Harrisburg Academy

At Harrisburg Academy, we view education as an amazing journey of self-discovery and challenges not only met, but surpassed. Our students, preschool through high school, are well-rounded scholars and artists, talented athletes and musicians, and globally minded philanthropists, and they all benefit from the advantages of a small learning community each and every day -- and the advantages are many.

The Academy is the Harrisburg area's flagship independent school, and is widely considered to be the best private school in Central Pennsylvania. We partner with families who value education as a priority in their family setting, seek an institution that encourages deep, authentic learning, and desire an alternative to public and religious school offerings for their child. Our families appreciate the true partnership in learning between student, teacher, and parent thanks to small class sizes. Currently, our student body draws from 27 school districts and six counties in the midstate, representing families of all socioeconomic, racial, religious, and geographic backgrounds. With a strong, college preparatory-focused liberal arts program, we provide a rigorous core curriculum of "reading, writing, and arithmetic,” science, the arts, and technology; but we also incorporate 21st century learning strategies and innovation into our students' experience. Our institution may be 234 years old, but we operate as a forward-thinking school of the future.

Education is a personal learning journey at the Academy – a journey that is challenging and nurturing at the same time. Our public school colleagues must focus on enabling a group of children to meet an established set of standards determined to be "proficient." On the contrary, as a small school community, the Academy is able to maximize the ways in which our families benefit from being small. Most importantly, our faculty and staff know each child, focus on educating the "whole child" through the liberal arts, effectively partner with students and their parents, and achieve an environment that supports deep, meaningful learning with a globally minded perspective.

Our school may be physically located in Central Pennsylvania, but the reach of our community extends across the globe. At the Academy, we define global education as the study and discovery of worldwide culture and philosophy including the subject areas of art, science, music, and history. This approach instills lifelong learning skills and stimulates a desire and enthusiasm to ask questions and to seek new knowledge from a global perspective. One way our emphasis on global education is demonstrated is through our success with the International Baccalaureate Diploma program and introduction of the IB Scholarship for Summer Study for our high school-aged students. This global point of view also is evident in our student population (including 157 international students from 28 countries since 1989!), our curriculum, and our global outreach.

The Academy’s numerous unique advantages inspire children in a fundamentally different way to grow, think critically, and treat one another in a caring manner. Our faculty provides dynamic, collaborative learning opportunities that promote discovery, creativity, and innovation, while providing the one-on-one attention necessary to ensure the success of each student.

At the center of the Academy experience is its parent-school partnership. We partner consistently with every family in our diverse and globalized Academy community. The student outcomes we measure demonstrate the success of our approach. Our students learn and grow as we ignite a passion for learning that enables each of them to reach his or her full potential, develop a strong sense of integrity, and seek to better our local and global communities.

Perhaps the greatest testament to our parent-school partnership is our alumni. They are living proof of the power of the educational journey that is Harrisburg Academy and its countless advantages experienced through their connection with our school. Although our alumni have since left our campus, they carry the spirit of the Academy and its essence at their core, across the globe, in all they do. Our graduates are remarkable people, in part, because of the Academy’s role in their growth.