Northstar Academy
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Mission Statement
Northstar promotes educational excellence for students with disabilities who have academic, physical or social challenges. With a strong spirit of community, Northstar develops students with active, creative minds and encourages compassion and a respect and understanding for individual differences and for one another. Northstar presents our community of learners with a challenging educational environment, inspiring confident students who are willing to take intellectual risks and meet academic challenges with openness, enthusiasm, a willingness to solve problems and to make thoughtful decisions. Ultimately, Northstar creates an atmosphere that addresses the unique needs of their students in a changing society and culminates with their becoming active citizens and responsible stewards of our world.
About This Cause
At Northstar, we promote educational excellence and career opportunities for students with disabilities who have academic, physical, or social challenges. Northstar has been serving young people with a wide variety of disabilities since 1996. Northstar Academy serves students in grades K-12 and the Northstar Career Center (formerly Career Academy) program provides vocational training for young adults ages 16-24. Throughout our programming, we ensure an educational experience that is both traditional and unconventional, recognizing the unique needs of each student. We provide vocational and educational support as our upper school students plan for their future, and we support them in their life pursuits. We give our students a place to call their educational home. Northstar serves students with disabilities in 12 of the 13 categories, as defined by the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act. We are fully accredited by the Virginia Association of Independent Schools (VAIS) and the Virginia Association of Specialized Educational Facilities (VAISEF), and are licensed by the Virginia Department of Education. We are a School of Excellence, as designated by the National Association of Special Education Teachers (NASET). Our faculty and staff are experts in serving students with a range of disabilities, and we welcome children who other schools may have struggled to serve. Rather than applying rigid expectations based on their disabilities, our team celebrates each student’s uniqueness and abilities. We believe that our students benefit from an approach that doesn’t define them by their challenges, but instead works to uncover their individual skills and inspires them to achieve their greatest potential. Students thrive in an environment where we celebrate that their brains work differently and allow those differences to develop into highly valued strengths. Our faculty’s efforts combine cutting-edge educational research and professional resources to create customized education plans for each student to reach their highest aspirations and goals. Northstar’s 8:1 student to teacher ratio allows staff to create the ideal educational environment for each individual student. Because of this skilled, personalized attention and unique approach, parents and public schools trust us to educate their children. In fact, approximately half of our students are placed with us from 18 public school systems serving all of Central Virginia. One of the hallmarks of our program, and what makes us unique not only in the Richmond market but across the country, is that we are able to provide an incredibly diverse group of students with a meaningful, “real” school experience. We offer our students the small class size and individualized attention they need, while also giving them opportunities to participate in arts, sports, extracurriculars, and social events. Our students learn with others whose academic challenges may differ from their own, but they all have one thing in common. At their previous schools, they were frequently left behind, anxious, and bullied. At Northstar, they have friends, they fit in, they experience academic and social success, and overwhelmingly, students and their families tell us that they have finally discovered a place where they belong.