The RDAS Middle School Difference
Distinctive features built on research, relationship, and purpose
Several elements set the RDAS Middle School experience apart. Each has been designed deliberately, informed by evidence about what young adolescents need to learn well and grow into their best selves.
Advisory Program
Our small advisory groups provide every student with daily mentorship and personalized check-ins, ensuring they are genuinely known and supported by a dedicated faculty advisor.
Grounding and Reflection
The school day opens with twenty minutes of Grounding and closes with fifteen minutes of Reflection — structured, evidence-based practices that help students build the metacognitive habits that make learning stick.
Oracy and the Art of Communication
By embedding speech and debate across English and Social Studies programs, we explicitly teach students to communicate with clarity and lead through civil, evidence-based argumentation, setting them up for learning, leadership, and life.
Learning with and Beyond AI
Students engage critically and practically with AI as a tool, while developing the self-regulated thinking and rigorous reasoning that it cannot replace.
Community-Connected, Purpose-Driven Work
By engaging with real-world issues and audiences beyond the classroom, students develop the conviction that their ideas and work can have a genuine, lasting impact on the world.
Student Leadership
Through Student Council, as Student Ambassadors, and in our student-led club program, RDAS students have meaningful opportunities to develop leadership skills and experience.
Club and After-School Program
After-school life includes a growing league sports program, teacher- and provider-led clubs in languages, arts, and specialist areas, and a student-led club program where students pitch, design, and run their own clubs with faculty support.
Our aim is for every student to leave the RDAS Middle School not only with knowledge, but with the skills, character, and habits of mind to keep learning — and leading — for the rest of their lives.
