North Star

"North Star changed my life. It propelled me down the pathway of self directed education, and enabled me to pursue my interests in an unbounded way. During my time at North Star, I was exposed to many positive ideas and possibilities. North Star represents a culturally significant shift in how we view education, from centralized and standardized, to decentralized and flexible. I'm excited to see a future where we adopt the North Star approach for quality learning experiences for people across the world."

"I can't say enough positive things about my daughter's experience at North Star. The staff there, collectively and individually, have helped my daughter to thrive in the environment that they and the students have created. My daughter has been able to make the most of her considerable abilities in music and photography in ways that would not have been possible in a public school setting. The freedom of self directed education that she has been given has been a great gift to her and our family!"

"We love North Star! My daughter attended a year at North Star and plans to attend again in the fall. Before North Star, she had really struggled to find teens in our town who she resonated with. North Star provided exactly what she was looking for: a group of down-to-earth, wholesome, friendly and interesting teens who were into similar things as she including Manga, music, and art. The North Star staff are such lovely people who provided a safe, welcoming, nurturing and intellectual environment for my daughter. The classes offered a variety of content and ranged from structured to very loose and casual all of which gave her a chance to become inspired by the topic and to facilitate further self-directed learning.. She also enjoyed managing her own class schedule and picking classes that suited her. My daughter found immense value in the tutorials at North Star, the weekly meeting with her advisor, the community meeting, and the relationships she formed with staff and teens. We are so grateful for North Star!"

"We have a very good public middle school, but the size and social drama was overwhelming for our child. A move to North Star made things much better. Our child is really comfortable in the small, warm atmosphere. Academically, it takes a couple months to settle in, but our child is finding her way to do work in all the basic areas she needs, and is exploring some interesting things (photography, improv,) that weren’t even on our radar screen before North Star. It was a good year, we’re looking forward to next year."

"I went to North Star for the first time last fall and It was an amazing place to find! At first I didn't want to go because I was used to my home school life and I was really nervous about trying out this place that wasn't even in my hometown, but my mom encouraged me to try it and I did. It really did only good things to my life, the home school group being so small where I live, North Star was great because it was full of wonderful welcoming teens my age! Also I don't think I have ever worked on my art so much as I did to North Star. I tend to procrastinate a lot with my drawing and writing, but with the help of my tutorial teacher and being inspired by other teens, I ended up becoming a much better artist, my dream being to write a teen romance novel or write and illustrate a manga! Also I loved the cooking class that's put on every Monday, Thursday, and Friday where you meet in the North Star kitchen to cook something for lunch. Us teens got to choose what we wanted to make and being a dairy free vegetarian I was really happy to find out that they would work around me!"