Constitution

Preamble

Understanding that students are the primary stakeholders with respect to their education; that educational institutions exist first to serve the human beings who learn within them; that teachers are essential stakeholders, stewards, guides, learners, and collaborators in that work; that students and teachers of every age and ability are full and dignified human beings capable of continued growth and becoming and are to be valued, trusted, honored, and respected; that children have agency in the enactment of their own childhoods and should exercise increasing freedom and responsibility in shaping their learning and lives; that education takes place through relationships among students, teachers, families, cultures, communities, and the wider world; and that every educational structure, practice, resource, and decision should remain accountable to the people it exists to serve, the Unschool Academy of Art, Science, and Business adopts this Constitution for its organization and operation.

Article I: Name

The name by which this Educational Community shall be known and incorporated is the Unschool Academy of Art, Science, and Business, hereafter referred to as USASB or the Academy.

Article II: Purpose

The primary purpose of the Academy is to serve the community of students and teachers who attend, learn, teach, work, create, and contribute within it. The Academy exists first to serve people. Its structures, schedules, curriculum, programs, resources, and practices exist to support their learning, growth, relationships, responsibilities, and continued development as human beings.

The Academy is charitable and nonprofit in nature. Its purpose is to operate an inclusive, immersive, activity-based Educational Community that provides meaningful educational opportunities to students and teachers. The Academy shall honor and value the home cultures, languages, beliefs, circumstances, needs, interests, goals, and developing abilities of students while also introducing them to knowledge, disciplines, experiences, people, places, responsibilities, and possibilities they may not yet know to seek for themselves.

The Academy seeks to accompany each student toward increasing maturity, capability, care, responsibility, judgment, self-knowledge, and capacity to direct their learning and life, participate meaningfully in community, and help shape and renew the world.

The Academy also exists as a community in which teachers can teach, learn, create, research, lead, contribute, and continue growing as human beings and professionals. USASB shall strive to create conditions in which students and teachers can flourish together.

Consistent with the conviction that all human beings possess equal dignity and worth, USASB shall admit students and administer its programs without unlawful discrimination on the basis of race, color, national or ethnic origin, gender, religion, disability, family circumstance, or any other status or characteristic protected by applicable law.

Article III: Statement of Principles

The Academy asserts three foundational commitments:

Include each and every student.
Serve the needs, interests, goals, and developing possibilities of each and every student.
Respect and honor each and every student.

Therefore, every student shall be included in the life of the Academy. Educational offerings, activities, opportunities, and spaces shall be designed to be as open and accessible as reasonably possible to each student irrespective of age, ability level, effort, behavior, language, household, circumstance, or other characteristic. No student shall be excluded from belonging to the Educational Community.

Participation in a particular activity, use of a particular tool or facility, assumption of a particular role or responsibility, or access to a particular environment may require readiness, preparation, prerequisite knowledge or skill, attention to safety, lawful authorization, or commitment to other people when such requirements are genuinely necessary. These requirements shall be transparent, fairly applied, and used to help students prepare for participation rather than to sort, shame, or permanently exclude them.

Teachers shall develop positive and meaningful relationships with students and shall listen to, work with, study with, learn alongside, teach, challenge, guide, and advocate for them. Teachers shall seek to understand each student's knowledge, interests, questions, goals, circumstances, developing capacities, relationships, and needs so that appropriate opportunities, challenges, support, instruction, and environments can be provided.

Serving students does not mean that students alone must already know or choose everything worth learning. Teachers shall bring knowledge, experience, judgment, curiosity, professional responsibility, and care to the educational relationship. They shall introduce students to disciplines, ideas, skills, cultures, questions, people, places, practices, and possibilities students may not yet know to seek for themselves. Student agency and teacher judgment shall work together in the service of learning and human becoming.

The Academy shall provide facilities, materials, equipment, resources, curriculum, instruction, tutoring, coaching, mentoring, guidance, counseling, projects, experiences, and other opportunities necessary to give students meaningful possibilities for learning, growth, creation, contribution, and increasingly responsible participation in their own education.

Students' home languages, cultures, families, histories, and communities shall be respected as meaningful parts of their lives and education. Cohort Teachers shall undertake to know the languages, cultures, family circumstances, traditions, and communities of the students they accompany and, to the extent welcomed by students and families, shall develop sufficient familiarity to communicate respectfully, strengthen relationships, and help bring these inheritances into the life of the Academy. USASB shall provide appropriate time, resources, language support, and community relationships for this work.

