• A Hero's Journey

    A Hero’s Journey starts in a place where children are awarded freedom, responsibility, camaraderie, and adventure. A hero’s journey develops integrity, ownership, grit, and joy as one discovers his or her most precious gifts.

  • Mission

    JSA’s mission is to empower young people to find a calling that changes the world.

  • Vision

    JSA is for a generation of virtuous leaders, critical-thinking mavericks, and curious change-makers.

Our Promises

We promise through Socratic guiding and experiential learning to encourage each member of our community to:

  • Begin a Hero’s Journey;

  • Discover his or her most precious gifts and a commitment to mastery;

  • Become a curious, independent, life-long learner;

  • Embrace the forging of a strong character;

  • Cherish the arts, wonders of the physical world, and the mysteries of life; and

  • Treasure and respect economic, political, and religious freedom.

Why Joyful Scholars Academy?

We want to create an environment where our children experience:

  • Laughter and joy;

  • Critical thinking and independence;

  • A love for learning;

  • Freedom from politics and propaganda;

  • A home away from home where every learner smiles at the thought of exploring, discovering, doing, being;

  • Camaraderie;

  • Failure. And the courage to forge ahead and try again;

  • Resilience to persevere through difficult learning times;

  • The confidence to try new things;

  • Enjoyment in problem-solving;

  • Ownership over their learning, their tribe, and the studio;

  • Meaning and the ability to discover and pursue their passions.

  • To use their imagination and curiosity to do amazing things.

  • Growth in agency of their own learning.

  • Being able to learn new/hard things on their own while being accountable to peers and the studio.

Acton Testimonials

  • “We believe clear thinking leads to good decisions, good decisions lead to the right habits, the right habits forge character, and character determines destiny.”

  • “We believe self-directed, peer-to-peer learner-driven communities built by our young Heroes will deliver transformational learning at a cost parents can afford.”

  • "We believe offering self-paced work in an environment where all types of gifts are celebrated, and improvement is praised rather than held to artifical adult standards, leads to an appreciation of excellence from within.

What Makes JSA Different?

  • Learners are on a Hero’s Journey, with challenges, adventures, fellow travelers and guides.

  • Learner-driven.

  • Young people doing challenging work at their own pace.

  • Trained guides who are skilled in Socratic Method to empower students.

  • Heroes set and achieve daily, weekly, and session learning goals.

  • Heroes develop agency over their learning, goal-setting, and projects.

  • Collaborative studio environment that is self-managed and governed by the learners.

  • Sharing learning in a tightly bound community.

  • Daily learning quests both indoors and outdoors.

  • Real-world skills developed through discussions, project-based learning (Quests), and apprenticeships.

  • Multi-age, in-person studios allow heroes to support one another and receive peer-led feedback and challenges.

  • A lot of talking and problem-solving individually and in groups.

  • Less than 90 minutes of computer use/technology per day (Less than 30 minutes for Spark Studio).

  • Montessori tools and learning for Spark Studio.

  • Using the latest technology to master reading, writing, and math.

  • No homework.

  • No bureaucracy.

  • Learning based on recent research and evolving to ensure 21st-century success.

Founders Story

We believe our role as parents is pivotal in inspiring and equipping our children to develop passion, grit, and leadership to accomplish all they choose with no agenda of our own. After research, a school with a learner-driven design provides an environment that sparks goal-setting, critical thinking, problem-solving, and creativity and pushes young people to rely on themselves and their peers to learn. A learner-driven school is where a child experiences freedom and practices responsibility and agency over their life and learning. We profoundly believe children should have opportunities to fail - early and cheaply - so that they can practice in an accountable setting to try again. We do not believe grades or tests are any measuring stick for learning.  We have experienced a true master in given fields to be someone who tries, tries again, and hones their skill over repetition, study, and time. A true master of anything understands each growth and failure step is critical to the next. School should be filled with challenges, real-life projects, opportunities to develop as a person, and a place to discover passions. We do not believe college should be a time to “find oneself”. Rather, our children’s youth should be a time to understand themselves and a time to develop the confidence to pursue what means the most to them. We want our daughters to develop agency, enabling them to dream and do big at any age. We founded JSA as a place for families who wish to provide a different educational experience for their children than they had for themselves. There is no other school available like JSA in Grays Harbor, Thurston, Lewis, Mason, and Pierce County and we are blessed to bring this philosophy of learning to our community. 

We invite you to explore Joyful Scholars Academy and to contact us if your family decides to change your child's educational experience and trajectory.

Sincerely,

Laura and Alex McNealley