Academy for Science and Design - Nashua, NH

As New Hampshire's top-performing public school, the Academy for Science and Design (ASD) has worked hard to meet the challenge of economic and societal change following the decline of the state's textile industry and expansion of Boston's high-tech corridor into the southern New Hampshire region. Established as a charter school and STEM specialty school in 2007, ASD is located on the outskirts of Nashua, New Hampshire's second largest and increasingly diverse city, reflecting an expanding immigrant population and its integration into the community. Through its innovative design for learning ASD offers an environment that nourishes the minds of our students and encourages them to use their valuable abilities to lead advancements in science and technology, as well as to become thoughtful, compassionate, and engaged citizens for improving our democracy.

Serving as both a public, open-enrollment middle school and a high school with a STEM-specialty focus, the success of the Academy for Science and Design is based on its commitment to engage a diversity of student learners at both of these levels through an exemplary structure for broadening student access to STEM-focused learning opportunities. Accordingly, ASD's program design is the school's signature strategy for the academic success of the variety of students who enter the school - a strategy focused on providing early exposure to opportunities in STEM that younger students may be unaware of, and then encouraging and supporting those students as they pursue a highly personalized pathway to a specialized STEM field in high school.