Charter schools are public schools that are tuition-free, independently operated, non-sectarian, non-profit, and open enrollment schools. IVA operates as a charter school under the authorization of the Long Beach Unified School District and the State of California Department of Education.
Intellectual virtues are the personal qualities of a good thinker or learner – traits like curiosity, wonder, open-mindedness, and intellectual perseverance or grit. Intellectual virtues involve the best practices of human thinking, whether the area of study is math, history, or any other subject. The focus is on developing a student’s mind to be a lifelong learner.
IVA Middle School is the first charter school of its kind whose innovative educational model is focused squarely on the development of intellectual virtues in our students and staff. We opened our doors in 2013 and serve 6th to 8th students. Our specific educational model has been written about extensively in the book Deep in Thought: A Practical Guide to Teaching for Intellectual Virtues. We have garnered praise and attention from across the educational landscape, including partnerships with Harvard’s Project Zero as well as the Anteater Virtues Initiative at UCI.
IVA is a grassroots project developed by parents, educators, and community leaders who are passionate about Long Beach students flourishing. The vision was spear-headed by co-founders Dr. Jason Baehr and Dr. Steve Porter, both Long Beach residents and professors of philosophy at local universities. IVA opened with financial support from The John Templeton Foundation.
Charter schools in CA are authorized by their local district or county office of education. IVA is authorized by the Long Beach Unified School District. This means that LBUSD verifies IVA’s compliance in financials, credentials, and policies, but that IVA operates its day-to-day operations independently from LBUSD. IVA hires their own credentialed teachers and staffs their own Principal and administrators, and office team. One exception to this independence is our special education services. For the purposes of special education, IVA is a “school of the district”, which means IVA has access to LBUSD teachers and providers in order to provide necessary services outline in student IEPs.
Like all public school in CA, IVA receives funds directly from the state based on daily student attendance. With input from a wide swath of community members, we annually create our single-school budget, which is reviewed and approved by the IVA Board of Directors and then submitted to Long Beach Unified and to the CA Department of Education.
One distinction in funding for IVA is that charter school receive no or significantly less facilities funding. While district schools enjoy rent free space in district owned buildings, we pay a significant portion of operating funding for facilities. Additionally, IVA does not benefit from ballot measures and must raise funds internally to make up for these significant costs.
Support IVA!
In light of the funding differences above, financial support from IVA families and the wider community is critical to our success. Please contact our office if you’re interested in supporting our school financially, or you can make a donation today by visiting our Donate Page.
Intellectual Virtues Academy of Long Beach is located at 3601 Linden Ave., Long Beach, CA 90807, within the Grace Church educational building. Although the school is located on a church campus, we are a non-sectarian public school without any religious affiliation.
Even though we operate independently from Grace Church of LB, we enjoy a warm and positive relationship with our landlord and are grateful for the amazing space our school gets to occupy. The location provides a warm & inviting front office & health room, spacious classrooms, a large blacktop and astroturf area, a large multi-purpose Rec Center, and additional rooms and spaces for activities and ceremonies. We have renovated the classrooms and office spaces to reflect a thinking and learning culture that invites discussion, interaction, and partnership.
IVA launched in 2013 with only 56 students at each grade level. We have since grown to our full size of 234 students, which is 78 students per grade level and no more than 28 students in each class.
We also work with staff and volunteers to implement a distinctive Advisory program where groups of 8 students meet with one Advisory weekly for an even more personal check in and support. Our mission is to create a small, intimate, caring, and thoughtful educational community where students are equipped to learn and live well.
The intellectual virtues approach is deeply personal in the sense that it is about nurturing qualities like curiosity, wonder, intellectual perseverance, intellectual courage, and open-mindedness. The ultimate goal of an intellectual virtues education is much richer and more meaningful than, say, the achievement of high scores on standardized tests. In addition, an intellectual virtues approach is academically rigorous. This is because intellectual virtues aim at a deep understanding and wise application of important knowledge. They demand much more than short-term memorization of isolated facts.
