Elon Musk’s preschool Montessori school in Texas can now open.
The school, which has been under construction since last year, received its first permit Thursday from Texas child care regulators, the agency said, adding that the school, which has been under construction since last year, received its first permit from Texas child care regulators on Thursday as part of Elon Musk’s ambitious STEM-focused education plan. The path has been opened to get started. Includes multiple independent K-12 schools and even universities within the state.
The Montessori school, named Ad Astra (Latin for “to the stars”) after Musk’s interplanetary travel plans, is located about 40 minutes from Austin in Bastrop County. , several mask companies are developing their businesses. Bastrop’s independent schools could eventually enroll up to 54 students in the upper and lower grades, with full-time faculty and “specialized education at the highest level of STEM education,” according to Musk’s document. ” with an overarching mission to provide learning facilities. Review by a funded non-profit organization luck.
The first Ad Astra students in Bastrop will be ages 3 to 6 and will attend a preschool that focuses on exploration, coloring, collage making, and learning about maps and globes.
According to the Texas Health and Human Services Commission, the school suffered initial application failures and inspection delays, but after passing an inspection earlier this month, it received its first state permit on Nov. 14 and is currently in operation. is considered a licensed child care program. , which regulates child care centers in the state. Ad Astra kindergartens can enroll nearly 20 children, according to the agency, but according to application documents obtained by the school and submitted to the state, it appears it was originally only expecting 16 children. . luck Based on a Freedom of Information Act request.
Bastrop Ad Astra is Musk’s second major foray into education. The early Ad Astra schools were conceived about a decade ago when Musk approached his son’s then fourth-grade teacher about starting a school for his own children and the children of SpaceX employees. It was done. The school opened in 2014, but after Musk’s children graduated, Ad Astra and its teachers spun off in 2020 as an independent remote-only school called Astra Nova. This was revealed in an interview conducted by the co-founder in 2021. According to , Ad Astra sold mobile homes, furniture, labor and intellectual property to SpaceX. Non-profit declaration. In 2018, a new school called “” was born.discovery” began operations at the SpaceX campus operated by a company called Xplor Education, which also operates a Montessori school in Hawaii.
This time, Musk’s school plans look even grander. The Musk Foundation has secured nearly $100 million through a nonprofit called the X Foundation to build the first elementary and secondary schools and eventually open a university, according to nonprofit filings. He says everything should be fine. Ad Astra is the latest arm of a variety of businesses and projects linked to Musk, the world’s richest man. Musk was recently appointed by President-elect Donald Trump to oversee the new Office of Government Efficiency.
work and play
For now, Mr. Musk is living in a white farmhouse with a long porch on a busy farm-to-market road in Bastrop County, Texas, which includes some of Mr. Musk’s company facilities and is home to X Company’s new headquarters. It started in a small farmhouse just over the street from where it was located. (the social media site formerly known as Twitter, which Musk acquired for $44 billion in 2022) will be built.
The Ad Astra preschool will be run by Greg Malick, CEO of Xplor Education, which employs three other teachers as of this summer, according to the preschool’s state filing. . And its learning approach revolves around exploration, with young children learning to put on buttons, color and draw, make collages, build words, and learn about globes and maps. There will be an outdoor basketball court, and young children will be able to play with tricycles and balls, documents said. The curriculum itself involves periods of “work” and “play” and involves children learning how to clean, apologize to others, and “resolve conflicts,” according to two psychologists, Alfred – Inspired by the research of Adler and Rudolf Dreikles. Ad Astra’s permit application says it aims to “teach young people to be responsible, respectful, and resourceful members of the community.” As a Montessori school, the school will also emphasize independent learning, hands-on experiences, and collaborative play. It is unclear whether any of Musk’s six youngest children are under the age of 5, and whether any of them reportedly live on Musk’s property near Austin, the newspaper said. wall street journal—I plan to participate.
In reality, Ad Astra will likely look a lot like Hala Kahiki Montessori School on Lanai, a school in Hawaii also run by Xplor Education. Some of Ad Astra’s admission application questions are nearly identical to Hala Kahiki’s questions, and Ad Astra’s application for admission states that students will work with local elders and experts at least It seems like he once mistakenly called the school Hala Kahiki. “Learn about the island community.”
It’s unclear how much parents will pay their children to attend Bastrop-ad-Astra schools. Tuition at Hara Kahiki Montessori School is $968 a month, according to the school’s website.
An X Foundation document describing Bastrop’s Ad Astra School says the plan calls for lower and upper elementary schools to be expanded to “an initial capacity of 54 students based on community needs and a schedule that provides a quality education.” “We will expand beyond that.” Education and overall experience. ” The school may also include distance learners and in one instance misspelled Bastrop as Bastop, according to the document.
Although Musk’s name is nowhere to be found on the filing itself, the Tesla and SpaceX CEO’s footprints are all over the new school project. The X Foundation, which is funded by the Musk Foundation, owns the land the school sits on and the application describes plans for the project. Ad Astra’s initial status application was submitted by: Jared Birchall, Musk’s financial advisor and longtime confidant. And Explo Education, which operates Discovery Preschool near SpaceX’s Hawthorne, Calif., campus, has posted job openings for the new Bastrop school and has Ad Astra’s We have a “Coming Soon” page.
Musk and Birchall did not respond to requests for comment. If you reach luckMalik declined to comment, saying he was not authorized to speak to reporters.
