Our Mission and Philosophy
Saint Michael’s Academy, an Episcopal Day School -- commonly known as Saint Michael's Episcopal School -- is a school for children of all faiths and nations, providing a classical,college preparatory curriculum and firmly embedded in the Episcopal school tradition. We are committed to academic excellence and the growth of each child in learning, character, and faith, or as it appears on the school seal: Scientia, Pietas, Fides.
What does this mean, exactly? It means that while any educational institution's primary goal is naturally education, we recognize that the acquisition of knowledge must include self-knowledge, as well as the development in each child of a tender conscience, trustworthiness, and integrity as a person, and finally that our faith undergirds all we do and are.
Saint Michael’s is a small, coeducational institution comprising a Nursery(infants and toddlers) Pre-School (Threes and Pre-Kindergarten), a Lower School(Grades K-VI) and an Upper School (Grades VII-XII) in a caring, extended-family atmosphere. All grades meet daily for Chapel, with liturgy drawn from The Book of Common Prayer, helping us to promote that family atmosphere by centering our school experience on care for one another, mutual respect, and love for God's good world, while our Sacred Studies program enables students to know their faith intimately, and to wrestle with the greatest questions of the age. A rigorous, classical curriculum prepares students for college and for lifelong intellectual curiosity. By definition we consider a classical education to emphasize the interrelationship of traditional disciplines in all aspects, ancient and
modern, cultural and spiritual. A classical education must include a process of searching, questioning, learning to learn and to solve problems creatively.
The school operates in an atmosphere of trust, cooperation and involvement among students,faculty and parents. The school promotes a vision of our place in the world community. Methods of teaching have the objectives of instilling knowledge, developing mental discipline, stimulating curiosity and creativity, learning to learn and reason rather than rote memorization as well as creative problem solving. The school promotes fair competition and provides a setting where students can develop clear values and moral vision.School Purposes and Objectives.
The purpose of Saint Michael’s Episcopal School is to provide for each child a superior education in a Christian context. Among the stated objectives of the school are: to help each child reach his or her potential for intellectual growth at each stage of development, to enable the child to learn both in a group and independently, to acquire mastery of necessary skills in the traditional subjects of English language and literature, foreign languages, history, mathematics, the sciences, the fine arts, physical education and religion, to become proficient in the use of information technology, to acquire time management skills and good study habits, to encourage competition in sportsmanlike ways, to provide opportunities for public speaking and performance, to promote lively intellectual discourse, to encourage mental discipline through memory tasks and problem solving, to expect reverence in daily corporate worship.