• Vision

    ATLAS, Advanced Talent Learning and Serving, Middle School Academy offers gifted and talented advanced learners a 21st Century curriculum that meets their learning nature and needs.  This academy will serve as a Research and Development campus that implements and evaluates best practices that may be used in other middle school campuses in WISD

    Mission Statement

    Waco ATLAS will develop the talents of gifted and advanced learners through differentiated, integrated, and accelerated curriculum.  We will advance students’ problem-solving abilities, critical and creative thinking skills, and leadership experiences. Innovation, service, and inquiry will exemplify student output. The curriculum will offer authentic intellectual work through inquiry-based learning in order to meet students’ learning needs and interests.  Students will demonstrate their learning through a variety of venues, including Exhibition of Inspired Learning.* 

    Instruction will emphasize twenty-first century skills of

    • digital age literacy,
    • inventive thinking,
    • intellectual capital,
    • interactive communication,
    • quality for state-of-the-art results

    in a creative educational setting that offers opportunities to develop students’ intrinsic motivation and sustained inquiry.

    Goals

    Students will be motivated through the opportunity to

    • demonstrate self-knowledge with respect to their interests, strengths, identities, and needs in socio-emotional development and in intellectual, academic, creative, and leadership domains,
    • develop competence with interpersonal and technical communication skills,
    • demonstrate personal and social responsibility and leadership skills,
    • demonstrate growth with their aptitude and interests, including acceleration and enrichment,
    • become independent investigators and lifelong learners, and
    • identify future career goals and the talent development pathways to reach those goals through rigorous academic standards.

     

    *The Exhibition of Inspired Learning will be an annual event in which students present the culmination of their year’s learning through innovative and creative products and/or performances