Acton Academy Audition: Step 2

Submit Your Formal Entry

This process is designed to make sure that we are the right school to serve the life-long learning needs for your child and your family.

We recognize that we ask you to dedicate time and thought to the process. Families who are thriving in our community often share that they truly enjoyed the process, and we hope you do, too.

Here are the steps to our application process:

  1. Introduce yourself. We want to know who you are! Complete a short form to introduce yourself and start the audition process.
  2. Conduct your research and submit your formal entry. Shortly after submitting the introduction form, we’ll send you an email with the next steps you can take to complete your formal entry and put your family into consideration for Acton Academy.
  3. Collaborative Interview. After receiving your formal entry, your family may be invited for a collaborative interview. This is sometimes an invitation for your family to visit during a school day, but can also be an informal meeting or video call depending on circumstances. It’s an opportunity to be sure we can serve your family well.
  4. Complete any follow-up tasks sent to you by our leadership team.  
  5. Invitation to enroll. Following the interview, if we believe Acton Academy would be a good fit for your family, we will invite you to enroll. Congratulations!
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These next questions are intended as conversation starters and to get a sense of your child's ability to follow the typical contracts and guardrails at our school. The contracts are made and upheld by the children -- we are a democratic and peer-led environment.

If an Arrow (that's what we call our learners) breaks the contract, depending on the severity of the action, the consequence is a "strike", given by a guide, or losing an "Arrow Buck", when requested by another Arrow. Arrow Bucks can be earned from doing hard work.

If an Arrow earns three strikes in two months or less, the Arrow is asked to remain at home for a day (or more) until the Arrow is ready to recommit to the community.  An accepted letter of apology and recommitment will be accompanied by a provisional contract further deliniating community expectations and guardrails that the Arrow must meet to remain a member of the Acton community.

You will find a few previous contracts from Spark and Discovery Studio below.

Spark Studio Guardails:

Be Kind, Be Safe, Clean Up.

Discovery Studio Contract

As an Acton Arrow I promise to:

• Have courage even when I am afraid.
• Not cheat.
• Do everything with kindness, encouragement, and truth.
• Take responsibility for my own actions.
• Hold myself and others accountable.
• Do appropriate things on my computer.
• Never give up and try my best.
• Not accept disrespect, poor sportsmanship, or bullying of any kind.
• Not cause physical or emotial harm to a fellow Arrow.
• Do what my fellow Arrows ask of me in serious times.
• Cleanup my cubby and zip up my backpack.
• Respect tools that I have and the ones that are given to me.
• Be respectful during socratic discussions by not talking when others are talking and raising my hand.
• Be helpful.

A key part of our program is working together with others to solve problems, achieve common goals, and resolve conflict. We understand that how this looks for five-year-olds is very different than for ten-year-olds!

Our youngest Arrows are able to share, be gentle, and kind with each other... most of the time. We know that kids are kids and we certainly are here to coach and support them when emotions are high and words not found. Emotional intelligence and character growth is fostered here every day.

Our oldest Arrows could run the ship! They could lead the Squads, organize school-wide events, offer suggestions to change systems, etc.

One of the ways independence grows is for the adults to not solve the learner's problems. A tool we use to facilitate this is to not directly answer their questions -- we call that, "3B4G." This means to use Books, Buddies, Brains (resources, asking a peer, thinking about it) before asking a Guide a question.

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