Astra Nova School, successor to Ad Astra, is a non-profit online school founded by Elon Musk and Joshua Dahn on the campus of SpaceX. The Washington Post said it was possibly "the most exclusive school in the world".[1] Some[who?] consider Astra Nova to be one of the world's most innovative schools, and represents the "next frontier in STEM education."[2][3][4]
Ad Astra (meaning "To the stars" in Latin) was launched in 2014 after Musk pulled his five sons out of school,[5] saying in an interview that "They weren't doing the things I thought should be done."[6] Musk hired Joshua Dahn to design the new school and teach a small group of students, mainly Musk's own children and those of SpaceX employees, for free.[7][8] Grades, foreign language studies, and music lessons were notably absent from the school's curriculum.[9] The school left SpaceX campus in June 2020 when Musk's children graduated.[10]
InWalter Isaacson's 2023 biography, Elon Musk, Musk states, "They went there until they were about fourteen but then I thought they should be introduced to the real world for high school. What I should have done is extend Ad Astra through high school."[11]
In August 2020, the former faculty and students of Ad Astra created the non-profit Astra Nova School.[12]
The curriculum focuses on first principles thinking, decision making, and collaboration.[13] According to The New York Times, Musk and Dahn split intellectual property of the school 50-50 [14] Ad Astra and Astra Nova use various open-ended scenarios, called "Conundrums", that encourage constructive disagreement. Conundrums have been used in millions of classrooms in partnership with ClassDojo.[15][10] Synthesis, a venture-backed educational technology company founded in 2020, is also based on the work of Astra Nova.[16]
The school is currently run by Joshua Dahn and co-founders Dr. Rosemary Rohde and Tara Safronoff.[17][10] The school accepts students ages 10–14 and currently has an enrollment of 250 from around the world.[18]
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