2025-26 Expanded Program Overview
The Attic Learning Community is excited to announce that our program is expanding beginning with the 2025-2026 school year. After being a part-time program during its first 25 years, The Attic is expanding its program and calendar while still maintaining its commitment to child-centered, authentic learning. If you were familiar with The Attic in the past, you know that because of its part-time program, learners needed to be enrolled as homeschool students. Beginning in 2025-2026, full-time Attic learners will be able to receive their full school program from The Attic and no longer be required to enroll as home school families.
Program Expansion - What To Expect
The Attic’s commitment to its pedagogy, culture, and child-centered practices are not changing. We remain committed to:
- Celebrating mistakes as essential to the learning process
- Listening to and trusting our learners
- Teachers partnering with learners in crafting their educational experience
- Providing choices and supporting learners in advocating for themselves
- Learning through play and providing freedom for exploration
- Giving learners space to find their passions and explore their interests
- Multi-age experiences in the classroom and across the school
- Providing opportunities for independent study, mentorships, and involvement in activities outside of The Attic. Staff will support learners pursuing their interests both in and out of school.
- Prioritizing community (among learners as well as among families) – an essential part of the Attic experience
- Community building activities for learners
- Community building activities for families
- Valued Attic traditions such as the Family Retreat and park days
- A school day/week that supports the social, emotional and developmental needs of learners.
- Time for play and choice
- Time for rest and reflection
The Expanded Program Will Feature:
- Deeper dives into core content and the growth of strong academic skills through the use of constructivist tools, including inquiry and project based learning. Our expanded calendar will provide more time for learners to develop as readers, writers, mathematicians, scientists, geographers, historians and more.
- Outdoor education that uses our beautiful, 5 acre campus as a learning laboratory. Our campus includes a wealth of native flora and fauna to explore, a stream to study, trees to climb, and a garden where learners plant and harvest vegetables and herbs. Our expanded program will allow teachers to regularly extend hands-on, authentic learning from their indoor classrooms into our outdoor space.
- Adventure based play immerses learners in the natural environment at recess – running through the field, climbing trees, and using natural materials like branches and pinecones for imaginary play.
- Field studies and off campus learning experiences will expand opportunities for authentic learning. Field studies, unlike traditional field trips, use off campus explorations as part of the inquiry process, with learners taking their questions to the experts who work in the field and allowing learners to see, touch and participate in activities that make learning real and relevant.
- An expanded arts program including theater, music and art studios. The arts are taught in specialty programs and also infused in meaningful ways across the curriculum at The Attic.
- Interest projects allow Attic learners to find and explore their passions and then share what they have learned with our community. Interest Project Night will continue to be a highlight of the year, and the expanded program will allow additional opportunities for learners to explore their unique questions.
Frequently Asked Questions
School will start at 8:45 a.m. and end at 3:30 p.m. for all learners. The school year will run from Labor Day through just after Memorial Day, meeting the state requirements for instructional time. Breaks during the year will be similar to other local schools.
The program is expanding to a full school year, full 5 day program. Therefore, families enrolled in the full-time program will no longer be required to register as homeschool families. For high school students, The Attic will offer all courses required to meet high school graduation requirements. Juniors and seniors will still have the option of enrolling part-time at The Attic and attending Running Start programs part-time. Families enrolling in the full program including high school students attending Running Start classes will no longer be required to register as homeschool families.
Families will have the option of enrolling in a part-time, 4 day a week program. Part-time students will attend Mondays through Thursdays and those students will be required to self-register with the State as homeschool students.
Yes. Previously, The Attic’s faculty worked part-time because of the shortened schedule. The expanded schedule will make it easier for The Attic to retain our amazing teachers and attract new teachers because they will be able to work full-time at The Attic. With our small classes, the cost of salaries is the largest budget expense, and so the increase in our personnel costs will require an increase in tuition. Every effort is being made to keep The Attic affordable for families while also paying our staff fairly for the incredible work they do. Tuition for 2025-2026 will be announced in late November so families plan ahead.
The cost of an independent school education is significant, and families often look to extended family and other resources to make enrolling in an independent school possible. When additional support is needed, the Attic has need-based tuition assistance available to families. The Attic uses FAST to determine a family’s need and provides assistance to meet as much of that need as our funds allow.