Teachers shall advocate for students and shall use their professional judgment to protect their dignity, learning, safety, growth, and legitimate interests. Students and teachers are both learners and teachers, but this mutuality does not erase differences in knowledge, experience, authority, or responsibility.

Student freedom and choice shall develop alongside responsibility. As students grow, they shall exercise increasing responsibility for shaping their learning and participating in the life of the Academy. When students freely accept roles, join collaborative work, use shared resources, or make commitments that affect other people, they are expected to consider the consequences of their choices and to honor those commitments in ways appropriate to their age, readiness, and circumstances.

Teachers shall have substantial protected work time beyond direct teaching for planning, preparation, study, scholarship, research, creative work, collaboration, understanding students, professional development, governance, administration, maintenance of learning environments, community relationships, and renewal. Protected stewardship time is part of teaching and shall not ordinarily be treated as unused time available for additional direct instruction.

Teachers are full and dignified human beings as well as professionals. The Academy shall respect their judgment, growth, health, relationships, boundaries, interests, creative lives, and responsibilities beyond USASB. Dedication to students shall not require exhaustion, constant availability, or neglect of a teacher's life outside the Educational Community.

Teachers shall have meaningful opportunities to participate in the governance, administration, operations, and continuing development of the Academy.

Assessment, feedback, certification, documentation, and other forms of recognition, when used, shall serve learning, growth, readiness, reflection, accurate communication, or responsible decision-making. No test, grade, assessment, performance, ranking, or other measure shall be treated as a measure of a student's human worth.

Everyone involved in the Academy shall help foster a community that supports students, respects individual differences, and makes room for meaningful choices in learning and participation while also cultivating responsibility, contribution, care for others, and the commitments necessary to sustain a flourishing community.

Article IV: Organization

USASB establishes and recognizes two principal governing bodies:

The Board of Directors/Trustees, hereafter the Board.
The Faculty/Student Assembly, hereafter the Assembly.

Both bodies exist to serve the purposes and principles established in the Preamble and Articles II and III. Authority within the Academy is understood as stewardship rather than ownership. Those who govern USASB accept responsibility for protecting its purposes, caring for its people and resources, and helping the Educational Community develop faithfully over time.

The Board carries the legal, fiduciary, corporate, and financial responsibilities required by law and by the Bylaws. It shall protect the long-term mission, integrity, solvency, assets, lawful operation, and institutional continuity of the Academy. In exercising these responsibilities, the Board shall remain attentive to the educational life of USASB and shall avoid removing decisions unnecessarily from the students, teachers, and others most directly involved in the work those decisions affect.

The Assembly is the principal body for shared governance of the educational and community life of USASB to the fullest extent permitted by law and the Bylaws. Students and teachers participate together in the stewardship of the Academy.

Whenever practical, decisions shall be made as close as possible to the people, relationships, and work they most directly affect. Such decisions remain accountable to this Constitution, the legitimate rights and interests of others, standards of safety and professional responsibility, and applicable law.

The Constitution and Bylaws shall establish the overall powers and duties of the Board and Assembly. Operational handbooks, policies, procedures, schedules, and other governing documents may address matters not specified in this Constitution or the Bylaws. No subordinate policy, procedure, rule, handbook, or ordinary decision may conflict with this Constitution or applicable law.

Article V: Amendments

Section 1. Passage

Except as provided in Section 3 of this Article, an amendment to this Constitution must be approved by at least seventy-five percent (75%) of the full complement of the Board and ratified by at least seventy-five percent (75%) of the full complement of the Assembly.

A proposed amendment shall be made available in writing to both bodies with sufficient time for study, discussion, questions, and revision before a final vote. Constitutional amendment shall be deliberate. Its purpose is to help the Academy remain faithful to its purposes as experience, circumstances, knowledge, and the needs of its community develop.

Section 2. Effective Date

A ratified amendment shall take effect at the beginning of the next calendar quarter unless a different effective date is included within the amendment and approved through the same process.

Section 3. Protection of the Statement of Principles

The substantive commitments established in Article III shall not be repealed, diminished, or weakened.

Article III may be amended only when an amendment clarifies, strengthens, extends, or more faithfully applies its principles. Any such amendment must be approved by at least ninety percent (90%) of the full complement of the Board and ratified by at least ninety percent (90%) of the full complement of the Assembly.

