using the Socratic method. The school boasts "Dedicated, enthusiastic, and intellectually excellent teachers who serve as models of learning and of character," along with, "Detailed student evaluation, with an emphasis upon written, narrative evaluation of learning rather than upon grades and percentages".[1]

Admission

Tempe Prep is the only open enrollment public High School ranked in Arizona's Top 10 for two consecutive years. Tempe Preparatory Academy (Grades 6-12) is a tuition-free, state-chartered public schools with a mission to educate students for the lifelong pursuit of truth, beauty, and goodness through a rigorous liberal arts curriculum of honors level courses, small class sizes of 23 students, and a 12:1 student faculty ratio".[1]

"Though the curriculum is rigorous and expectations for students are high, the Academies are not exclusive schools strictly for the elite. Our goal is to provide an environment that allows every student who is curious and diligent the opportunity to fulfill her or his potential. The Academies offer a core curriculum in which each of the grades builds on previous grades over the student’s seven-year tenure. The 11th and 12th grades in particular gather all of the previous years of liberal arts study together to offer students a critical and comprehensive understanding of the Western tradition".[1]

As a public school in Arizona, Tempe Preparatory Academy has no entrance requirements. Interested families must apply for the school's annual admissions lottery, which generally takes place in January of each school year. The waiting list is established at the lottery for grade 6 and rolls over to the next grade each year. However, if a family has one child enrolled, all other children automatically receive priority enrollment in accordance with Arizona's charter school law. [1]

As a charter school, Tempe Prep has the right to cap its enrollment, and does so with a set limit of class sections per grade and with no more than 23 students per section. The Tempe Preparatory Academy High School (Grades 9-12) has a maximum of 3 sections, totaling 69 students, per grade. Tempe Preparatory Academy Middle School (Grades 6-8) has a maximum of 4 sections, totaling 92 students, per grade.

Academic and Extracurricular Recognition

Tempe Prep's Academic Recognitions include:

A few of Tempe Prep's numerous extracurricular recognitions include:

Academics

"The Tempe Prep curriculum focuses on Western Culture during a student’s seven years at the school. This focus is not intended as a statement about other cultural heritages. We believe, rather, that seven years is just enough time to offer students a comprehensive introduction to the great works of the Western tradition, including literature, philosophy, history, math, science, languages, and the fine arts. The Western tradition is one of great depth and diversity (of peoples and ideas) and will serve as a superb foundation to our students as they go on to be life-long learners. Additionally, many of the principal values and ideas that underlie our own American society may be clearly traced in the classics we study".[1]

Tempe Preparatory Academy offers a set academic curriculum for each grade level. In addition, 9-12th grade students may choose to study Latin/Greek, French, Spanish, or German.

"A cornerstone of the liberal arts curriculum at Tempe Preparatory Academy is the Humane Letters Seminar. In the 9th through 12th grades, English, history, philosophy, and economics are combined in Humane Letters, a 2-hour long, daily seminar directed Socratically and revolving around primary source readings from Western Civilization’s best works. The goal of the HL sequence is to help students understand the Trivium (grammar, logic, and rhetoric) in the humanities through close textual readings, daily group discussions, and intensive, progressive writing assignments".[1]

Tempe Preparatory Academy added a 6th grade in 2008.

Senior thesis and defense

"The culminating project for an Academy student is the Senior Thesis. At the beginning of the senior year, the student selects a field of inquiry from the curriculum — literature, philosophy, math, science, the arts — and then reads three or four substantial primary texts to examine in preparation for writing a 15 - 20 page analytical paper. At its core, the thesis is an exploration of one of the “Six Great Ideas” of humanity summarized as Truth, Beauty, Goodness, Justice, Liberty, and Equality. Students discuss texts in small group seminars composed of students, faculty, staff and board members, and work individually with a faculty member on the paper. After submitting the paper in the second semester, the senior then publicly defends the thesis before a three-member panel of faculty reviewers and also the community at large".[1]

Student life

Activities

Tempe Prep offers many extracurriculars in fine arts and academics. Although Tempe Prep is a small school, the Speech and Debate team and Odyssey of the Mind teams are competitive, regularly placing in the top 5 at tournaments with many schools over 10 times the size. Tempe Prep has won the Arizona 1A-2A-3A State Champion in Speech and Debate every year from 2006, through 2013.[6] The Speech and Debate team moved to AIA Division I competition as of 2013. The Odyssey of the Mind teams won the State Championship between 2002 until 2007 with a World Final Placement of 5th place in 2004, 4th place in 2007, 2nd place in 2008, and 5th place in the 2009 World Finals Competition.

Extracurricular Academic Clubs include, Speech and Debate (nine years state champions), Odyssey of the Mind, High School Robotics Club (5th in World Competition 2015), Junior High Robotics League, Art Club, Spanish Club, Yearbook, School Newspaper, and National Honor Society.

The school also offers numerous Extracurricular Performing Arts Groups, such as Spring Opera Workshop, Sinfonia (school orchestra), Junior Varsity Strings, Junior High Choir, and Cantamus, High School varsity choir, which sang at Carnegie Hall in the summer of 2007.

Athletics

In high school athletics, Tempe Prep competes in the AIA (Arizona Interscholastic Association) and is a member of its Div 4 Conference. Among the school's strengths are track and field, where the women's team has won six state titles including five straight from 2005 to 2009, runner-up 2012, 2013, 2014[7] and the men's team has won three of its own.[8] In women's soccer, the school won the state 1A-2A-3A winter championship in 2008;[9] they also claimed the Women's Division IV basketball championship in 2012 and were runners-up in 2013, losing the title by 2 points in the last 14 seconds of the game.[10] In total, Tempe Prep high school sports teams have won a total of 11 state championships.[11] Junior high athletics compete in the Valley Christian Schools League.

Tempe Preparatory Academy offers the following athletic teams:

Senior trip

The week after spring break, senior students join faculty members on a trip to Washington D.C. The trip regularly lasts several days and sometimes includes visits to Philadelphia and historic sites in Virginia.

Demographics

Currently Tempe Preparatory Academy's demographic cross section consists of 83.4% white, 1.5% black, 7.1% Hispanic, and approximately 8.0% miscellaneous race.

References

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