Lighthouse School Expands With Addition Of Seventh Grade

The Nantucket Lighthouse School announced on Friday that it will add a seventh grade starting in the 2025-2026 school year.

The seventh grade will be housed in the Lighthouse School's newly renovated Starbuck Cottage, located on its two-acre campus on Rugged Road. The expansion was the result of more than a year of planning by its middle school task force, led by head of school Emily Miller and teacher Caitlin Tyler, who crafted the curriculum and programming for the new seventh grade.

“Honoring the unique stage of development that marks early adolescence, our educational program is specific to the needs of children at this age and includes hands-on, interdisciplinary studies in literacy and the content areas, as well as a rigorous, standards-based mathematics curriculum,” Miller said.

The Nantucket Lighthouse School is an independent school that offers an integrated curriculum, and now serves students ages 2.9 years through seventh grade for the 2025-2026 school year.

The expansion comes less than a year after the school first added a middle school component with the addition of a new sixth-grade classroom, as well as a fourth preschool class.

The school stated in its announcement that the additions came in response to a community desire for educational options.

“Educational choice is important for every community, but it is especially vital for an island 30 miles out to sea,” said Julia Maury, enrollment coordinator and school counselor. “In light of growing youth mental health concerns and research underscoring the benefits of no-to-slow technology policies like ours, we felt it was essential to offer older students a Lighthouse education. Like all children, middle schoolers deserve to have their childhoods protected.”