
Students, Families, & Staff
Avalon encourages students who are committed to learning to meet and exceed their goals. For example, I graduated with almost 50 credits at the end of my senior year. I frequently exceeded my goals on the time I spent working on my learning through projects.
There is an incredibly supportive environment from both the fellow students and teachers
I genuinely believe I wouldn't have survived high school without Avalon. I think there's also a very high chance I maybe wouldn't have graduated if I went anywhere else instead of Avalon. The support from the Avalon staff was unmatched, I never would have done so well in any of the subjects if not for the support from my teachers. From the individual attention from the advisor, to the class discussions you could feel that the Avalon teachers wanted you to succeed and that they were going to help you do that. Avalon has also had some of the most informed counselors and mental health professionals I have ever come across in a school setting and I think that was a huge part of my personal success.
To this day I think Avalon contributed more positively to my life than any other single institution, educational or otherwise. I arrived there in a pretty rough place, had more or less given up on education and I don't think I really believed I'd even graduate high school. Four years later I graduated - I had rediscovered my love of learning. Avalon rekindled my intellectual curiosity, bolstered my confidence, and helped me remember that I cared about the world and wanted to at least try to make it a slightly less crumby place. Avalon was borderline life-saving for me; words can't express how much I love and appreciate the place.
Graduating from Avalon helped be take accountability for my success. The project based education I recieved was invaluable in my real world experience as an adult. Even when I didn't do the work because I thought it was beyond me, every teacher empowered me and believed in my success.
Inclusiveness!
My advisors encouraged me to actively engage in the political process rather than sit on the sidelines just because I was too young to vote. As a result, I spent part of my sophomore year working on a political campaign with another student and utilized that volunteer experience towards meeting civic & government standards. One of the candidates we helped to elect won by only a small handful of votes. Avalon empowered us to get involved with our community and helped us to be the change we wanted to see in the world.
During my time at Avalon I was always encouraged to learn in a way that was most interesting to me. The focus on independent learning and the guiding of advisors on what could be an interesting approach to learning subjects made Avalon the best school that I have attended. Avalon was a great mixture of structured and independent learning that allowed me to take interesting courses on historical fiction, but also let me take topics into my own hands such as spending a year learning college math and working on making guides to help teach math to my peers in my advisory.
We love the opportunity for independent learning and the sense of community our son feels among is classmates and peers. My son has really benefited from the extracurricular activities (like Robotics, D and D, and he is about to join another club.)
Our son has finally become invested in his own learning... it's incredible!
Helpful with accommodating and being supportive of needs that I would not have been able to succeed without. Avalon was willing to accommodate me in ways that allowed me to succeed and have an equal education when I otherwise would not.
10/10 would go to high school there again.
I really don't believe that I would have received this kind of guidance and attention if I were in a traditional classroom setting, because it's not set up for individualized teaching. I feel that this kind of guidance helped me learn resilience and professional skills, as well as life skills to be able to achieve my professional and higher education goals. Whatever path I wanted to take in life, they would help guide me there, and if they noticed I was struggling or on the wrong path they were there to guide me back.
Our son has never felt this supported in a school setting before. He feels really seen, heard, and valued at Avalon. When conflicts arise, he feels like there are lots of helpful adults around to support him and yet who also give him space to practice and get better at new social, academic and wellness skills. He has a wide variety of friends and opportunities through Avalon and is absolutely thriving! We can't thank the Avalon community enough for creating this kind of trusting and growth-minded community.
I love the SPED services, the project-based learning is awesome, I love how invested the teachers are, and the diversity of the community
