Elon Musk is launching Ad Astra, a new private school for children ages 3-9 in Bastrop, Texas, that aims to redefine the learning experience for young students.
Scheduled to open its doors in September for the 2024-2025 academic year, the Montessori-inspired school promises a fresh approach to STEM education for students, with a focus on self-directed learning, nurturing creativity, and developing problem-solving skills.
While the school is not a Montessori school, the website notes that it values the experience its Montessori-trained educators bring to the classroom.
“Their experience in child-centered learning fosters critical thinking skills by providing a learning environment that helps students develop the skills necessary to think critically, solve problems, and make informed decisions,” the school website states.
Bastrop’s Ad Astra, which means “to the stars” in Latin, is the latest project launched by Musk, who first founded the school in 2015 for children of SpaceX employees. Now, the school is expanding its reach to include a broader community.
Ad Astra will also feature mixed-age classrooms designed to build a strong sense of community among students and teachers.
Unique to Ad Astra is its selective admissions process, which will be based on merit, according to its admissions site.
This method aims to identify and support students who demonstrate a strong potential for STEM-related fields. The school will accommodate 18 students in the primary education group for ages 3 through 6 and 30 students in the lower elementary group for ages 6 through 9, according to the school’s website.
The school will subsidize the tuition for the upcoming academic year. This move is part of Musk’s broader strategy to make high-quality education more financially accessible than other private schools.
Musk’s educational ambitions are part of a larger trend of expanding his ventures into Texas, which also include Space X, the social media site X, and electric car manufacturer Tesla, all of which are now headquartered in Texas, as previously reported by The Dallas Express.
The application deadline for the 2024-2025 school year is September 1, and families will be notified of their child’s status by September 7. For more information on admissions and the new school’s educational approach, interested families can visit Ad Astra’s website.
As DX has reported, traditional public schools have been seeing declining enrollment over the years, in part due to sagging student achievement outcomes. Dallas ISD, for instance, saw only 41% of its students score at grade level on the STAAR exam during the 2021-2022 school year. Additionally, that same school year, almost 20% of graduating seniors did not earn a diploma in four years.