Atherton High School

Atherton Family:

We are excited to welcome students back for the 2024-25 school year! We are ready to immerse our students in learning experiences and a culture that will inspire them to fulfill our school motto of What You Do Makes a Difference. I truly believe there has never been a more exciting time to be a member of the Atherton Family. Our school is currently at the largest capacity in decades and we have achieved our highest-ever national ranking by U.S. News & World Report. Our visual and performing arts programs continue to earn the highest achievements in local and state competitions, our students have demonstrated record levels of postsecondary readiness (#1 in JCPS in 2022-23 and 2023-24), and our school culture survey results indicate very high levels of satisfaction of students, parents and staff. 

While we are very proud of our current achievements, we are also looking to the future and thinking of how Atherton will serve the next generation. How do we best prepare our students for a world that is continually changing around them? How do we support students in the development of their own passions and interests to truly make a difference in the world? Atherton staff are laying this foundation with a whole-school approach to the International Baccalaureate (IB) program supported by high-interest learning contexts within the Academies of Louisville model.

Whole-School IB

An IB World School includes every learner in every classroom. Freshmen and sophomores at Atherton are shaped via IB-supportive approaches to instruction, learning activities and how students demonstrate their learning. The foundation for IB at Atherton is developed in students starting with the Freshmen IB Academy and continues for all students through senior year. The IB provides a framework of learning that encourages students to become creative, critical and reflective thinkers. The IB also emphasizes intellectual challenge, encouraging students to make connections between their studies in traditional subjects and real world contexts. Finally, IB fosters the development of skills for communication, intercultural understanding and global engagement which the IB identifies as essential qualities for young people who are becoming global leaders. To achieve these goals, teachers at all grade levels support the development of an International Baccalaureate mindset through the development of students’ IB Learner Profiles, situating learning within IB Global Contexts and deepening learning through IB Key and Related Concepts. The IB framework is adaptable to any curriculum of any subject.

During their junior and senior years, students are prepared, supported and encouraged to pursue the internationally-based curriculum of International Baccalaureate Diploma Program (IB DP). The IB DP engages the IB learner in targeted curriculum objectives in specific subject areas: Mathematics, Science, Language & Literature, Language Acquisition, Individuals & Society, and the Arts. At Atherton, students who fully immerse themselves in the IB DP experience take courses such as IB History of the Americas, IB Calculus, IB Physics, IB Biology, IB English Language, IB Theory of Knowledge and an IB World Language such as French, German, Japanese or Spanish. All students will ultimately defend their preparedness for graduation with a capstone project that exemplifies their IB learning experience.

IB Mission

The International Baccalaureate aims to develop inquiring, knowledgeable and caring young people who help to create a better and more peaceful world through intercultural understanding and respect. The IB program encourages students across the world to become active, compassionate and lifelong learners who understand that other people, with their differences, can also be right. The IB aspires to help schools develop well-rounded students, who respond to challenges with optimism and an open mind, are confident in their own identities, make ethical decisions, join with others in celebrating our common humanity and are prepared to apply what they learn in real-world, complex and unpredictable situations.

The IB program develops internationally-minded people who, recognizing their common humanity and shared guardianship of the planet, help to create a better and more peaceful world. Therefore, an IB education:

• Focuses on learners—the IB’s student-centered approach promotes healthy relationships, ethical responsibility and personal challenge

• Develops effective approaches to teaching and learning—IB helps students develop the attitudes and skills they need for both academic and personal success

• Works within global contexts—IB students explore globally significant issues and increase their understanding of languages and cultures 

• Explores significant content—the IB program offers a curriculum that is broad and balanced, conceptual and connected.

Informed by values described in the IB Learner Profile, IB learners strive to become inquirers, knowledgeable, thinkers, communicators, principled, open-minded, caring, risk-takers, balanced, and reflective. These attributes represent a broad range of human capacities and responsibilities that go beyond intellectual development and academic success. The IB Learner Profile provides the framework at Atherton for putting into action the goals of the JCPS Graduate Profile: Prepared & Resilient Learner, Globally & Culturally-Competent Citizen, Emerging Innovator, Effective Communicator and Productive Collaborator.

Academies of Louisville

The Academies of Louisville provide meaningful contexts for learning chosen by students according to their potential career interests and passions. Freshmen learn about the different academies throughout their first year at Atherton in preparation for their selection of courses as upperclassmen. Students choose a strategic sequence of electives that will provide pathways to exploring high-interest careers: 

• Media Arts Academy: The Media Arts Program aligns course content with current industry practice in various forms of media arts and the new National Coalition for Core Arts Standards for the Media Arts. These standards describe the necessary occupational, academic, and employability skills needed to enter the workforce or post-secondary education in specific career areas. The strength of these business partnerships ensures that the curriculum meets industry specifications. Cooperative experience, internships, shadowing and mentoring opportunities will provide depth and breadth of learning in the instructional program and allow students to directly apply concepts learned in the classroom.

• Health Science Academy: The Health Science Program provides the secondary student with orientation, exploration, and preparation into the healthcare industry. Currently, Kentucky joins a nationwide shortage of healthcare workers. At a time when many industries are downsizing, the healthcare industry is one of the largest industries in the country with more than 14 million jobs.

• Engineering Academy: The Engineering Program includes the practical application of science and engineering and exposes students to a wide range of real world problems. The U.S. has approximately 1.6 million engineering jobs that pay $42 per hour in median wages. Civil engineers account for the most jobs of any engineering field (274,000 in 2014), followed closely by mechanical engineers (264,000) and industrial engineers (229,000). Those three engineering jobs, plus electrical engineers and electronics engineers, make up two-thirds of the American engineering workforce.

The Academies experience will be multifold for the Atherton student. In the classroom, teachers will situate learning within relevant learning contexts according to the selected Academies pathway in English, math, science and social studies. Students will also take a sequence of four elective courses that direct them through a pathway leading to a credential or certification in that area of study. The Academies experience will include guest speakers who specialize in these career fields as well as field experiences where students actually see what these careers entail. As JCPS and Atherton develop ongoing business partnerships, students will have more choices to engage in internships and job opportunities that provide them with career-related experience in that field to make them knowledgeable and competitive. 

Thank you for choosing Atherton!

Sincerely, 

Stephanie Fluhr, Ph.D.
Principal, Atherton High School