Gem State Adventist Academy

GSAA is an accredited high school offering college-prep courses with a uniquely Seventh-day Adventist perspective. Students are given opportunities to engage in service and develop a life-long passion for helping others and giving back to their community. Students are trained for leadership, gaining knowledge and experience that will help them be successful leaders in their family, church and career. Above all else, GSAA strives to prepare students for eternity focusing our academics, athletics and extra-curricular activities by encouraging the development of a relationship with Jesus Christ.

To sustain a culture and environment that results in servant leaders who emanate spiritual commitment, personal integrity, academic rigor, and lifelong success. Gem State Adventist Academy encourages a balance between recognition of the dignity and individuality of students and the responsibility that students bear for their own conduct in relation to the rights of others. Inherent in this balance is the need for students to fulfill their responsibilities to themselves for their own personal development, to other students as members of the group, and to the school community in general. In accordance with the “Love and Logic” philosophy, it further requires that responsible action be taken and learning choices provided to protect students from situations that may be disruptive to the educational process, potentially dangerous to an individual’s mental or physical well-being or destructive to school property. Parents continue to play a significant role in supporting and contributing to the success of their student. Thus students, parents, teachers, and staff must all work closely and in harmony together to achieve eternal results.

In June of 1918 the constituents of the Idaho Conference of Seventh-day Adventists determined to build a boarding school where young people could be educated in a Christian environment. Later that month seventeen acres of semi-rural land was purchased at the intersection of Linden Street and Indiana Avenue in Caldwell, Idaho. The land was chosen because it was easily accessible by rail and because its soil was fertile and easily irrigated. The plan was to develop a farm where students could be employed to help pay their tuition.

In spite of difficult conditions caused by World War I, construction began immediately. As the first cornerstone was laid a Bible was placed in the left pillar of the chapel steps which was then cemented in place. This Bible was to serve as a symbol of light and truth to the hundreds of students who were to walk through the doors of Gem State Academy. That fall, 1918, 30 students enrolled. The new school thrived and grew during its first decade and by the spring of 1930 enrollment had climbed to above 100.

GSAA is an accredited high school offering college-prep courses with a uniquely Seventh-day Adventist perspective. Students are given opportunities to engage in service and develop a life-long passion for helping others and giving back to their community. Students are trained for leadership, gaining knowledge and experience that will help them be successful leaders in their family, church and career. Above all else, GSAA strives to prepare students for eternity focusing our academics, athletics and extra-curricular activities by encouraging the development of a relationship with Jesus Christ.