Superintendent's Message
As we begin the 2012-2013 school year, we are thankful to be a part of this excellent school with over 500 students and 50 professional staff members in just our 24th year of existence. This past June we graduated 45 students who were accepted at some of the best schools in the world including Brown, Dartmouth, and Cornell from the Ivy League, UC Berkeley, Smith, Emory, Tufts, Washington University in St. Louis, UCLA, USC, University of British Columbia, Colby and Bowdoin to name just a few of the more than 80 different colleges and universities that offered our seniors acceptance. We are very proud of how this Class continued the tradition of Kaohsiung American School (KAS) graduates being accepted at one of their top three choices of colleges or universities throughout the world. In addition, these graduates earned numerous scholarships including full, four-year grants worth hundreds of thousands of dollars.
This world-class school does not rest on its past. Each year students, parents and other community members see continued improvements. This year we will open to updated and larger science labs, a new artificial turf soccer field, and a cafeteria with new air conditioning units and a more aesthetic loo. This is just the beginning of an entirely new or upgraded campus on our current site that will happen in the next 2-5 years.
We all know that facilities are only a small part of what makes a school great. We have updated our curriculum so it is now more challenging with higher expectations, added electives such as Film Studies and Global Studies, and continued to hire high-quality, certified, and experienced teachers. With hundreds of applicants for only 10 positions, we were able to be highly selective. In fact, we have a staff that is at or above the ability level of a staff in any reputable school in the world.
KAS is a school that is centered around learning. Our strategy is pretty simple: we hire great teachers with a passion for teaching, provide them with excellent professional development and resources they need to teach well, offer incentives to keep them with us for several years or longer, and hold them to extremely high standards. We accept students who are ethical and highly motivated to learn, and we offer a challenging curriculum that includes the intellectual, social, physical, and emotional elements of the whole child. We are transparent and work hard to educate the community on a regular basis so they fully understand who we are and what we do.
Our mission is to develop Balanced individuals who are Independent thinkers and Global citizens. “Go BIG” is our Theme. KAS is certainly going “BIG” now and in the future!
With thanks,
Dr. Thomas Farrell, Superintendent
Download KAS Administrative Policies as a pdf file.