USASB may periodically review this Constitution in light of what the Educational Community has learned through experience. Such review does not presume that change is necessary. It recognizes that an institution devoted to learning must remain capable of examining its own structures while remaining accountable to the purposes for which those structures exist.

Article VI: Irrevocable Dedication

The property and assets of USASB are irrevocably dedicated to the charitable and educational purposes established in this Constitution. They shall be used to serve the Academy and its purposes and shall not be distributed for the private benefit of an individual except for lawful and reasonable compensation or reimbursement for services or expenses incurred on behalf of the Academy.

In the event of dissolution, and after payment or lawful provision for payment of all debts and obligations, all remaining property and assets shall be distributed to one or more nonprofit, charitable, or educational organizations legally eligible to receive them and whose purposes are substantially consistent with the purposes and principles expressed in Articles II and III.

The receiving organization or organizations shall be selected by the Board and ratified by the Assembly to the extent permitted by law. Preference shall be given to organizations that serve learners and Educational Communities in ways that reflect USASB's commitments to inclusion, dignity, meaningful learning, student agency, teacher stewardship, responsibility, and human growth.

No remaining property or asset shall be distributed to any private individual or for the personal or private benefit of any person.

Article VII: Academy Governance, Administration, and Operations

Section 1. The Faculty/Student Assembly

The Academy is composed principally of students and teachers, who together comprise the Faculty/Student Assembly.

Families, mentors, contractors, Board members, community partners, guests, and others participate in the life of USASB in roles established by this Constitution, the Bylaws, the Assembly, and applicable law, but they do not thereby become members of the Assembly.

To the fullest extent permitted by law, USASB shall be self-governed by the Assembly in the spirit and practice of democracy. Decisions not reserved by law, this Constitution, or the Bylaws to the Board or another person or body shall be made by the Assembly or by persons, committees, Domains, or groups to whom the Assembly has delegated authority.

The Assembly shall hold at least four regular meetings during each school year, generally one during each operating quarter. Additional meetings may be called through procedures established by the Assembly.

At least seventy-five percent (75%) of all Assembly members shall constitute a quorum.

In conducting meetings, the latest edition of Robert's Rules of Order shall be used to resolve parliamentary questions not covered by this Constitution, the Bylaws, or procedures adopted by the Assembly, insofar as those rules support clear, fair, and accessible participation.

In matters requiring a vote of the full Assembly, each student and each teacher shall have one vote.

Voting shall ordinarily use rankings or ratings of choices or preferences when such methods allow the community's judgment to be expressed more fully than a simple either/or vote. The Assembly may adopt other fair voting procedures appropriate to particular decisions.

Democratic participation does not mean that every decision must be made by every person. Some matters require professional expertise, confidentiality, clearly assigned authority, legal accountability, or demonstrated readiness. The Assembly shall distinguish between decisions properly made by the community as a whole and those entrusted to teachers, Domain stewards, committees, officers, the Board, or other responsible persons.

Section 2. Delegated Governance

The Assembly may establish permanent or temporary committees, working groups, offices, Domains, councils, and other structures necessary to conduct the life of the Academy.

Any delegated authority shall be defined clearly enough that the Educational Community understands what has been entrusted, who is responsible, the limits of that authority, and how the work remains accountable to USASB.

Delegation does not relieve the Assembly or Board of responsibilities that this Constitution, the Bylaws, or applicable law specifically assigns to them.

Section 3. Teachers as Employees and Members of the Assembly

All regular employees of USASB shall be teacher-employees and members of the Assembly. Administrative, leadership, programmatic, and institutional responsibilities may be carried by teachers as portions of their professional work.

USASB may retain specialized professionals and service providers as independent contractors when expertise or operational needs make that arrangement appropriate. Contractors are not teacher-employees and are not members of the Assembly unless separately admitted through a lawful procedure authorized by the Academy.

Full-time teacher-employees shall receive a common annual base salary of $75,000, together with meaningful health, retirement, vacation, and other benefits established by the Academy.

USASB may develop transparent compensation provisions recognizing sustained service, additional responsibility, exceptional expertise, advanced professional contribution, or other appropriate factors without requiring excellent teachers to leave teaching in order to grow in compensation or professional stature. Any such provisions shall be adopted through the governance procedures authorized by this Constitution and the Bylaws.

Section 4. Calendar and Year-Round Operation

USASB is a full-day, year-round Educational Community organized into four operating quarters:

January–March
April–June
July–September
October–December

Each quarter shall include two weeks away from normal student activities and instruction. One week shall be vacation for students and teachers. The other shall be vacation for students and protected non-instructional stewardship time for teachers.

