StarShine Academy Garden of Stars

StarShine Academy International Schools always have gardens. Our garden is the metaphor for everything that we teach. While everyone talks about re-inventing education, we truly have. We used ideas from Montessori, Waldorf and Oxford, made the solution k-12--academically highly accredited nationally and internationally and we started with how kids learn about growing anything including themselves. We use it to teach all subjects including financial literacy. The students sell vegetables at Farmer's Markets and they prepare them with the assistance of the Ritz Carlton's Executive Chef. Disney brought Mickey and Minnie to spend three days working with our families in the garden last spring. We based the garden learning on permaculture gardening and ethnobotany.

Imagine if you could grow the world's best schools where they've never been grown before. Sow them like seeds through the countryside, into the cities, and across the planet. At Starshine Academy, that's our mission.

StarShine focuses on academics, world peace and world cultures, and what the child’s responsibility is in the world to make it a better place. We accomplish this through an integrated use of technology; daily work in the school garden; student ambassadorships, mandatory classes in executive protocol, art, music, and fitness; and an individualized learning plan (ILP) for each child.

StarShine Academy International Schools opened in 2002 as a result of business leaders greatly concerned after the terrorist attacks of 2001. They came together to reinvent k-12 education and how we extend education to all other countries. It is based on StarShine's Fifteen Guiding Principles and include body, mind, spirit, health, wealth and happiness. All children have to participate in gardening, art, music and career education. All of the students work in community service and mentoring other students. The schools have earned recognition worldwide and are nationally and internationally highly accredited academically, recognized by NCA, CITA, IA and AdvancEd.

To prove that every child can be developed to achieve their highest goals, the first StarShine Academy Charter School opened in 2002 on what was then the highest crime neighborhood in Arizona, the street in front of the school was known for having the most drive-by shootings. The entire neighborhood has transformed and a Starbucks is now located on the corner of the next block.