The mission of The Vanguard School is to help guide students in development of their character and academic potential through academically rigorous, content-rich educational programs.
Vanguard students develop lifelong habits of excellence in virtue and intellect allowing them to prosper as classically-educated individuals advancing a free society. Our enduring nationally acclaimed program prepares graduates for advanced education, meaningful contributions to society, and a life of purpose.
The culture of The Vanguard School is one of excellence in all things with particular focus on excellence in virtue, academics, leadership, and civics. This is achieved through continual self-examination with a focus on continuous improvement. Students and teachers are proud to be at a school that provides a rigorous education and expects more effort and results than other schools. At The Vanguard School, students are proud to excel in the classroom, in extra-curricular activities, in community involvement, and in virtue. Those who excel are acknowledged and celebrated while those who don’t are encouraged, pushed, and supported.
Our culture values every student and promotes fulfillment of The Vanguard School’s mission for every student. It is the product of people and environment. Toward that end, the people who comprise the staff are virtuous, educated in the classical liberal tradition, and committed to striving with others in pursuit of a high and noble purpose. They possess an understanding of human experience that is a consequence of serious study in literature, history, and philosophy. From this education, they understand each person’s potential for good and evil, and they strive to develop virtue in themselves and their students as they impart knowledge. They recognize – and choose – what is good, true, and beautiful. Together, these people endeavor to produce an environment that is serious, purposeful, academically-oriented, appropriately intellectual, and student-focused; one that is, at the same time, warm, supportive, and compassionate.
Those things that embody truth and beauty are hallmarks of the environment and readily discerned in the school. In this environment, objective rights and wrongs exist, and our American patrimony is explained, embraced, and celebrated. Ultimately, the school culture – the school’s environment and the people whose labors shape it – helps equip students to lead virtuous lives and achieve at the highest intellectual levels. It is a beacon for students, their families, and the wider society; it serves, in the words of T. S. Eliot, as “the preface to our successors’ victory.”
