Will Smith and his actress wife Jada Pinkett Smith will open a private school in the fall focused on academics and the arts, according to the Los Angeles Times.

The school, New Village Academy, is slated to open this September at the Indian Hills High School campus in the Las Virgenes Unified School District.

In a statement, Will Smith said of the school: “About 10 years ago, Jada and I started dreaming about the possibility of creating an ideal educational environment, where children could feel happy, positive and excited about learning. . . .

“New Village Academy was born of a simple question, ‘Is it possible to create an educational environment in which children have fun learning?’ Jada and I believe the answer is ‘Yes.’ ”

New Village Academy began about three years ago as a home school for the Smiths’ youngest children — Jaden, 9 and Willow, 7 — and those of several other families. After an extensive search, Jacqueline Olivier, previously an administrator at private schools in Santa Monica and La Jolla, was hired to head the school…

The school, she said, will use many philosophies, including Montessori, Bruner and Gardner. Olivier said the Smiths would pay nearly $900,000 to lease the Indian Hills High School campus in the Las Virgenes Unified School District for three years. Fall enrollment is expected to be about 40 students and will eventually rise to about 100, she said. The school will include pre-kindergarten through sixth grade, with a top annual tuition of $12,500.

Being celebrities, the opening of their school is already mired in controversy. Among other media outlets, Fox News made a big deal that some of the teachers are Scientologists who will use teaching methods steeped in the religion. But Olivier said the teachers are of many religions, including Scientology, Christian and Muslim — although the school is secular.

I don’t get it. A big deal has been made about the Scientology, but what exactly would it look like in a classroom? The New Village curriculum sounds very rich, including literacy, math, “living skills,” Spanish, karate, yoga, robotics, technology, etiquette and art. “Parental involvement is encouraged, as is limited access to television and sugary foods,” according to the L.A. Times.

This doesn’t sound much different than a montessori, waldorf or any other private school for that matter. What do you think? Is critique of the Smiths’ new school warranted?

http://www.mothertalkers.com/storyonly/2008/7/1/17292/95520