St. Andrews Episcopal School

You'll often hear talk about our students as Scholars, Artists, Athletes, and Servants at St. Andrew's. These are our four pillars — our way of defining the characteristics of a well-rounded student, as well as opportunities for students to grow in new and different ways. All of our students are given the opportunity and encouraged to explore and excel in the areas of scholar, athlete, artist and servant. Unlike some other academic institutions, at St. Andrew's our students can participate simultaneously in both the arts and athletics or blend a love of science with a love for Latin. We believe there is no better time to try something new or engage in self-discovery than in a safe and supportive environment like the unique one created here at St. Andrew's.

Our curriculum is thoughtfully designed to help our students become successful as scholars, artists, athletes and servants. These four pillars are also part of our graduation distinctions. Each Upper School student has the opportunity to be honored as a scholar, artist, athlete or servant based on predefined requirements. For more about graduation, please visit this section of the academics section of the Upper School page.

SCHOLAR ARTIST ATHLETE SERVANT

SCHOLAR

It's not just about the grades.

We take time to understand how your child learns best. our mission is “to provide an enriched academic program within a Christian environment emphasizing the fulfillment of each student’s potential.” This is not just a statement, but a commitment to keeping class sizes small so teachers can get to know each child and guide them towards personal success.

Our college preparatory curriculum is second to none, period. In fact, most graduates have reported that their courses at St. Andrew’s were comparable or harder than their freshman college courses. So, what makes our school unique? That’s easy—our outstanding faculty and their commitment to producing students who love learning and are prepared for the future. This starts in the first grade where students are introduced to good study habits through light homework assignments and continues through senior year, where students work off-campus on independent assignments called their Senior Project for the last month of school.

Lower and Middle School Academics
For detailed descriptions of courses, please see our Lower School Curriculum and Middle School Curriculum pages.

On average, our students consistently score above the National, Suburban, and independent School norms on all portions of the CTP IV Achievement Test.
Spanish begins in first grade, Latin is added in 5th grade, and in middle School students may choose from Spanish, Latin, or mandarin Chinese.
5th - 8th Grade students take the national Latin Exam and participate in the private School interscholastic Association (PSIA) Competition.
7th Grade students participate in the Duke Talent identification program (TIP). 7th - 8th Grade students attend and participate in the Pan-American Student Forum State Convention (PASF).
Students also have the opportunity to participate in many educationally relevant (and fun!) trips:

Optional trips:

5th & 6th Grades:
Washington D.C. / Boston - Spring Break
7th & 8th Grades: Queretero, Mexico - June
8th Grade: New York - Thanksgiving

Required Trips:

6th Grade: Mo Ranch (Team Building)
7th Grade: Key Largo, FL (Science)
8th Grade: Big Bend (Science)

Upper School Academics

Austin’s most academically rigorous environment, we offer a wide range of AP exams in areas of Art History, Biology, Calculus (AB and BC), Chemistry, Latin Literature, Latin Vergil, Music Theory, Spanish Language, Statistics, and Studio Art. Generally, 89% of students pass with a 3, 4, or 5.
Our Advisory program offers unheard of personal attention in a small group setting where students interact with their advisor at three different points during the day: advisory, Chapel, and after-school clean-up.
Our curriculum is supplemented with exciting educational travel opportunities:
- 9th Grade Trip to Balcones Springs Ranch: A three-day sojourn to the Texas Hill Country where incoming 9th graders bond and participate in team building activities.
- The Junior Experience: A required two week journey to “an environment that is dramatically different from the student’s daily surroundings during the summer before or the summer after the junior year.”
- Service trips, including a seniors-only trip to help with on-going Hurricane Relief efforts in New Orleans
- Fine Art trips including: visiting museums in Los Angeles, Houston, and Chicago, and choir trips across the U.S.

ARTIST

We have some of the most unique musical experiences in Austin.

In the sixth grade, students can join a percussion group. At the Upper School, we offer both Rock and Jazz bands, as well as a Strings Orchestra. Our well-known Select Choir has sung at the National Cathedral in Washington, D.C, and the Choir has performed at Carnegie hall in New York.