Students therefore receive eight weeks away from normal instruction each year. Teachers receive four weeks of vacation each year, together with reasonable paid personal leave. The four non-instructional stewardship weeks are professional work time and are not teacher vacation.

The typical full day of Academy activity shall include eight hours of educational and community life together with a one-hour shared lunch, for a total span of approximately nine hours.

Performances, travel, projects, community experiences, competitions, athletics, special events, productions, exhibitions, and other activities may require revised schedules, evenings, weekends, or extended days. When substantial additional work is required, schedules shall be adjusted so that extended activities do not routinely consume the protected stewardship and renewal time upon which the educational model depends.

Section 5. Forms of Enrollment

USASB may enroll full-time day students, part-time students, and boarding students.

All students, regardless of enrollment form or receipt of financial aid, remain full members of the Educational Community while participating in the Academy and shall receive the dignity, rights, protections, and legitimate opportunities afforded by this Constitution.

Boarding arrangements shall be governed by written policies addressing supervision, safety, care, family communication, housing, transportation, health, finances, and other responsibilities appropriate to residential life.

Part-time participation shall be structured so that students can belong meaningfully to the Academy rather than being treated merely as purchasers of isolated classes.

Section 6. Student–Teacher Ratio

USASB shall strive to maintain an approximate comprehensive student–teacher ratio of 10:1.

The purpose of this ratio is to support meaningful relationships, individual attention, educational flexibility, and the broader stewardship responsibilities teachers carry.

Particular Cohorts, Domains, activities, studios, ensembles, laboratories, athletic programs, or other experiences may appropriately operate at different ratios according to age, readiness, safety, purpose, supervision requirements, and the nature of the work.

Section 7. Cohorts

Every student shall belong to a continuing Cohort.

Cohorts shall ordinarily be formed primarily around students born within the same calendar year. Students generally enter the Academy around age four and remain members of the same continuing Cohort through their years at USASB, ordinarily through graduation around age eighteen.

A Cohort does not move to a new identity merely because its students become a year older. It develops a continuing history of relationships, traditions, experiences, responsibilities, and shared memory.

Each Cohort shall ordinarily be accompanied by two Cohort Teachers who share responsibility for the Cohort and, whenever practical, remain with it for many years. Teacher continuity is intended to deepen relationships, trust, understanding of students, knowledge of families, and accumulated educational judgment.

Each Cohort shall have a Cohort Homeroom that functions as its continuing home base and workplace within the larger campus. The Cohort uses the wider Academy extensively, but its Homeroom remains a dependable place for gathering, conversation, individual work, shared projects, planning, reflection, storage of belongings and materials, celebration, and ordinary community life.

Changes in Cohort membership, teacher assignment, or Homeroom arrangements may occur when individual circumstances or the needs of the Academy require them, but continuity shall be treated as an educational value rather than merely an administrative convenience.

Section 8. Domains

The Academy shall maintain three foundational Domains:

Art
Science
Business

These Domains are broad environments for specialized learning, practice, making, investigation, performance, enterprise, scholarship, technology, work, and contribution. They are not intended to divide human knowledge into sealed subjects.

USASB may establish additional specialized areas, programs, studios, laboratories, workshops, ensembles, enterprises, or learning environments within or across these Domains.

Teachers responsible for a Domain shall serve as Domain Teachers and shall steward not only the instruction occurring within it, but also its people, resources, equipment, safety, standards, partnerships, certifications, opportunities, and continuing development.

The Domains shall intentionally overlap. Projects and individual pathways may move freely among Art, Science, and Business according to the knowledge and work involved.

Section 9. Learning and Curriculum

Teachers shall teach content and provide learning opportunities through three legitimate sources of educational direction:

Teachers may select and design learning.
Students may select and design learning.
Teachers and students may select and design learning collaboratively.

No one of these forms shall be treated as inherently superior in every circumstance.

Teachers shall use instructional and learning approaches suited to the students, teachers, content, skills, circumstances, and purposes of the work. Direct instruction, practice, inquiry, projects, seminars, coaching, experimentation, performance, independent study, apprenticeship, collaborative work, play, research, field experience, and other methods all have legitimate places within the Academy.

