Astra Nova School

Astra Nova School, successor to Ad Astra, is a non-profit online school founded by Elon Musk and Joshua Dahn on the campus of SpaceX. The Washington Post said it was possibly "the most exclusive school in the world". Some consider Astra Nova to be one of the world's most innovative schools, and represents the "next frontier in STEM education."

History

Ad Astra (meaning "To the stars" in Latin) was launched in 2014 after Musk pulled his five sons out of school, saying in an interview that "They weren't doing the things I thought should be done." Musk hired Joshua Dahn to design the new school and teach a small group of students, mainly Musk's own children and those of SpaceX employees, for free. Grades, foreign language studies, and music lessons were notably absent from the school's curriculum. The school left SpaceX campus in June 2020 when Musk's children graduated.

In Walter Isaacson's 2023 biography, Elon Musk, Musk states, "They went there until they were about fourteen but then I thought they should be introduced to the real world for high school. What I should have done is extend Ad Astra through high school."

In August 2020, the former faculty and students of Ad Astra created the non-profit Astra Nova School.

Curriculum

The curriculum focuses on first principles thinking, decision making, and collaboration. According to The New York Times, Musk and Dahn split intellectual property of the school 50-50 Ad Astra and Astra Nova use various open-ended scenarios, called "Conundrums", that encourage constructive disagreement. Conundrums have been used in millions of classrooms in partnership with ClassDojo. Synthesis, a venture-backed educational technology company founded in 2020, is also based on the work of Astra Nova.

Operations

The school is currently run by Joshua Dahn and co-founders Dr. Rosemary Rohde and Tara Safronoff. The school attracts talented students ages 10–14 and currently has an enrollment of 250 from around the world.

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