The extensive Fine Arts program at St. Andrew’s is a direct result of our outstanding faculty. They cultivate an environment where passion for the arts—visual, musical, dramatic, or multimedia—is contagious. Here, the arts are not treated as second-class classes. Art and academic teachers work together deliberately to ensure that curriculum is rich, and is presented to students through a variety of media and methods.

Lower School Fine Arts

In first grade, students have music and art once a week.Iin grades 2-4 they have music and art twice a week, and creative drama once a week.
In fifth grade, students have even more fine art options including choir and strings.
The additional choices of percussion, computer works, eco-adventures, and robotics are available in sixth grade.
Art projects, plays, and musical performances are all influenced by curriculum happening concurrently in academic classes.

Middle School Fine Arts

All seventh graders take a semester of art and a semester of drama. Assignments are designed to introduce a wide variety of media and subject matter and to encourage individual interpretation and expression. Classes meet two times per week.
Seventh graders participate in three music classes a week. They can choose from band, concert choir, music appreciation, musical choir, or strings.
In eighth grade, students choose a fine arts focus—art, band, drama, musical choir, or strings.

Upper School Fine Arts

All students must fulfill a two-year Fine Arts requirement, but the majority of studentschoose to study the arts throughout all four years of high school.
We offer 15 courses through the Fine Arts Department each year in areas of Choir, Acting, Visual Arts, Film, Strings, Rock Band/Jazz Band, and Tech Theater.
Mentoring is a huge part of the visual Arts program. Students meet and work with real working artists for insight into art in the real world.
Our Rock Band opened for Los Lonely Boys and has had several gigs at Austin music hotspots like Jovita’s and Stubb’s.
Student films have won SXSW Student film awards.
Our theater productions are often compared to off-broadway shows.

ATHLETE

Impressive Stats

Our athletes have played or are currently playing for: Sewanee: The University of the South, Rhodes, Haverford, Penn, Davidson, University of California-Berkeley, Texas Lutheran University, Randolph Macon, Old Dominion, Denison, Vanderbilt, Holy Cross, University of Texas at Austin, Trinity, Lehigh,and St. Edward’s.
We have had at least two Academic All-Americans in Girls Lacrosse for the last eight years and three Academic All-State players in Boys Basketball in the past three years.
To date we have had six athletes sign National Letters of intent to play at the Division I level. Girls Lacrosse (2), Girls Cross Country/Track, Football, Baseball, and Boys Cross Country/Track.

St. Andrew's athletics program is one built on participation. We want eager, hard-working, team-centered, and competitive young people to be a part of Crusader athletics. Our philosophy is to provide students an opportunity to participate in a competitive environment where commitment, good sportsmanship, and teamwork are present. Our program strives to develop skills and strategies that will allow our athletes to continue to compete at the next level.

Lower School Athletics and Physical Education

Students participate in Physical Education classes every day.
Everyone can play. All students who try out and can commit to practices and games will make a team.
We compete in the Austin Interparochial League (AIPL) with 18 other schools.
Teams practice two days a week after school for 90 minutes.
95% of our 5th-6th graders participate in a sport.
Sports offered: Flag Football, Volleyball, Basketball, Track and Field, Lacrosse, Soccer.

Middle School Athletics

We compete in the
Austin Interparochial League (AIPL) with 18 other schools.
Every student must participate in either athletics or physical education.
Those who choose athletics practice three days a week (Monday-Wednesday); games are typically scheduled on a fourth day.
Sports offered: Cross Country, Field Hockey, Tackle Football, Baskeball, Volleyball, Baseball, Golf, Lacrosse, Softball, Soccer, Tennis, Track and Field

