Henry Clay High School - Liberal Arts Academy

Liberal Arts Academy

HCHS houses the Liberal Arts Academy for gifted and talented education.

The Liberal Arts Academy at Henry Clay challenges its students in all disciplines with required Academy and AP courses that are specially designed or adapted for the Academy's Gifted and Talented-identified population. These courses combine acceleration, differentiation, and enrichment to stimulate and extend student learning. The required Academy Seminars and Academic Mentoring offer opportunities for in-depth exploration and independent study outside the typical classroom.

For its freshmen class, the Liberal Arts Academy has historically selected a maximum of 50 students. However, in recent years, the larger number of students gaining automatic entry into the Academy has caused the class size to increase to about 70 students. Success in the Liberal Arts Academy requires ability, interest, and maturity. The curriculum is rigorous. The school day is longer with a zero hour class required during the freshman and junior years, and the academic workload is more time consuming that that of other high school students. For example, students are required to complete an additional problem of the week, or POW in Academy math courses. Academy students are be expected to work at the college level in most of their courses. Admission procedures include submitting an application, parent questionnaire, and having the required test scores (students from Winburn Middle School, the middle school accelerated program, are not required to test as they have already met stringent academic requirements). Each year students and parents must sign and submit a contract outlining the Academy student responsibilities.

As a requirement for this program, each student must complete a total of four years of math, four years of science, four years of English, four years of a foreign language (or to the AP level), three years of social studies, two years of academic seminar, one year of arts and humanities, and a senior mentoring project. The Academic Mentoring Program is an advanced level independent study program that allows students to design their own class content from any subject area and to study under the direction of professional in the chosen field. The program’s purpose is to allow students to pursue an idea beyond the opportunities provided in the regular classroom.

22 credits are required to graduate.

In 2006 Henry Clay established the world's first high school history lab in memory of Shelia Lewallen. This lab contains over 500 artifacts and primary sources. The lab uses core content connected lesson plans and an array of artifacts to bring real history to students.

In 2007 Stephen Fritz, an Academy student and class of 2009, got third overall on Teen Jeopardy!. In 2008 Jay Schrader, an Academy student and class of 2010 competed in the Teen Jeopardy Tournament. His younger brother Rob Schrader, also an Academy student, competed in the 2012 Teen Jeopardy Tournament.

On October 22, 2008 Henry Clay physics teacher Karen Gill was named as the 2009 Kentucky Teacher of the Year. Ms. Gill has been teaching at Henry Clay since 1992.

The 2009 Academy graduates were offered over US $9 million in college scholarship monies for their freshman college year. The Academy class also averaged the following: ACT, 32; SAT, 2170; GPA, 4.6. The graduates completed an average of eight advanced placement courses as well. Each year, the Academy produces an average of eleven national merit finalists.