Core Values

The Burroughs experience is designed to help students achieve a balanced education that embraces academics, athletics, activities, and the arts. We provide a broad education through a scaffolding of knowledge and skill building. Students are challenged through broad exposure to term papers, expository writing, geometry with formal proof, orchestra (elective), varsity coach instruction of grades 7 and 8 physical education units, and required courses in fine, performing, and practical arts. Our 7th and 8th graders explore a broad curriculum without worrying about formal grades. We do not rank students at any grade level.

Our students perform exceptionally well by standard measures—National Merit, SATs, APs, and college placement. In fact, for the past 12 years, Burroughs students have claimed the highest percentage of National Merit semifinalists in the State of Missouri. Yet our students' success is not because they’ve been specifically trained to perform well on standardized tests but because they are talented in their own right, and our approach to curriculum design helps students attain the knowledge and skills to excel.

At Burroughs, students flourish under the instruction of masterful teachers in a highly interactive process. This student-teacher interaction is the core of a Burroughs education—in the classrooms, laboratories, studios, and workshops as well as on the playing fields and performing arts venues.

Though our teachers are encouraged to use a variety of methodologies and technology as they determine what works best for each class, our model for academics is the graduate seminar. Students learn to question each other and the teacher, solve problems together and learn the critical thinking skills most people associate with the liberal arts.

One of our former students put it well, “In 10 years, 20 years, I might not remember the facts that I learned in history or how to solve a certain problem in math, but I will always have the knowledge of how to learn and how to be a student.” And this is our goal. As students grow, Burroughs helps them become increasingly independent and responsible for their own success. Students learn to embrace challenges, accept risks, overcome obstacles and achieve their goals — all with a support network of friends, faculty, coaches, and parents.

The founders of our school established core principles on which a Burroughs education should be based: an appreciation and commitment to service, nature, and the strength that derives from our differences.

Over the course of six years, students are actively engaged in voluntary community service projects in the St. Louis community and beyond. The average graduating class contributes more than 10,000 hours. Burroughs as an institution models service through two programs that bring youth in need to our campus. Aim High is an academic-enrichment program run by student volunteers and faculty for middle school kids. Summer Days is a two-week camp run entirely by students for grade school-age children.

Students gain a greater appreciation for nature through their visits to Drey Land, our Ozark campus, and as sustainability and outdoor education are woven into the curriculum and student activities. Our evolving campus also models this commitment through our single source recycling program, our bio-retention systems, and our commitment that all new buildings be LEED-certified.

We prepare students for the future by maintaining an open and democratic culture. Burroughs values and fosters simplicity enriched by a diversity of backgrounds, thought, talent, interests, and experience. Individuals with varying perspectives each have a comfortable place to express themselves.