The New Model of School Is Already Here
On a quiet morning in Chadds Ford, Pennsylvania, scholars sit around a table reading Homer. No laptops are open, and no slides are projected—only a question that lingers in the room longer than most classrooms allow.
“What does Achilles believe makes a life worth living?” a mentor asks.
The scholars hesitate—not because they don’t know the answer but because the question assumes something more than just recall. It assumes judgment.
By early afternoon, the room has shifted. One scholar heads to a local technical program. Another steps into the school’s recording studio. A third moves between a draft of a story and her notes from a forensic science course she’s deliberately taken to deepen the realism of her capstone: a young adult crime novel.
This new school model is available to Grade 9 scholars at Innovate Academy come Fall 2026.
Here, educators are introducing a more personalized approach in the Rhetoric Stage—one that blends classical learning, cognitive science, and career-aligned pathways into a coherent, future-facing education.
The result is not only deeper formation, but graduates who enter college with direction, experience, and up to two years already behind them. More importantly, they graduate scholars who are not only prepared for the world but are ready to shape it as Culture Makers.
A Different Kind of Day
“We didn’t start with the schedule,” says Head of School, Monica Guaglione, “We started with a question: What is education actually for?”
Her answer is both traditional and quietly radical.
Mornings are reserved for Integrated Classical Humanities, which are long-form discussions of history, literature, and theology organized not by subject, but by era. Students encounter ideas as they emerge: in conversation, in conflict, and in context.
Afternoons look entirely different.
“That’s where things become personal,” Guaglione says.
Beginning in Fall 2026, Grade 9 scholars will move into math, science, and electives through individualized plans—self-paced, live, or online courses—each shaped by a longer-term vision developed alongside a Life Architect and College & Career Counselor.
Some will pursue advanced academics. Others will explore trades. Many will begin building something of their own.
The structure is not innovation for its own sake—it’s alignment.
“It’s all about coherence,” she says. “We’re aligning the day with how students learn best and when they’re motivated to do something with it.”
A Campus Designed for the Formation of Scholars
That alignment extends beyond the schedule and into the life of the campus itself.
At Innovate Academy, this vision is already visible.
The school is anchored by three centers—the Innovation Center, Academic Support Center, and Wellness Center—each designed to support a different dimension of formation.
In the Innovation Center, ideas move into action through entrepreneurship, media, and hands-on creation. The Academic Resource Center ensures that rigor is personal and supported, giving scholars the structure they need to excel. And the Wellness Center reflects a conviction often overlooked in modern education: that intellectual growth is inseparable from physical, emotional, and spiritual health.
This is not a conceptual model. It is already in place, and Innovate Academy is prepared to welcomee scholars entering Grade 9 this fall.
Why the Old Model Is Under Pressure
For decades, American education has followed a familiar timeline: broad exposure in adolescence, specialization in college, and application sometime after.
That sequence is beginning to strain, as tuition costs continue to rise, employers increasingly value experience alongside credentials, and new research in cognitive science has challenged long-held assumptions about how learning works. In fact, many studies have shown that “critical thinking” is not a standalone skill, but one built on a deep base of knowledge. Students who know more—who have read widely, encountered ideas in context, and stored them in long-term memory—are better able to reason, analyze, and create.
This is one reason classical education has seen renewed attention. Publications such as The Wall Street Journal have highlighted its growth, while organizations such as the Association of Classical Christian Schools report strong performance in reading and verbal reasoning.
But the model is not only about content. It’s about timing.
The Moment Students Are Ready
Classical education has long followed a developmental sequence: grammar, logic, rhetoric. Younger students memorize, middle school students analyze, and older students express.
Modern neuroscience offers a parallel. As adolescents develop, particularly in the prefrontal cortex, they gain the capacity for abstract thinking, long-term planning, and identity formation. “They’re ready for more than consumption,” says Amanda Ashworth, one of Innovate’s Life Architects. “They’re ready for creation.”
And yet, in many schools, that capacity goes largely unused. Often, students reach the age when they are most capable of meaningful work, and are asked to wait.
At Innovate, Grade 9 marks that shift. “Everything changes there,” Ashworth says. “Because the student’s mind is ready.”
A Map of the Mind
Central to that shift is the Highlands Ability Battery, an assessment that measures how a student processes information—how they reason, communicate, remember, and solve problems.
“It’s not a personality test,” Ashworth explains. “It’s looking at patterns of ability—things that are relatively stable over time, as well as students' interests. It’s a model centered around the whole person, just like our Academy is.”
