Maureen Donovan

Tempe Preparatory Academy

Tempe Preparatory Academy is a tuition-free, public charter school for grades 6-12 located in Tempe, Arizona. Ranked as the #1 high school in Arizona, and #15 in the U.S. by Newsweek's America's Top High Schools 2016, Tempe Prep is also recognized by the Arizona Board of Regents in 2016 as having the highest percentage of students that graduate from college. The Academy is a traditional liberal arts school with small classes, a student/teacher ratio of 10 to 1, and an advanced core curriculum designed for college-bound students. Founded in 1996, the school requires a common and rigorous sequence of courses for all students. All high school students take 4 years of math, English, social studies, fine arts, lab science, and foreign language, and are required to complete a Senior Thesis as well as 10 hours of community service each year. The mission of Tempe Preparatory Academy is to educate students for the lifelong pursuit of truth, goodness, and beauty. TPA graduates have a foundation in the liberal arts of grammar and rhetoric, logic and mathematics, history, natural science, and philosophy, with the fine arts of music, drawing and painting, and drama. TPA focuses on a rigorous integrated honors liberal arts curriculum rather than AP or IB programs. As a result, Tempe Prep is recognized by the Arizona Board of Regents as having the highest percentage of college graduates among all public high schools in the state. TPA's 50 seniors in the Class of 2016 received over $10.5 million in college scholarship offers. TPA graduates are currently attending Stanford, Harvard, Yale, Columbia, Dartmouth, Wellesley, UC Berkeley, and many other colleges and universities across the country and internationally. TPA serves a student population of 440 students in grades 6-12. Approximately 34% of the students represent various racial, ethnic or national backgrounds (including Hispanic, Asian, Native American, and African American).