The model also provides a way of adding flesh to certain familiar, but vague, education ideals such as “a love of learning”. We believe that to have a genuine love of learning — or to be a life-long learner — is to possess a range of these intellectual virtues and others, like reflectiveness, a love of knowledge, intellectual determination, fair-mindedness, creativity, imagination, intellectual honesty, and integrity. What makes this model unique is that it involves exploring these concepts in detail, and making them an explicit and central part of what goes on everyday in the classroom.
Fostering intellectual virtues is not an alternative to a rigorous, standards-based curriculum. On the contrary, it is through active and reflective engagement of core academic knowledge and skills that students learn to practice the intellectual virtues. In selecting IVA’s curriculum, the school’s founders and teachers searched for existing published curricula in core areas that (1) aligned with the Common Core State Standards, (2) aimed at deep understanding, and (3) provided opportunities for the practice of intellectual virtues.
Here is a short list of some of our core curriculum in various subjects:
- English
- Novel-based readings with non-fiction supplements. Novels include:
- The Hobbit by J.R.R Tolkein,
- Manic Magee by Jerry Spinelli,
- View from Saturday by E.L. Konigsburg,
- The Dream Keeper and Other Poems by Langston Hughes.
- Grammar text: Sentence Composing for Middle School by Don Killgallon
- Novel-based readings with non-fiction supplements. Novels include:
- Social Studies
- History Alive!
- Supplemental primary texts
- Science
IVA employs 12 teachers who are single subject credentialed in the state of CA. IVA attracts teachers who are flexible, passionate about their subject matter, dedicated to formative development in students, and desire their own continuous growth in intellectual character.
In the rare case that we have any open and upcoming positions, they are posted on EdJoin.org.
IVA implements “block scheduling” so that students daily alternate attending 3 of their 6 classes. Classes include LitComp, Social Science, Math, Science, Physical Education and an exploration course (aka “Elective”). Additionally, students attend their Advisory group each Thursday morning for one hour, which is a small group of 8 students and 1 adult.
IVA teachers and students love the extended block scheduling, almost 2 hours per class, to be able to dig deeply into content and questions and experience multiple approaches to the the same content within that time. Students can discuss a big question, read, analyze, write, collaborate, receive feedback, and reflect all within one class. IVA classes thrive in inquiry and discussion-based interactive environments.
Each IVA course is taught by a single-subject credentialed teacher. IVA also offers intervention during the school day with daily Office Hours, where students can opt to receive support from their teacher or select an extended break. More than half of IVA students attend office hours on a daily basis and this practice of decision-making develops strong relationships with autonomy in learning, trust of teachers, and self-reliance in students.
IVA’s in-person school day is scheduled from 8:20am to 3:04pm, with early release at 1pm on Thursdays.
Our Annual Academic Calendar is aligned to the Long Beach Unified School District calendar, with the exception of five faculty-only Faculty Academy days.
We are committed to offering creative and formative exploration courses (aka “Electives”). Students take 6 classes a semester including LitComp, Social Science, Math, Science, Physical Education and an exploration course. As a small school, our schedule allows students to be enrolled in one exploration course. Note: we tend to not call these classes electives because students cannot ‘elect’ the classes – they are assigned or fit within the students schedules.
Each year our exploration courses are a little different based on adjustments in the matrix of classes and the qualifications and passions of our teachers. Exploration courses have included:
- Art – all students receive a semester of Art in both 6th and in 7th grade
- Creative Writing
- Games & Logic
- Interpersonal Communications – 8th grade course
- Social Justice – 8th grade course
Math Support Courses: Students are identified for math support by their math Test & Quizzes grades and through individual selection determined by parents and teachers.
Research shows that the use of both visual and performing arts in classroom teaching is an effective way of helping students engage new material and process it at a deeper level. Teachers at IVA have the autonomy to incorporate art into classrooms and lessons wherever they see fit, so that they may deepen their students’ understanding and appreciation of the subject matter.
