Message from the Co-Heads of School

When a group of seventy students walked into their classrooms in Temple De Hirsch on October 12, 1983, they were doing more than launching the school year—they were launching Year One of the SAAS story. 

Year One was infused with a spirit of discovery, optimism, and growth. It required an audacious vision complemented by a commitment to action, and it instilled into the SAAS DNA a sense of possibility and promise.

As we launch the 2025-26 school year, we’re mindful of the beginning of our story, even as we’re excited to write the next chapter. At SAAS, our commitment to action and innovation defines both who we are and where we are going. 

From its founding, SAAS has thrived because of its embrace of an entrepreneurial mindset—one rooted in curiosity, creativity, flexibility, focus, collaboration, a willingness to learn from mistakes, and a deep sense of purpose. 

Today, our entrepreneurial mindset is more essential than ever. It guides every aspect of our work—shaping programs, inspiring innovation, and encouraging students to approach their own lives with curiosity and initiative. In a world where generative AI evolves rapidly and the social and emotional needs of young people continue to grow in complexity, education must be both adaptable and visionary. 

At SAAS, we prepare students for tomorrow by placing their curiosity, independence, and well-being at the heart of everything we do today. You can see this mindset reflected in every facet of our community—in our curriculum and leadership structures, and in the many ways we model for students what it means to embrace change with purpose, creativity, and agility.

This year, we’re launching more than a school year; SAAS is launching a particularly exciting chapter for our school. In Fall 2025, we will open the Home of the Upper School on our 12th Avenue block. More than just a building, this new space is designed as a hub for connection, collaboration, and curricular innovation. Flexible classrooms and welcoming common areas will inspire students and amplify their potential. 

Our community will also come together throughout the year for our signature SAAS Summit events. Launched in 2023, SAAS Summit embodies our dedication to fostering thoughtful and engaged leadership. By bringing together students, faculty, and external experts, we explore varied perspectives on pressing global and local topics, including climate, conservation, justice, health care, technology’s impact on society, and the creative mindset that fuels entrepreneurial leadership.

We hope you’ll visit us soon to see the SAAS entrepreneurial spirit in action. It’s alive in our classrooms, thriving in our extracurricular programs, and celebrated in our special events. We look forward to seeing you on October 4, 2025, for our Big Launch + Summit event where we’ll celebrate the launch of our new united campus. 

And to those 70 students who launched the SAAS story in the fall of 1983, we want you to know that, while much has changed, the essentials of who we are and what we believe in have not.

Now, as then, we nurture relationships between kids and adults, the classroom and the world, ideas and action.

Now, as then, we’re opening doors to the future.

Now, as then, we have an unwavering commitment to be a “dynamic community that challenges students to Question, Imagine, and Create in order to Contribute Boldly to a changing world.”

Warmly,
Rob Phillips and Giselle Furlonge