Students shall be meaningfully involved in selecting and designing projects, questions, content, experiences, and learning strategies. Student-centered education does not require that all learning be student-led. Teachers remain responsible for introducing students to knowledge, disciplines, practices, questions, people, experiences, and possibilities that students may not yet know enough to request for themselves.

The curriculum shall combine Shared Foundations with individual pathways. Students need not study identical things at identical times, in identical ways, or at identical rates. At the same time, teachers shall help students encounter knowledge and capabilities that enlarge their understanding of the world, strengthen communication and reasoning, support healthy relationships and practical wisdom, prepare them for increasing independence and responsibility, and open possibilities for future learning and contribution.

Cohort life, Domain experiences, individual instruction, projects, community participation, sustained practice, responsibilities, and meaningful choice shall work together rather than exist as unrelated educational systems.

Section 10. Student Goals and Developing Commitments

Teachers shall seek to understand each student's goals, interests, questions, strengths, needs, circumstances, and developing capacities and shall help students pursue worthwhile goals with increasing judgment and ownership.

Teachers shall help students distinguish among passing curiosity, emerging interest, sustained commitment, necessary foundation, and work worthy of deeper exploration. Students shall be helped to make thoughtful decisions about what to begin, what to continue, what to revise, and what to conclude.

When students freely accept significant roles or commitments that affect other people, the Academy may reasonably expect them to honor those commitments for the agreed period unless circumstances justify revision. Freedom includes learning what it means for other people to depend upon us.

Section 11. Assessment and Documentation

Testing, grading, ranking, and formal assessment shall not be used merely because they are customary.

Students may request tests, examinations, grades, certifications, evaluations, portfolios, demonstrations, transcripts, or other forms of assessment or documentation when these serve a meaningful purpose.

Teachers, Domains, or the Academy may require assessment when it is genuinely necessary to determine readiness, protect safety, authorize access or responsibility, satisfy a lawful requirement, fulfill an external requirement a student has chosen to pursue, or understand learning sufficiently to make a responsible educational decision.

Assessment shall serve learning, growth, reflection, readiness, accurate communication, and responsible judgment. It shall not be used to define human worth.

USASB shall maintain sufficient educational records to communicate students' learning and accomplishments accurately to students, families, colleges, employers, licensing bodies, scholarship organizations, and other institutions when such documentation is legitimately needed.

Section 12. Teachers as Learners

Teachers shall nurture a community in which students and teachers both teach and learn.

Teachers shall remain active within their professions and fields of knowledge. USASB shall support continued development through mentoring, collaboration, professional practice, research, creative work, advanced study, leadership, and, as resources permit, sabbatical or extended periods of renewal.

Teacher qualification shall be determined according to the responsibilities of the work. Evidence may include credentials, degrees, experience, knowledge, demonstrated ability, professional practice, judgment, relationships with students, continuing learning, or other evidence of readiness. Credentials shall not be treated as the only possible evidence of qualification unless required by law or necessary for a particular responsibility.

Section 13. The Four-Hour Rhythm

Teachers shall ordinarily work within a Four-Hour Rhythm consisting of one four-hour portion of direct work with students and one four-hour portion of protected professional stewardship, together with a shared meal and transition.

Cohort Teachers shall ordinarily conduct direct student work during the morning and use the afternoon for stewardship.

Domain Teachers shall ordinarily use the morning for stewardship and conduct direct student work during the afternoon.

Teachers responsible for athletics and other later-day activities may work on a shifted Four-Hour Rhythm so students can participate in both ordinary Domain experiences and athletics.

The standard patterns shall be:

Cohort Teachers
Direct student work: 8:00 a.m.–12:00 noon
Shared lunch: 12:00–1:00 p.m.
Protected stewardship: 1:00–5:00 p.m.

Domain Teachers — General
Protected stewardship: 8:00 a.m.–12:00 noon
Shared lunch: 12:00–1:00 p.m.
Direct student work: 1:00–5:00 p.m.

Domain Teachers — Athletics and Later-Day Programs
Protected stewardship: 10:00 a.m.–2:00 p.m.
Shared meal/transition: 2:00–3:00 p.m.
Direct student work: 3:00–7:00 p.m.

Individual schedules may vary when performances, field experiences, community work, student needs, specialized programs, or other responsibilities require another arrangement, provided that the overall balance between direct student work and protected stewardship remains intact.

