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Why Not Just Call Them Schools

Because Words Should Mean Something


A School here is one of four broad territories of mastery, each with a House colour and its own crest. Calling every new subject a School would empty the word out inside a year.

So a place with a defined subject and a narrower remit is a Center. A place people live in for a season while they rebuild is a Campus. A place that fields teams is a Department. The name tells you what kind of place it is before you arrive.

None of this changes what we are

A Center is not a School, and neither one is a college. Nothing here is accredited, nothing here grants a degree, and nothing here confers licensure. The one claim is the same everywhere on this site: we document what you were taught, and that you were tested on it. How credentials work.

The Vocabulary

What We Call Things


If you are proposing something new, this is the shelf of words it can come from. Pick the one that describes the size and shape of what you are actually building.

  • School — one of the four. The list is closed.
  • Center, Campus, Department, Institute, Academy — a place with its own subject, sitting alongside the Schools rather than inside one.
  • Program, Certificate Program, Concentration, Track, Pathway, Curriculum, Sequence — a route through material, inside a School or a Center.
  • Initiative, Lab, Learning Community, Special Topics Series, Extension Program — something smaller, newer, or deliberately temporary.
Proposing One

Bringing Us a Subject We Don't Teach


Most of what is on this page arrived because somebody who knew a subject offered to teach it, not because a committee decided it was a gap.

If you have a body of knowledge and the patience to teach it, the Workroom is where that conversation starts. You do not need a credential to teach here. You need to know the thing and be able to explain it to somebody who does not.

Whether it becomes a Center, a Program inside an existing School, or a Special Topics Series is a conversation, not a hurdle.