Location: West Lake Hills (serving Westlake, Rollingwood, Barton Hills, Tarrytown, and surrounding West Austin areas)
3423 Bee Cave Road
West Lake Hills, TX 78746
Students served: Spark program (ages 4-5), Elementary (1st–5th), Middle School (6th–8th), and High School (9th–12th)
Current enrollment: 90
Model/philosophy: Every child has a gift that can change the world in a profound way. The school’s mission is to inspire each child to find their calling and develop the passion to pursue it. The founders believe that “learning to do”, “learning to be,” and "learning to learn" are more important than “learning to know.”
Special features: Acton Academy West Austin, founded in 2015, is a student-led, self-paced, private accredited school. The school uses online adaptive software for math and language, project-based learning, Socratic discussion groups, and examination of the Hero’s Journey and how it applies personally to each student. The campus is set back off of the road in Westlake, on a 6-acre magical property where the students enjoy a major focus on outdoor time and unstructured play. The campus participates in competitive private school league sports, including soccer, flag football, and basketball. Each team, in each sport, has held an undefeated season, and this year the all-girls basketball team won the championship.
Schedule: Monday–Friday 8:30am–3:15pm, year-round Sept–July. See the school’s calendar here.
Tuition: $1,200 per month for 11 months ($13,200 total per year)
Contact: Jayme Bynum, Head of School | info@actonacademywestaustin.com | actonacademywest.com (elementary & middle school) | high-school.actonacademywest.com (high school)
Each listing in this alphabetical directory gives you a snapshot of a small, independent, alternative school in the Austin area.
This frequently updated list spans several pages, with navigation buttons at the bottom. Clicking on the name of a school will take you to its own website. To easily find schools by geographical area, see our Alt Ed Maps page. If you know of a school that’s missing from this directory, please drop a note here, and see Alt Ed Austin’s criteria for “alternative” and “school.” You may also be interested in our directories of other recommended schools (which are mostly larger or more specialized or religiously oriented), as well as special programs for children and adults.
Full disclosure: Alt Ed Austin founder Teri Sperry has ties with several of the schools listed on this site. Her child, now in graduate school, attended two of them years ago. She has friends who direct, teach at, or are otherwise involved in others. Some programs choose to advertise from time to time on Alt Ed Austin as Sponsoring Partners. She firmly believes that all of the schools featured on this site (including the ones to which she has no personal connection and those from which she receives no advertising fees) are good choices for some kids, each for different reasons.