Section 14. Stewardship Time

Stewardship time is professional time. It shall include, as appropriate:

learning about students, their work, goals, languages, cultures, families, and communities;
planning and preparing instruction, projects, materials, curriculum, environments, and individual pathways;
professional development, advanced study, scholarship, mentoring, and professional participation;
research, reflection, writing, artistic practice, experimentation, and creative work;
collaboration with colleagues, families, mentors, community partners, and others contributing to students' learning;
fundraising, enterprise, partnerships, and lawful revenue development supporting Cohorts, Domains, programs, or the Academy;
leadership, governance, administration, committee work, and institutional stewardship;
maintenance, design, planning, and development of facilities, equipment, technology, records, and programs; and
teacher health, reflection, renewal, and self-care necessary to sustain responsible professional life.

Stewardship time shall not become a default period of constant availability for additional direct teaching. The Academy protects it because excellent work with students depends upon preparation, study, collaboration, professional growth, responsible administration, creativity, and renewal.

Section 15. Learning About Students, Families, and Communities

Cohort Teachers shall seek substantial knowledge of the students they accompany, including their families, languages, cultures, interests, responsibilities, histories, and lives beyond the Academy.

To the extent desired by students and families, teachers shall communicate with families in home languages as well as English, using language learning, translation, interpretation, or other appropriate support.

When welcomed and appropriate, teachers may visit homes, participate in community events, meet with family members, and enter other parts of students' lives that help them understand the people they serve. Such work shall always respect privacy, family boundaries, culture, consent, and student dignity.

Section 16. Operating Projects and Businesses

Teachers may develop fundraising activities, enterprises, partnerships, projects, and other lawful revenue-generating work that supports their Cohorts, Domains, programs, or the Academy.

Whenever appropriate, such work shall also function educationally. Students may participate in real enterprises, encounter customers and clients, manage budgets, produce goods and services, meet deadlines, maintain standards, solve problems, communicate professionally, and experience the consequences of commitments extending beyond an assignment.

Student participation shall be suited to age and readiness and shall comply with applicable law, safety requirements, ethical standards, and the student's other educational responsibilities.

The financial value of a student enterprise shall never override the Academy's responsibility to protect students from exploitation.

Section 17. Readiness and Certification

Teachers and Domain stewards may establish readiness requirements for activities, responsibilities, tools, equipment, substances, machinery, technology, facilities, travel, financial authority, leadership of others, access to media or materials, or other circumstances in which preparation and demonstrated judgment are necessary.

Readiness requirements shall be connected to the actual demands of the activity. They shall be stated as clearly as practical and used to prepare students for fuller participation rather than to create unnecessary barriers.

A student who has not yet demonstrated readiness shall, whenever practical, be told what knowledge, practice, experience, supervision, or preparation would make participation possible.

Readiness may be documented through certification, including certificates, licenses, endorsements, or other forms established by the responsible Domain or Assembly.

A certification may be reviewed, renewed, expanded, limited, suspended, or withdrawn when changing conditions, safety, skill, responsibility, conduct, or new evidence reasonably requires it.

Certification is a means of recognizing readiness. It is not a ranking of students.

Section 18. Learning Beyond Campus

The wider community is an essential learning environment.

USASB shall cultivate educational relationships with homes, neighborhoods, libraries, museums, universities, businesses, arts organizations, places of worship, farms, laboratories, public agencies, community organizations, craftspeople, professionals, mentors, natural environments, and other people and places able to enlarge students' education.

Off-site learning, field experiences, travel, apprenticeships, employment, service, research, and community projects shall follow written Academy procedures governing supervision, transportation, safety, integrity, legal compliance, communication, student readiness, and accountability.

Parent or guardian permission shall be obtained when appropriate or legally required.

Academy procedures should make responsible participation in the wider world possible rather than treating the campus as the only legitimate place of education.

Section 19. Justice and Community Accountability

USASB shall maintain a written Justice and Community Accountability Policy, adopted by the Assembly and consistent with this Constitution, the Bylaws, and applicable law.

Students and teachers shall participate in self-government so that democracy is practiced through deliberation, decision-making, responsibility, accountability, and the consequences of shared choices.

The purposes of justice within USASB are to seek truth fairly, protect people and their rights, hold people accountable for their actions, repair harm when possible, preserve trust, restore relationships capable of restoration, and protect the continuing safety and integrity of the community.

Justice shall not be understood merely as punishment. Compassion shall not eliminate accountability.

Justice procedures shall provide reasonable notice of concerns or allegations, a meaningful opportunity to be heard, impartial consideration of relevant evidence, appropriate privacy and confidentiality, protection against retaliation, and responses proportionate to the circumstances.

