By M. Dennis Taylor
The old adage “live and learn” is alive and well here in the Wellington area. The living is wonderful, and the learning opportunities include some of the best private schools in the nation at all grade levels, preparing students for the next stage of their education.
American Heritage School As one of South Florida’s top private schools, the nationally recognized American Heritage School teaches knowledge, integrity and compassion to pre-kindergarten through 12th grade students, with a low student to faculty ratio of eight to one. The fully accredited school features a 240-acre campus in Delray Beach, as well as a 40-acre campus in Plantation in Broward County. The co-ed, non-sectarian college preparatory day school has an enrollment of approximately 4,300 students. “One of our strengths is the broadness of our curriculum with almost 300 different course offerings in the high school alone, including 30 different Advanced Placement courses, with the highest passing rate in Palm Beach County, a 92 percent passing rate,” American Heritage Vice President Dr. Douglas Laurie said.
American Heritage School Robotics Program Director Taiowa Donovan works with students. The school’s robotics team is ranked among the top teams in the world.
One key strength of the school is its strong specialty programs. “We have a pre-medical program and a pre-law program,” Laurie said. “Right now, we are building a multi-million-dollar science research and engineering building for our engineering, robotics and science research program.” A key strength of the programs is who is teaching them. “All three of these programs are taught by medical doctors, attorneys and engineers who are on staff teaching the courses,” Laurie said. “These are courses that no other school has, like medical terminology, embryology, pathology, electrical engineering, trial advocacy, moot court, criminal law, mock trial, family law, business law, civil engineering — and they’re all advanced courses.” American Heritage students also get real-world experience outside the class-
room. “Students can serve internships and visit with doctors and lawyers and engineers, and see the practice of medicine and law and engineering to help them decide if that’s what they want to do,” Laurie said. “That’s one of the unique things that we have.” The school also has an extremely accomplished math competition program. “We are the number three private school in the nation in math competition, and the number one school in Palm Beach County,” he said. “In the science competition, we’re one of the best in the country.” All these programs make sure students have the ability to shine academically. “We’re wont to find competitive outlets for students with high academic standards to be able to compete, and so we make sure that we challenge them in the classroom and we treat these wellington the magazine | june 2018
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AMERICAN HERITAGE SCHOOL