Mastery Learning System
A transformative multi-year pathway for students to pursue their passions with uncommon depth and rigor.
The Mastery Learning System (MLS) is a selective program for students who are ready to take ownership of their learning. MLS students pursue ambitious, student-driven work while meeting rigorous academic expectations. With faculty coaching and sustained support, they build expertise and take on work beyond what is typically expected in high school.
What does Mastery look like?
Going further starts here.
A sample of student Mastery work:
- A small-scale nuclear reactor. A cyclotron particle accelerator. Both projects, designed and built.
- Avenues Law Review. The first high-school law review in the United States.
- AIO Quadcopter. A 3D-printed drone with original circuitry and programming.
- The Defiant. A 50,000 word dystopian novel.
- 3D Rice Genomics Research. Presentation of research at Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory Conference.
- Art Portfolio. YoungArts winner with distinction in visual arts.
- Financial Literacy App. Grand prize recipient, Prudential Emerging Visionaries Award.
Rigor, Redefined.
In the Mastery Learning System, rigor is visible in the depth, complexity, and quality of the work students undertake.
MLS students meet grade-level learning outcomes while pursuing sophisticated projects that may require months—or even years—of sustained effort. They research deeply, seek feedback, revise repeatedly, solve unfamiliar problems, recover from setbacks, and hold their work to demanding standards.
Whenever I see students working at these advanced levels in Mastery, I inevitably begin to wonder, ‘where are the limits to this type of work?’ The answer is, we haven’t found them yet. 
Half the schedule. Far greater ownership.
The MLS gives students something unusually scarce in school: time.
Students exchange roughly half of their traditional academic schedule for dedicated Mastery time and space, allowing them to stay with difficult questions long enough to research, build, test, revise, and follow ideas wherever they lead. That sustained ownership changes what is possible.
The work is extraordinary. The growth behind it matters even more.
The projects are the visible outcomes of Mastery. The deeper story is what happens to students along the way. Through meaningful autonomy, purposeful challenge, strong relationships, and sustained support, students develop confidence grounded in experience—the confidence that comes from confronting difficult work and discovering they are capable of more than they imagined.
Mastery news
Your child’s Avenues journey starts here
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