The Assembly shall maintain a Justice Committee composed of students and teachers selected through procedures established by the Assembly. The Committee shall hear ordinary community matters, determine findings and appropriate responses, and maintain appropriate records. A person directly involved in a matter shall not serve as a decision-maker in that matter.

Responses may include conversation, apology, restitution, repair, additional learning, mentoring, counseling, increased supervision, temporary limitation of privileges or access, restoration plans, or other consequences appropriate to the circumstances.

Serious misconduct may require stronger action, including temporary removal from activities or campus, suspension, termination of employment, or dismissal from the Academy when necessary to protect people or the institution and when undertaken through lawful procedures.

Shared governance does not transfer adult responsibilities for student welfare to children. Matters involving suspected abuse, threats, serious safety concerns, mandated reporting, criminal conduct, legally protected information, or other circumstances requiring professional or legal intervention shall be handled by the adults, professionals, Board members, or public authorities responsible for them. Student participation shall occur only when appropriate, lawful, and safe.

The Assembly shall maintain a reasonable process for review or appeal of Justice Committee decisions.

Section 20. Employment of Teachers

Teacher employment shall be governed through a written hiring and employment process adopted by the Assembly and consistent with the Board's legal and fiduciary responsibilities, applicable employment law, confidentiality, and the rights of applicants and employees.

Teachers shall participate meaningfully in the selection, mentoring, evaluation, and continuing development of colleagues because they understand the work and share responsibility for the professional life of the Academy.

Students shall also participate in teacher selection and evaluation in ways appropriate to the position, their age and experience, the confidentiality of the information involved, and the procedures established by USASB.

Employment decisions shall consider the whole contribution a teacher can make to the Educational Community, including knowledge, teaching skill, judgment, relationships with students, ability to learn and collaborate, professional practice, stewardship, integrity, creativity, and capacity to contribute to the purposes of the Academy.

Section 21. Families

Families remain primary stewards in the lives of their children and are essential participants in the Educational Community.

Teachers bring professional knowledge and sustained educational relationships with students. Families bring knowledge, history, culture, language, convictions, responsibilities, relationships, and love that no institution can replace. Students shall participate increasingly in decisions concerning their education and lives as judgment and responsibility develop.

USASB shall cultivate communication among students, families, and teachers in ways that keep the student present rather than routinely discussing the student as though the student were absent from their own education.

Families are welcome participants in the life of the Academy subject to reasonable requirements concerning safety, privacy, student independence, confidentiality, learning, and orderly community life.

The Academy shall welcome, when appropriate, the songs, recipes, crafts, stories, religious observances, professional knowledge, home languages, cultural traditions, family histories, skills, relationships, and other inheritances families can share.

Family members may serve as mentors, volunteers, guests, community partners, teachers of specialized knowledge or skills, participants in events and projects, and contributors to the Educational Community without thereby becoming members of the Assembly.

Section 22. Tuition and Access

USASB shall charge tuition while working toward an increasingly accessible and financially sustainable model supported by tuition, donors and endowments, investment income, Academy enterprises, partnerships, fundraising, and other lawful sources of revenue.

A central purpose of this financial model is to make meaningful participation possible for students whose families could not otherwise afford the Academy and to provide substantial financial assistance to students from socioeconomically marginalized communities.

Tuition shall operate on a sliding scale reflecting student age and family financial ability.

The standard annual full-tuition ranges shall be:

Younger students: $12,000
Middle-age students: $14,400–$18,000
Older students: $16,800–$24,000

The Assembly may revise tuition amounts through the Academy's established budget and governance processes, subject to the Board's fiduciary responsibilities.

Part-time tuition shall be calculated proportionally or through another fair published method approved by the Academy.

Boarding students shall pay the additional cost of residential services according to the Academy's published boarding schedule and financial-aid policies.

Receipt of financial aid shall not make a student a lesser member of USASB or diminish access to the dignity, rights, protections, and educational opportunities afforded to other students.

Section 23. Graduation and Diploma

USASB shall award a diploma to students whose readiness for graduation has been recognized through the process established in this Constitution.

Graduation shall not be defined solely by reaching a particular age, accumulating seat time, completing a fixed sequence of courses, or collecting a predetermined number of credits.

The central question is whether a student is ready to leave the Academy with increasing independence, responsibility, judgment, self-knowledge, and capacity to continue learning and contributing beyond it.

