Regents School of Austin

Regents School of Austin is a Christian school located in Austin, Texas.

About Regents

Regents School of Austin is a classical, Christian school with grades Kindergarten through Twelth grade. The school is currently the largest Classical Christian School in the United States. Regents School of Austin is a rigorous school which employs highly educated teachers to challenge all of the students. A's in the School of Rhetoric are few and hard to come by and are to be treasured. Those who make it through high school are highly prepared for college, and often breeze through freshman classes. The school was first located at Park Hills Baptist Church where in its first year it had 17 students. Regents has since then moved to a permanent campus located in South Austin off of South West Parkway. Regents is located on an 80 acre wooded campus with over 800 students in attendance. All of the Regents permanent facilities have white limestone gothic arches which make the campus very aesthetically pleasing. Currently Regents comprises two academic buildings and a number of portables; one building houses the School of Grammar; the other houses the School of Rhetoric high school students. The Grammar School Building has marble floors imported from Italy. The School of Logic resides in the portables which the teachers have coined "cottages". The athletics facility consists of two gyms. The main gym is very large with a shiny wood floor, and the smaller gym has a rubberized floor and is used for a makeshift cafeteria. In the coming years, Regents plans to expand its campus with additions such as a baseball diamond, a fine-arts building, and a football stadium, and a chapel. They have been planning on building the chapel building ever since the new campus was established. However, the sheer growth of the school and the need for expansion within the academic and athletic arena have prevented the building of any such chapel building.

Athletics

The school is part of TAPPS Division 3A. Regents is home to a 4 time state champion football team. They won three state titles in 2001,2002,2003 in divisions 1A and 2A in 6-man football. The football team won another state championship in 2006 in 4A. The state championship football team was comprised LB Juan Carlos Alonso, QB Chris Meynig, and RB Will Baker. The team was coached by Coach Beck Brydon.Regents has since moved down to 3A, but only because TAPPS decided to realign the divisions. This moved Regents from 3A to 4A which consequently ended the rivalry between Regents and Hyde Park, who remains in 4A. Regents also boasts a state champion volleyball team. The volleyball team has dominated their division for the past four years. They are currently led by a strong group of girls looking at playing college volleyball. Hannah Tucci, their libero, is one of the best liberos in the nation in her age group. The middle is dominated by Joanie Benigno and Kendyl Dunn, the outside positions are played by Kelsey Shaw and Brooke Willard. Emily Welch and Morgan Dunn switch off setting. Regents is excited to see some of these girls playing at the college level. Golf, swim, and basketball teams have placed at State as well, but have never actually won a state title. The boys Basketball team had a runner up finish in 2006. Cheerleading is also a growing athletic activity at Regents School of Austin; they received an NCA state title in 2005, and competed at the NCA nationals in 2007 where they placed 12th. The team is not competing this year, but have had their best season yet. They have great tumbling skills, basket tosses, and dance skills; these cheerleaders also maintain excellent gpa's.

Fine Arts

Regents maintains fine art curricula including speech, mock trial, drama, art, and choir. The Regents speech team recently attended a TAPPS speech tournament where Luke Shuffield took 1st in Persuasive Speaking, 1st in Solo Acting and 1st in Original Oratory. Luke Shuffield and Regan Opel took 1st place in Duet Acting. Bianca Pollard took 3rd in Persuasive Speaking, 2nd in Solo Acting and 5th in Poetry Interpretation. In the Speech Team's first year, they sent two students to Nationals in Las Vegas where they placed highly. Although a relatively unknown sport, Regents Mock Trial has dominated the Austin District for several years. The Regents Mock Trial team beats St. Stephens Episcopal School every year in the final round and wins a bid to state. Regents frequently finishes in the top ten at State. This year the Mock Trial team is led by five seniors who are hoping for a state win. The Regents Drama department casts creative plays. Recently, Betsy Lipton, the drama director, has had high acclaim for her productions of The Tempest, Inspector Hound, and The Odyssey. One of Betsy's students won a full ride scholarship to NYU. The Art program at Regents competes within TAPPS and has won numerous state awards in print making. The high school art program is headed by local artist, Cindy High. The Regents choir is a developing program with numerous talents.

External links

* http://www.regents-austin.com
* http://www.societyforclassicallearning.com
* http://k6educators.about.com/b/a/085475.htm