Research by Johnson O’Connor Research Foundation and the AIMS Institute has long suggested that individuals perform best when their work aligns with their natural cognitive strengths—a concept often referred to as person-environment fit. Highlands builds on this by connecting ability patterns to real-world careers, often using frameworks such as O*NET.
But at Innovate, the implications go beyond efficiency.
“What changes,” Ashworth says, “is that scholars stop asking, ‘What should I do?’ and begin asking, ‘How has God designed me? What am I built to do well—and where might that meet a real need?’”
Jane’s Path
Consider a student, Jane. She arrives in Grade 9 with a love for stories but no clear sense of direction. Like many students her age, she knows what she enjoys, but not yet how that might translate into a life.
At Innovate Academy, this is where the journey begins. Through iLAB, the school’s four-year innovation sequence, Grade 9 scholars begin in what is called the Imagine phase. In this first year, Jane takes a Culture Making course and completes the Highlands Ability Battery, a cognitive assessment designed to reveal how she is naturally wired to think and communicate. The results are clarifying. Jane is identified as a strong conceptual thinker and communicator—someone who can organize complex ideas and express them with precision.
“That’s not just academic,” says Teresa Appleby, a member of the Academy’s board who has significant experience working with gifted students in the STEM space. “That’s directional.”
Jane then begins to see a path in writing—specifically, in storytelling.
By Grade 10, she enters the Investigate phase of iLAB. What began as an interest now becomes a line of inquiry. She studies narrative structure, analyzes the mechanics of suspense, and begins researching both the creative and commercial sides of publishing. It is here that she proposes her Culture Maker Capstone: a young adult mystery novel.
Her academic plan begins to align around it—not by narrowing her education, but by integrating it. She studies literature not only as interpretation, but as craft. She explores marketing to understand the audience and reach. For science, she enrolls in a self-paced forensic science course, learning how evidence is gathered, how investigations unfold, and how details hold—or unravel—a case.
“Our model changes how she approaches everything,” Appleby says. “Now it’s not just schoolwork—it’s preparation for her life’s work.”
By Grade 11, Jane moves into the Implement phase. The idea becomes work. She drafts chapters, tests plotlines, and revises structure. Her Fridays—set aside for applied learning—shift accordingly. She spends time in environments where communication and storytelling matter: writing, assisting, observing, and contributing as an intern at a publishing house. What she is learning is no longer abstract. It’s active.
By Grade 12, she enters the Improve phase—refining, editing, and preparing her work for a public audience. Her manuscript is no longer a school assignment, but a finished piece, shaped through iteration, feedback, and sustained effort.
She does not graduate, hoping to become a writer. She graduates as one.
Starting College Early
Running alongside Jane’s work is a parallel track.
With guidance from the Academy’s College & Career Consultant, she begins taking CLEP exams, earning college credit by demonstrating mastery in subjects like literature, history, and psychology.
Alicia Morrison, Founder of College Redefined and the lead on this effort, speaks from experience.
“I graduated from Wilmington University with a bachelor’s degree in two years while working full time,” she says, “because I had earned so many college credits in middle and high school.”
Jane follows a similar path. By graduation, she has earned roughly 45–60 college credits, equivalent to one and a half to two years. Depending on the institution, that can represent tens of thousands of dollars in tuition savings—before she ever sets foot on a college campus.
“But it’s not just financial,” Morrison says. “It changes how students enter college. They’re not figuring themselves out—they’re moving forward. This enables them to jumpstart their career and gain valuable experience before other students who took the traditional college path even graduate from college.”
A System Beginning to Shift
The model being introduced at Innovate Academy reflects broader changes already underway.
In states like Florida, education savings programs now provide families with thousands of dollars per student—often around $8,000—to direct toward the educational environments that best fit their needs. Pennsylvania’s own EITC program reflects a similar move toward flexibility and school choice.
At the same time, new ventures like Alpha High School have drawn national attention for compressing academic instruction and expanding time for application, creativity, and entrepreneurship.
What distinguishes Innovate is not that it follows these trends, but that it grounds them in something older, time-tested, and proven. Dare I say, classical.
For families seeking an education that aligns knowledge with both formation and purpose, the question is no longer whether a scholar should have a liberal arts education. It’s whether they are ready to partner with one that plans for what comes next—and even shapes it.
To learn more about the Grade 9 educational model at Innovate Academy, explore our Upper School Curriculum or read the Grade 9 Program Guide. You can also visit the Innovation Center to view on-site internship opportunities and the bespoke iLAB experience, our Community page to view the mentors who work with our scholars, and our Inside Innovate blog to read more about our unique Academy.
If you think our Academy would be a great fit for your Grade 9 scholar, please schedule a tour. If you want more of these articles to hit your inbox, please sign up for our monthly newsletter today!
