Smith Preparatory Academy

Our commitment to a Christian classical paradigm and the dignity of the human being results in a robust philosophy of education centered on the formation of the whole person.


Cottage School
Over twenty-five years ago, Smith Preparatory Academy began as a tutoring service for homeschooling families. Still committed to our homeschooling roots, we offer a blended school paradigm. The Cottage School combines the best parts of a traditional homeschooling experience with that of a classical private school education. We partner with parents to provide a rich educational experience for each student.

Our gifted and qualified teachers, who know and love their subject, work with Cottage students instructing, encouraging, and engaging them in the classroom on Mondays and Wednesdays (8:30am-3:40pm). They have recess and enjoy whichever elective is offered on those two days.

Cottage students work at home with their parents on Tuesdays and Thursdays to complete the work assigned by their teachers. They stay on track with their Traditional School classmates and complete the same work. This allows for more personalized attention and serves to strengthen an already robust philosophy of classical education.

Our Traditional Program follows the same curriculum and course schedule as the Cottage Program, but allows additional time for further development of skills, discourse of ideas, and engagement in leisurely reflection of what students are learning. Gifted and qualified teachers, who know and love their subject, work with students, instructing, encouraging, and engaging them in the classroom. Traditional students attend school Monday through Thursday for regular classes, and join us for a half-day on Fridays for common arts.

Common arts include, but are not limited to, gardening/agriculture, woodworking, sewing, trade, etc. (For more information, we encourage you to read Christopher Hall’s book Common Arts Education.) Fine Arts, like drawing, painting, and drama will also be included as these are an extension of the common arts. This program is open to Cottage students as well.

Each day, lower school students have recess and an elective such as Aviation, Art, Music, or Physical Education. Upper school students enjoy electives such as Animal Science, Drama, Logic, Origins of Western Civilization, Christianity and Western Development, Reformations, History of Scientific Revolutions, or Christ and Culture.