In a school of 1,400, every individual’s unique needs cannot always be met. Students may struggle in the traditional classroom setting, yet have their struggles written off to lack of motivation or effort. BV Academy aims to help these students through high school by providing the attention and circumstances they need to succeed.

BV Academy, founded in 1998, is an alternative education high school, focused on personalizing students’s school experience to help them prosper during, and after, high school. 

“For whatever reason the student has not or is not having success in a large traditional high school setting,” said BV Academy principal Valerie Jennings. “They need something more small and relational.”

Serving approximately 116 students, including 16 current BV West students, the small atmosphere is one of the most appealing factors to many. The school is one hallway long, allowing teachers and students to create closer bonds.

“It’s very relational, it’s an enjoyable place to be, we call ourselves a Blue Valley family,” Jennings said. “It’s the Blue Valley Academy family. Once you’re a part of our family, you’ll always be a part of the family, because we are really small.”

Class sizes average between nine to 12 students, but may go up to approximately 15 students for core subjects. The intimate teacher-to-student ratio is what allows individualized learning and guarantees success for each student.

“You know when at West there’s a teacher that everyone loves and is a great teacher who really cares about their students?” BV Academy junior Dray Ridley said. “That’s every teacher at the Academy. They’re all great teachers and amazing people.”

In addition to the smaller class sizes, BV Academy operates quite differently from traditional BV high schools. The school begins at 9 a.m., allowing students to take morning classes at their home high school in addition to BV Academy classes. Students take the same four classes every day for full 75 minute blocks, with no additional homework assigned unless they are unfocused during class or absent for an extended period of time.

“Rather than being on semesters, we’re on terms,” Jennings said. “At the end of each quarter they actually have completed a semester [of work]. So they can move forward more quickly if they want to get through, let’s say, senior English.”

Many students transfer to BV Academy because they are behind on credits and struggling to be on track to graduation. This nine-week term structure allows students to make up credits quicker.

“It’s fairly typical that kids will make that switch because they need to make up credits and they’ve fallen a little behind so there might be some gaps in their transcript,” Jennings said. “But not always, we get kids who have made very good grades at their home high school but it was too big, they just needed something smaller.”

Students transfer for a variety of reasons beyond issues with substance abuse or attendance, despite common misconceptions. BV Academy provides an opportunity to service students with unique learning styles and needs that cannot be replicated at traditional high schools.

“The Academy isn’t a place for druggies and dropouts,” Ridley said. “It’s a place for students just trying to make it through high school, and every adult here will tell you the same thing.”

The variety of reasons for transferring creates a unique atmosphere unlike any other home high school. BV Academy allows vastly different students to unite.

“I am friends with a girl who wears the same Thrasher hoodie everyday and cried over how much she loved a cockroach,” Ridley said. “I have a friend who goes around the school drawing little robots with smiley faces and I’m not sure he even goes to class. My favorite teacher lets me and a bunch of other students play Super Smash Bros while he watches K-Pop music videos during lunch break. The Academy is chock full of weird and interesting people.”

BV Academy encompasses individuals with every personality, contributing to the unique high school experience. The authenticity of communication between students creates a place where students feel comfortable in their own skin.

“My favorite part is that the Academy has no hierarchy,” Ridley said. “There are no ‘cliques’ like in a normal high school, everyone is just purely themselves. And if you are trying to be something you’re not, you will most likely feel like an idiot.”

Another thing that makes BV Academy unique from traditional high schools is their methods in rewarding and punishing behavior.

“We’re built on incentives,” Jennings said. “For example, if you made all A’s and B’s and you had no more than 5 days of absence per term–that would include both excused and unexcused absences–then you could actually be exempted from your finals.”

The small student population allows for personalized approaches to issues that may arise. Focusing on relationships allows the issue to be addressed in a positive manner and is proven to have more successful results.

“We use restorative discipline,” Jennings said. “If something is a problem or if kids are having an issue with each other… we talk through the problem and talk about why we care about them and help them try to make that positive shift. And with that approach we very rarely have the same issue come up because we have a chance to work through it.”

Students, parents, counselors, teachers or administrators may initiate the process of a student transferring to BV Academy. They will discuss it as an option, and determine if it is the correct atmosphere for the student to prosper.

“That’s the main thing,” Stone said. “We want it to be a good fit for our students and our families and for a lot of times it is. If it’s not a good fit we would want them to stay [at BV West] and find ways to be more successful here.”

Each school is allotted a specific number of students to preserve the educational benefits and relationships of a small school. Counselors and administration will then meet and rank interested students based off of importance, with students such as seniors requiring credits to graduate at the top of the list. Students and families will then interview and tour at BV Academy, and, if agreed upon by all parties involved, transfer at the next semester.

While students make take a full day of classes at BV Academy, they are still considered students of their original high school of attendance, also known as their home school. They may still take classes and participate in extracurriculars, among other things, at their home school. 

“They have the option of participating in our graduation, but they also have a graduation ceremony of their own, so they could participate in either one or both,” BV West counselor John Stone said. “They can come over here and participate in sports and our dances and things like that too. So they are considered Blue Valley West students. Their school of attendance is the Academy.”

BV West Jaguars or BV Academy Family, all that matters is the success of the students. 

“I [am principal] because I think that the Academy, we make a difference in somebody’s life everyday,” Jennings said. “That’s truly what we do.”