History of ACA
In the spring of 2013, Atlanta Classical Academy submitted a charter petition to Atlanta Public Schools that carried 1,600 signatures and the promise of delivering an education that would train the minds and improve the hearts of the city’s children. Over the next year, the founding board and administration built a faculty composed of professional opera singers, practicing chemists, history professors, and recent college graduates to teach some 486 students grades K-8. All of this happened before the school had a building.
Almost a year later, we found a home in a former K-8 private school that served about 220 students which, with the generous financial support of our founding families and community members, we retrofitted in a two-month sprint to become Atlanta Classical Academy.
Over the past eleven years, we have grown to become a full K-12 school serving approximately 700 students, with over 2,000 on our waitlist. During this time, the team at ACA graduated 265 students with a 100% college acceptance rate, received state and national recognition for academic excellence, won multiple state titles in athletics, launched a second school in Kennesaw, and hired our first three alumni. Perhaps most importantly, we’ve assembled a faculty whose talent and vitality brought a new school to life in 2014 and whose perseverance and vision is building an educational legacy in north Atlanta that will bring value to our students and families long after graduation.
Our Challenge
Atlanta Classical’s vision is to create a new standard for public K-12 education. In our 12th year, we’ve reached a point where our facility limits that ambition.
Our entire high school is housed in 6 modular temporary buildings that have a limited life span. Our four upper school science teachers, who hold advanced degrees from Vanderbilt, Georgia Tech, and Wake Forest, share two science labs. Our South Building, which houses 27 teachers and where we run major school events, only has two single adult bathrooms. Our parking lot cannot accommodate visitors during the school day.
The simple fact is that our building presents challenges that ingenuity cannot overcome.
To overcome this challenge, the ACA Board of Directors approved a strategic plan in 2023 to make major improvements to our current facilities, and last year, we embarked on a $12,000,000 capital campaign called Cavaliers Build: The Campaign for Atlanta Classical Academy. The goals of our capital improvement plans aim to build a school on our current campus with:
- A permanent, new high school;
- A state-of-the-art gym with locker rooms and a weight room that allows us to host varsity basketball and volleyball games on campus, and holds the entire school community;
- New classrooms grouped by department that give each teacher their own space;
- A dedicated performing arts space;
- Three new science labs;
- A flagship humanities classroom for juniors and seniors;
- A beautiful new 2-story library;
- A new cafeteria;
- Double the capacity of on-site stacking for carpool, diminishing the impact on our neighbors;
- Significant increase in parking, including dedicated visitor and staff lots;
- A new turf play space for recess and practices that is three times larger than our current one;
- A faculty lounge for all teachers;
- Enhanced Student Services space with a full-size classroom and multiple break-out rooms;
- Triple the number of student and faculty bathrooms.
As of July 2025, we have raised over $10 million toward our $12 million goal. Atlanta Classical did not begin as a beautiful school that drew families for its amenities. Before we even had a building, we promised that kind-hearted, subject matter experts would surround our students and shepherd them toward lives of virtue. In our second decade together, this is our opportunity to build a school that mirrors the excellence of the work that happens within it.
We hope you will join us.
For more information, contact Shannan Hill, Director of Development (shill@atlantaclassical.org).