Central to IVA’s educational mission and vision is a one-hour Advisory period, during which students explore their growth in intellectual virtues under the guidance of an Advisor. In many schools, advisory time is for finishing homework and chatting about personal interests unrelated to thinking or learning. At IVA, the goal of the advisory program is to help students grow as thinkers — to help students grow in our nine master virtues. Students are given weekly opportunities to practice thinking about things they are naturally curious about — things they’d like to learn and talk about.
There are no grades, no tests, and no real homework in Advisory. Rather, students get to decide the sorts of things they will talk about. It’s a time for intellectual exploration and adventure, led by staff and volunteer advisors who undergo an application and training process and are selected by the principal.
We learn about ourselves through sports, music, art, drama, and related extracurricular programs, and we believe such activities are extremely worthwhile pursuits. IVA participates in the district wide Middle School Athletics program and have been District Champions in several sports. Partnering with arts programs such as Jazz Angles, Long Beach Youth Chorus, Act Out Theatre Company, and WeBreak Dance, we also provide free after-school arts education that is open to all IVA students.
Yes, we provide free before and after school care to all students.
IVA’s gate opens daily at 7:30am for supervised playtime before the school day begins at 8:20. We also implement an After-School Support Program every day until 4:30pm. This program provides a snack and creates a supervised space for all students to complete and receive assistance on schoolwork, interact with staff and peers, and have access to our outdoor play areas. The before and after school programs are completely free for IVA families.
Every student is in a different place when it comes to the possession of intellectual virtues. While one student might be very patient when solving a difficult math problem, another might get frustrated quickly but have a greater ability to locate the precise nature of the problem. Wherever your child is on the continuum of intellectual virtues, there is always room to grow. Possessing all of the virtues is certainly not a prerequisite for this school. Rather, the goal is for honest self-awareness and the desire to make progress in forming and growing these virtues. Intellectual virtues can be taught to all students, despite various learning styles, cognitive abilities, and personality characteristics.
Yes, the overwhelming majority of IVA students come here after promoting from an LBUSD elementary school and then head back to an LBUSD high school after promotion.
While IVA students matriculate to and from other LBUSD schools, IVA’s enrollment process is separate from the LBUSD Middle School Choice Process. From December through March IVA accepts applications for the following school year. All applications received by the March deadline are entered into a random public lottery and spots are offered to students whose names are randomly chosen. All other students are placed on our waitlist. Please check our Lottery and Waitlist page for more details about our enrollment process.
An overwhelming amount of recent research in education, economics, neuroscience, and other fields underscores that success in life and school does not come from intelligence alone. Rather, success also comes from non-cognitive skills like curiosity, attentiveness, and open-mindedness – the intellectual virtues. Books on the subject include Paul Tough’s recent bestseller How Children Succeed : Grit, Curiosity and the Hidden Power of Character and Scott Seider’s Character Compass. You are also encouraged to visit intellectualvirtues.org.
IVA’s curriculum is rigorous. The culture of thinking, combined with the language of intellectual virtues, encourages our students to define themselves by their ability to grow and learn. Our students will know themselves as learners. IVA’s promoting students transition to the larger learning environment of high school with a metacognitive awareness of their learning strengths and areas of growth. Our goal is for students to view themselves as consistently growing in character. That growth mindset will encourage students to be more comfortable with transitions.
Anecdotally, our alumni tell us that they can be initially bewildered by the large campus size of some high schools and that they feel equipped to be present in their education in ways that are distinct from their non-IVA peers. Alumni and their high school teachers report that IVA students ask more questions, are not afraid to admit what they do not know, desire the cognitive input of their peers, are comfortable talking with their teachers, and are prepared for the academic challenge of high school. Most IVA students select more rigorous academic programs after middle school and can feel less challenged without them.
