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Anne Frank Inspire Academy is a network of open enrollment charter schools where students can belong, find joy, and be great. We have put together a guide to help you learn more about Anne Frank Inspire Academy in San Antonio and take steps to enroll your child for the next school year.
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There are two open-enrollment Anne Frank Inspire Academy campuses in San Antonio. On the most recent district report card, the Inspire Academies district (which includes some residential campuses) earned a B rating; the list below includes links to each campus’s school report cards.
TEA Report Grade: B
*Learn more about this report.
San Antonio, Texas 78250
Welcome to Anne Frank Inspire Academy (AFIA), where our goal is to create a caring, creative, fun, innovative, and rigorous learning environment. At AFIA we hope to instill our core values of innovation, embracing greatness, integrity, and joy among all of our...
Welcome to Anne Frank Inspire Academy (AFIA), where our goal is to create a caring, creative, fun, innovative, and rigorous learning environment. At AFIA we hope to instill our core values of innovation, embracing greatness, integrity, and joy among all of our...
The Anne Frank Inspire Academies model is designed to support students’ journey of inquiry. It’s worth spending some time understanding what that means and how different that is from how most other schools operate. The vision is to reimagine and transform global learning—an ambitious goal, but you can see what they are reaching towards when you notice the campus design and observe the students’ projects.
At Anne Frank, their core values are compassion, commitment, collaboration, innovation, and integrity. Those values are the driving force behind the decisions they make. They believe that every student can become a self-directed learner. The schools are designed to be both fun and challenging.
The facilitators—teachers—at Anne Frank guide their students to solve problems through reasoning and prepare them to meet any potential academic or social challenge. The school environment is small enough that facilitators can create learning environments that are optimized for each child. Children learn best when they actively engage with big ideas, rich materials, and a supportive social community—a school where children can feel like they genuinely belong.
Learning spaces at Anne Frank are collaborative, lively, messy, and fun. Take a look for yourself by visiting their Google 360 tour. At some schools, children may feel that their natural sense of wonder is being stifled by outdated models. By contrast, the goal at Anne Frank is to immerse children in learning experiences that are relevant to their lives. Students are encouraged to be curious about their world and think about how to solve important problems. The facilitators guide them how to think, but don’t tell them what to think.
The Anne Frank experience opens children’s eyes to big ideas like sustainability, civic engagement, entrepreneurship, health, and well-being. They have the opportunity to participate in extracurricular activities and experiential learning that every student should enjoy, regardless of income barriers. They can increase their capacity for greatness by building social, emotional, and cognitive skills essential for success in school and life.During the pandemic, the leadership at the Academy worked to provide flexibility to families and to empower parents through communication. They continue to offer a Summer Experience program that provides students with bonding opportunities and activities that are both fun and challenging.
First Day: August 19, 2024
Last Day: May 23, 2025
Watch Justin Johnston, Assistant Superintendent at Anne Frank Inspire Academy, and Stephanie Bryant, Principal at Anne Frank Inspire Academy—NW Military, speak with Inga Cotton on Charter Moms Chats on September 21, 2023 at 4:00 PM Central live on Facebook and YouTube.
Justin Johnston is the Assistant Superintendent at Anne Frank Inspire Academy, and a dedicated educator with more than 20 years of experience.
Stephanie Bryant is the Principal at Anne Frank Inspire Academy—NW Military.
The schools are named after Anne Frank, best known for the diary she wrote before dying in the Holocaust. Her diary is authentic and vulnerable, but also inspiring, and shows great optimism and depth of character, especially for someone so young. A stairway at Anne Frank Inspire Academy—Bandera Rd. is decorated with a set of classic Apple “Think Different” posters, also meant to inspire students to consider the importance of innovation in driving human greatness.
The campus on Bandera Road was intentionally designed to create a small, family-like environment. The goal is to ensure that every student has people looking out for them, and no student should ever fall through the cracks. The campus contains outdoor learning spaces and play areas shaded by mature live oak trees. There is even an elevated classroom in a treehouse designed by Pete Nelson, Treehouse Master. The indoor learning spaces come in a variety of sizes and shapes for different groups and purposes, from meeting rooms and common areas to a movement studio. The upper grades meet in spaces that feel more like a college library. The younger grades and their facilitators tend to stay in groups, but flow from one space to another. The buildings are equipped with technology to support individual and group work.
The NW Military campus is located within the Barshop Jewish Community Center on the grounds of the Harry and Jeanette Weinberg Campus of the San Antonio Jewish Community. The facility is secure and supports small class sizes. The NW Military campus offers a LEGO STEAM program, engaging students in hands-on investigations of STEAM concepts while contributing to literacy, math, and social-emotional development. The JCC has amenities like a large indoor gym, a climbing wall, a garden, and a playground. The variety of learning spaces—whether indoor or outdoor, in a lab or under the sky—supports students as they work purposefully.
The Inspire Awards are an annual event in the fall that honors Anne Frank’s spirit of hope, goodness, and inspiration for the world. The proceeds support student projects that benefit the community. The 2021 event supported the students’ year-long environmental and sustainability projects.
Inquiry to Impact: A Youth Symposium is an official Dreamweek event that shows what manifests when Anne Frank Inspire Academy youth are released from traditional education constraints. In 2022, the virtual event featured students presenting research findings, project artifacts, and further questions on issues meaningful to them.
At the 2022 National Charter Schools Conference in Washington, D.C., the leadership team at Anne Frank Inspire Academy presented a workshop on inquiry-based learning.
Braination is the nonprofit that oversees the Inspire Academies Charter District which includes the community-based Anne Frank Inspire Academy campuses (Bandera Rd. and NW Military campuses) and Rise Inspire Academy, a referral-based program that supports the educational needs of teens in recovery from abuse of drugs and alcohol, and who are also participating in programs and services provided by Rise Recovery. The Braination team also oversees the JHW Inspire Academy Residential Schools in Bell County, Hays County, Legacy Ranch, and Rockdale, as well as Innova Joy Inspire Academy in Boerne.
At Anne Frank Inspire Academy, students have the opportunity to belong, find joy, and be great. They belong by becoming active members of their community. They work towards greatness by becoming experts in every life arena. They find joy by knowing there is purpose in life. Through inquiry-based learning, they work on projects that feel relevant to them and will prepare them to be independent, free-thinking adults. If the innovative model appeals to you and your family, then we encourage you to apply for enrollment.
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A look ahead at the 2024–25 San Antonio school year calendars. View a list of all schools with links to their respective calendars.