Upper School Athletics

Varsity teams compete in the prestigious
Southwest Preparatory Conference (SPC) and the Texas High School Lacrosse League.
Our Girls Lacrosse program boasts 9 Central District Championship wins, our Cross Country team has won two SPC Championships, and our student-athletes are routinely honored as Academic All-Americans.
Freshmen and sophomores are required to participate in at least two seasons of athletics. One of those two seasons must be a team sport.
Juniors and seniors are required to take part in at least one season of athletics or conditioning, but the majority of our students participate in two or more seasons.
Practices meet daily after school, unless a game is scheduled on that day.
Our coaching staff includes state and district championship coaches, former collegiate and professional athletes, and world-class athletes.
We have an Athletic Council that is made up of coaches and athletes at each grade level who are leaders, represent each sport, and have shown a desire to help improve the athletic program.
Sports offered: Cross Country, Field Hockey, Football, Volleyball, Basketball, Soccer, Swimming and Diving, Baseball, Golf, Lacrosse, Softball, Tennis, Track and Field.

SERVANT

Our students are known city-wide for their committment to service.

Service to the greater community is at the heart of everything we do. It is just the nature of our community and it is at the center of being an Episcopal school—

we guide and challenge all who attend our schools to build lives of genuine meaning, purpose, and service in the world they will inherit. We encourage our students to develop the habit of service because we believe that community service is one of the ways in which we all make the world a better place in which to live. By meeting and serving those who are less fortunate than ourselves, we better understand the world around us.

To date, one Upper School and one Lower School student were honored by KVUE as recipients of the Five Kids Who Care award.
Each year, seniors travel to New Orleans over Christmas break to continue in the rebuilding effort.
Each fall, through a food drive challenge called the Harvest Bowl, students at all levels collect enough food to sustain the El Buen Samaritano food bank for almost a full year.
In 2007, after learning about the LifeWorks Home Improvement challenge, 11 seniors transformed the apartment of a deserving young man. These students planned the design, raised funds for materials, furniture, and accessories, and physically completed the project on their own.
In 2008, Upper School students independently came to the aid of a neighboring family whose home burned down shortly before Christmas, raising nearly $10,000 within one week.
In 2009, students from grades 1-12 raised over $40,000 for the Gazelle Foundation to bring clean water to Burundi, Africa by selling t-shirts and water bottles, holding bakesales and penny wars, and doing chores or babysitting.
At all levels, students are involved in keeping our school green. Whether it’s collecting daily recycling, cleaning up lunch rooms, or picking up trash around both campuses. Everyone pitches in!

Lower School Service

Beginning in the first grade, students are introduced to the idea of service through chapel stories, drama and ethics classes, and throughout the general curriculum. Lower School students participate the fall on-campus food drive, the Christmas toy drive, assembling “manna” bags, and full participants in the annual All-School service project. Students in the 5th and 6th are provided many opportunities to take their service into the greater community through our many organized school service trips to:

St. James’ Episcopal School
The Hope Food pantry
The Retirement and Nursing Center of Austin
The grounds of Shoal Creek for clean-up

Middle School Service

In the middle School, students are asked to complete at least 15 hours of service in both the seventh and eighth grades, for a total of 30 or more hours. Those who complete 30 or more hours graduate from the eighth grade “with Distinction.” Students can attend organized service trips through St. Andrew's to such organizations as:

St. James’ Episcopal School
Trinity Center for the Homeless
Ridgetop Elementary School

As students get older, we also encourage them to volunteer on their own for organizations they feel passionate about like: area homeless and animal shelters, churches, or other nonprofit organizations.

Upper School Service

In the upper School, students are engaged in service in a variety of ways including the ninth grade weekly Service Learning class and off-campus trips to the Trinity Center for the Homeless and local elementary schools.

One of the highest honors upper School students can achieve at graduation is the Servant Distinction. This honor is reserved for those who have served at least 100 hours after completion of their tenth grade year. On average, 70% of seniors graduate with this distinction.

The most important service award recognized at graduation is the Scott Field Bailey Servant Award. It honors that senior whose dedication, selflessness, and deep concern for others best exemplifies the St. Andrew’s ideal that its students lead productive and responsible lives in their community.