At Virtus Academy, we make a promise to our students to empower them with the skills and tools they need to achieve academically and personally. From the minute they join our Power Pack, we groom and nurture them to become capable, confident leaders and public servants with a zest for problem-solving and a joy for learning and life.
Our specialized learning community thrives in a friendly, creative, and collaborative atmosphere. We’re serious about education, and we set the bar high, but at the same time, we know it’s essential to make learning fun.
“I was reading the dictionary. I thought it was a poem about everything.”
Steven Wright
Project-Based Learning (PBL)
Our PBL curriculum follows a proven teaching method where students learn by actively engaging in real-world and personally meaningful projects over an extended period to investigate and respond to authentic, appealing, and complex questions, problems, or challenges. They demonstrate their knowledge and skills by creating a public product or presentation for a real audience.
PBL requires critical thinking, problem-solving, collaboration, and various forms of communication. We expect students to do much more than remember information to answer a driving question and create high-quality work. We teach them to use higher-order thinking skills and work as a team.
It’s a proven teaching process that captivates students in many ways and enriches their minds with a learning style that is deep and long-lasting.
Leadership Development
Our Leadership Development curriculum follows Leader in Me, an evidence-based, comprehensive model that builds students’ leadership and life skills, creates a high-trust school culture, and lays the foundation for sustained academic achievement.
Rooted in a “whole-child” mindset, our curriculum and teaching style address five core beliefs influencing the student, family, and community.
Everyone can be a leader.
Everyone has genius.
Change starts with me.
Educators empower students to lead their own learning.
Develop the whole person.
Students learn you don’t have to be in a formal position of authority to be a leader. Anyone can be a leader by intentionally leading one’s own life and working well with and encouraging greatness in others.
Service-Learning Development
Our Service-Learning curriculum fosters civic responsibility by providing unique opportunities for students to make a positive impact on issues that matter to them, whether they’re local, statewide, or global. Through a combination of classroom learning and organized hands-on activities, our young people rise to meet a community need by acknowledging the underlying problem and addressing it through action.
We instill in our students the habit of performing a service for others by teaching them to flex their volunteer muscles through direct, indirect, and advocacy service. Data indicates that when children and youth volunteer at a young age, they grow up to be more aware and engaged in the needs of their local communities.
Education is not the filling of a pail, but the lighting of a fire.
W.B. Yates