Elon Musk Is Opening a STEM-Focused Private School In Texas This Fall
Elon Musk’s plans to open a private school on a former horse ranch in the rural region of Bastrop County, Texas, are edging closer to reality. Named Ad Astra, a Latin phrase that means “to the stars,” the STEM-focused institution earlier this week announced on X that is now accepting applications for the 2024-2025 school year.
Bastrop has become home to development sites from Musk’s space company SpaceX and tunneling venture The Boring Company in recent years. Both companies have faced local backlash regarding their environmental impacts on the farm-filled county. Musk has also built the “Hyperloop Plaza” in Bastrop, which contains a convenience store and salon and will soon open a safety support facility for X. Now, the region is set to host a school opened to children aged three to nine that aims to “foster curiosity, creativity and critical thinking in the next generation of problem solvers and builders,” according to Ad Astra’s new website.
The school will enroll around 50 children in total, with 18 primary students and 30 lower elementary students who will receive teacher ratios of 12:1 and 15:1, respectively. Ad Astra’s educational curriculum will emphasize STEM subjects and focus on individualized learning, activity-based classes and multi-age classroom groupings, offering “uninterrupted work periods” for children to pursue tasks they have chosen. While Ad Astra isn’t a pure Montessori school, it says it will “value the experience that our Montessori-trained educators bring.”
Several job postings hiring assistant elementary and preschool teachers for the new school have been posted by Xplor Education, a company that provides software for childcare operators and is partnering with Ad Astra. The listings request applicants who are “warm, joyful and peaceful” and have experience in STEM education and child development. They also allude to Musk’s presence in Bastrop and suggest that Ad Astra will benefit the children of employees at Musk’s companies, stating that “Bastrop is quickly becoming the home of leading-edge tech companies including The Boring Company, Neuralink, SpaceX and Tesla (TSLA)” and noting that “while their parents support the breakthroughs that expand the realm of human possibility, their children will grow into the next generation of innovators.”
This isn’t Musk’s first foray into education
Musk first founded Ad Astra in 2014 as an educational alternative for his own children and those of SpaceX employees. Initially running out of his Los Angeles home, the school eventually set up shop at SpaceX’s headquarters in Hawthorne, Calif. With an unusual approach that prioritized technical projects over formal assessments, its curriculum over the years included topics like space exploration and North Korea. At the time, regular schools “weren’t doing the things I thought should be done,” Musk said in 2015. “I thought, well let’s see what we can do. Maybe creating a school will be better.” Ad Astra shut down in 2020 and shifted into an online educational venture.
The new iteration of Ad Astra is run by a Musk-linked charity called The Foundation, which has received $100 million from the billionaire and reportedly used a shell company to acquire the school’s 40-acre plot of land in Bastrop. The Foundation’s mission is to “create schools dedicated to STEM Education at the highest levels,” according to its most recent tax filings, which also noted the nonprofit’s plans to open a STEM-focused school in Bastrop.
While the school’s primary function will be to educate a regularly enrolled student body in the region, “distance learners” may be included in the future and expansion plans will be “based on the needs of the local community and on a timeline that provides for quality education and overall experience,” according to the filings. The Foundation also plans to eventually open a full-fledged university in Austin, Texas, dedicated to “education at the highest levels” that will seek accreditation from the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools Commissions on Colleges.
Ad Astra, meanwhile, is expected to welcome students this September pending a license approval from Texas Health and Human Services. While tuition for the inaugural school year will be subsidized, the school says future fees will “be in line with local private schools that include an extended day program.”