Inspire School of Arts & Sciences

Inspire School of Arts & Sciences set out to provide an environment that was innovative and inspiring for students in the California North State with the following general goals:

1. Provide intensive learning in a small school environment that is tuition free.

2. Offer a variety of majors and career pathways to provide a diverse education.

3. Provide a home-like feeling at school that encourages being a do-er, taking risks, and thinking outside-the-box.

4. Provide education that extends past books and focuses on human-centered learning; encourage being creative, competitive and compassionate.

Inspire School of Arts & Sciences is committed to giving each individual student a specialized learning environment. The school caps the enrollment at 460 while employing 28 teachers, 2 full-time counselors, and 10 support staff. Inspire has a ratio of 210:1 students to counselor, one of the smallest in California (with an average of 663:1).

The school offers majors in: art, dance, digital media arts, engineering, humanities, instrumental music, musical theatre, recording arts, science, theatre performance, and technical theatre. They also offer hands-on learning experiences in their career or technical education area of interest in:
- Design, Visual, and Media Arts
- Production and Managerial Arts
- Performing Arts
- Engineering and Architecture

The Inspire teachers are hired based on their expertise in their field and their passion for teaching creating a unique group that are deeply invested in the students learning experience. In addition, Inspire offers advisories that meet with the same students four times a week with the same teacher to provide a family-like environment. The advisors help students reflect on their academic progress, explore future options, and communicate needs and goals to parents, admin, and teachers. Students learn to recognize and respect each other’s differences and celebrate shared experiences. Advisories create a place to share information about school issues and events, including conversations around continual improvement of the school. Staying with the same group all four years of high school, student and advisor form deep bonds that often last after graduation.

By providing an education and environment that engages students and having teachers that are passionate about their classes and the students, the students complete their high school education at an incredible rate - 98% graduation rate despite an almost 50% poverty level rate.

Inspire School of Arts & Sciences has accomplished what they set out to do 10 years ago - offer an award-winning, state-of-the art education model. They have scores in English and Science that are higher than any other in the county. They received the Silver Award from the Best High School by the U.S. News & World Report. Inspire has been honored with the California Gold Ribbon because of showing improved student outcomes and education quality. The school was recognized by the California Exemplary Arts Education Program which is based on a broad cross-section of educational delivery models in a minimum of three of the following: Dance, Media Arts, Music, Theatre, and Visual Arts. Inspire offers all five. They continually win awards by SkillsUSA in media arts, as well as, in science fields. It is safe to say that this program is a model for other schools across the nation.

However, Inspire School of Arts & Sciences has been providing this education within the limited walls of mostly aging, dilapidated portable classrooms with ceilings that leak and are in need of constant repairs.

“Since its inception in 2010, Inspire School of Arts and Sciences has committed to cutting-edge education, recognizing that when young people are given an environment and the tools to be creators, innovators, inventors, artists, performers and critical thinkers, they will do astounding things. Inspire students have been bringing their art, gifts, and talents to our community for ten years now from the confines of approximately twenty-five portable buildings. I can only begin to imagine what they will do in a facility that fosters collaboration, imagination and the joy of learning.” – Eric Nilsson, Founding Principal

Since the beginning, Inspire has had a vision for moving to a new site. They learned that they were eligible for Prop 51 funds from the state of California, which provides matching funds up to $10 million if they can garner $10 million in contributions of their own. However, the 2018 Camp Fire that devastated the community burned a quarter of the Inspire student’s homes and increased the poverty level of Inspire families, quickly redirecting the staff’s efforts to meeting the fundamental needs of families. Then, in the same month that the Inspire Foundation was launching their first capital campaign to build their new school, the COVID-19 global pandemic caused the closure of thousands of local businesses, leading to another tragedy that has had serious impacts on the North State economy.

Now, Inspire has just a year and a half to raise $10 million in order to receive the matching funds from the state to build their new school, and we need your help in this effort. You can be part of making this vision a reality and building a lasting legacy for the arts and sciences in this rural area of Northern California.

Through surviving the 2018 Camp Fire that devastated the community, and figuring out how to adjust the budget with a potential 20% cut in education from the COVID-19 pandemic, Inspire School of Arts & Sciences will continue to offer the students the progressive educational experience and family-like environment they sought out to accomplish 10 years ago.

- Striving for excellence. Inspire has the #1 ranking in English Language Acquisition (ELA) and Science state test scores for Chico, CA area schools, with the highest rate of high school graduates.

- Transcending traditional learning. Inspire offers over 80 electives and 12 majors to its students, creating an award-winning educational experience that prepares young leaders to expand and achieve their dreams.

- Producing world-class performances. Patrons often walk away from Inspire productions in awe that this level of talent has come from high school students. “I have been attending Broadway Shows in New York for 30 years and after watching Oklahoma by Inspire, I now know where I can see performances of that caliber.” - Connie, Butte County resident

- Creating hands-on experiences. Inspire School of Arts & Sciences offers the most diverse range of engineering courses of any school in the North State. Students work in teams to design and test solutions, they’re empowered to develop in-demand, transportable skills like collaboration, critical thinking, and communication.

- Pushing boundaries. Science students are encouraged to think outside the box leading students to explore how to create a system to recycle all the plastic on campus into usable items, work with a scientist on the east coast to develop a powder to regenerate limbs, and building a suitcase sized solar battery that was delivered to villagers in Tanzania to provide light and joy during a dark African night.

Now we need to raise the millions for the campus needed for the thousands of students to pass through this transformative learning environment to become the trail blazers that will change the world.