A student who believes they are ready to graduate shall initiate the process by formally declaring that readiness.

The student shall then prepare a substantial Graduation Portfolio and Presentation demonstrating the educational journey that has led to that judgment. Evidence may include written, scientific, artistic, entrepreneurial, technical, musical, practical, and creative work; projects; assessments and certifications; awards and achievements; reflections and self-evaluations; performances; exhibitions; presentations; publications; records of apprenticeships, employment, leadership, service, and community contribution; recommendations; and other evidence appropriate to the student's pathway.

The student shall be prepared to discuss not only accomplishments but also growth, revision, difficulty, responsibility, significant commitments, developing judgment, failures, changes of direction, and areas that remain unfinished or worth continuing.

Teachers, family members, mentors, fellow students, and others who know the student may participate in the presentation, ask questions, offer observations, and contribute evidence.

The purpose is not to demonstrate that education is complete. It is to determine whether the student possesses sufficient capacity to continue learning and directing the next season of life with increasing ownership.

Following the presentation, the Assembly shall consider recognition of the student's readiness for graduation. The student shall participate in the deliberative process but shall not vote on their own graduation.

Recognition of graduation shall require approval through the ordinary voting procedures of the Assembly unless the Assembly has adopted a more specific graduation procedure consistent with this Constitution.

If the Assembly concludes that further growth, experience, or preparation is needed, the decision shall be communicated specifically and constructively. The student shall be told what concerns remain, why they matter, and what experiences, evidence, or development might address them. The student may return to the graduation process when ready.

When the Assembly recognizes readiness, USASB shall award the diploma, record the graduation, and honor the transition publicly within the Educational Community.

Section 24. Educational Records

USASB shall maintain records sufficient to document each student's education and accomplishments accurately.

At the request of students and families, the Academy shall provide truthful documentation appropriate to legitimate purposes, including transcripts, portfolios, narratives, certifications, course descriptions or equivalencies, recommendations, records of projects and experiences, and other forms of documentation useful for colleges, universities, employers, scholarships, licensing organizations, or other institutions.

No formal record can fully capture a human being's development. Nevertheless, records should communicate honestly and help students move into places and responsibilities beyond the Academy.

External documentation requirements may influence a student's choices when those requirements matter to a goal the student wishes to pursue, but the requirements of outside institutions shall not become the sole organizing purpose of education at USASB.

Section 25. Continuing Review and Renewal

The Academy itself is expected to learn.

Students, teachers, families, the Board, and the wider community will discover things through experience that no founding Constitution can fully anticipate. Practices that serve people well should be preserved and strengthened. Practices that create unnecessary barriers, fail to serve their purposes, or produce consequences the Educational Community did not intend should be reconsidered.

The Assembly shall periodically review major operations, policies, schedules, programs, Domains, assessment practices, justice procedures, resource allocations, and other significant features of Academy life in light of this Constitution.

Review does not presume that change is always better. It recognizes that responsible stewardship includes paying attention to what actually happens and allowing evidence, experience, and wisdom to improve institutional life.

USASB shall preserve what it learns, including mistakes, revisions, successful practices, unresolved questions, traditions, and discoveries, so that future students and teachers inherit more than rules. They should inherit the accumulated experience of people who have already tried to live these principles together.

Section 26. Accreditation, Recognition, and External Oversight

USASB shall seek the greatest lawful autonomy consistent with responsible institutional operation so that it can remain faithful to its educational purposes, democratic governance, and community-based philosophy.

The Academy shall comply with applicable law and shall accept those forms of oversight necessary to protect students, teachers, families, the public, and the lawful operation of the institution.

Accreditation, recognition, institutional affiliations, course approvals, external certifications, or similar relationships may be pursued when they materially serve students or USASB and can be obtained without surrendering the essential purposes and principles established in this Constitution.

External recognition is a tool. It is not the purpose of the Academy.

USASB shall administer its educational policies, admissions practices, financial-aid programs, athletic programs, employment practices, and other Academy activities consistently with the commitments to inclusion, dignity, fairness, and respect established in this Constitution and with applicable law.

Closing Principle

USASB exists to serve the human beings within it.

Its Constitution, governance, schedules, curriculum, resources, spaces, programs, and traditions are means rather than ends. They should be preserved when they serve people well, strengthened when experience teaches how they can serve more faithfully, and reconsidered when they begin to demand that people serve structures created for their benefit.

Education is the stewardship of human possibility. The institution must remain worthy of that trust.