Vy Tan Hoang Van

Thinking outside the box comes naturally for Vy Tan Hoang Van, who has built a stand-out private school in Houston that rethinks the approach to motivating young people to succeed.

In just a five-year span, Van Houston Academy, at 13618 Bellaire Blvd. in the International Management District, has grown from about a dozen full time students to more than 90 today in grades 1 through 12. The school serves primarily Vietnamese-American students in the heart of the Alief community.

After teaching several years in public schools, Van found that the focus on standardized test scores there had unintended consequences for students. They lacked the energy, ambition and drive to excel, from his point of view.

“I saw that kids were depressed and stressed,” said Van, a Stanford University alumnus. “They didn’t have friends in school. For friendships and relationships, you need time to build and work together.”

In 2016, Van started an SAT prep after-school and summer tutoring program to help students pave a path to college. But the strategy of “teaching to the test” wasn’t working for the students and teachers. Two years later, Van opened the academy as a private school to provide a more holistic approach to education.

The school is especially needed for Asian-American students and newly arrived immigrants who often find themselves isolated in a public school environment, said Van, who serves as school principal.

“I realized that no matter how much time we spend with them after school, students were stressed out and didn’t like going to school, so the motivation was not there,” Van said. “I really want to build intrinsic motivation.”

Van’s approach is excellent in its simplicity. Teachers are encouraged to develop their own curricula; class size is small; and students stay with the same classmates until they graduate – a model he said was practiced in Vietnam.

“Students build friendships and relationships, and they build and work together here,” he said. “That environment is what is lacking in public schools.”

Van Houston Academy focuses more on personal development while still teaching core subjects. The school also teaches young people about compassion, attentiveness and empathy.

On Fridays, instead of classes, students devote their entire day to participating in clubs encompassing a wide range of extracurricular activities – film club, where students make movies; construction club, where they design and build projects from scratch; and robotics club, where one of their robots was awarded second place in statewide competition.

The academy’s approach has been hugely successful, with many of the students being accepted to state colleges and Ivy League universities. Three students have been accepted to Stanford University.

Vy Vivian Nguyen, 17, is among the academy’s many successes. In public schools, friendships didn’t come easy for her because students attended different classes and gathered in isolated groups to socialize. In the ninth grade, she was emotionally drained and almost gave up on school.

Since joining the academy, Nguyen is a straight A student and serves as president of the school’s student council.

“The teachers here are amazing,” she said. “They really do try their very best to help you every step of the way.”

Nguyen has been awarded an academic scholarship from the American Pharmacists Association and has been accepted to the University of Houston. She’s awaiting enrollment decisions from the University of St. Thomas, Houston Baptist University and Texas A&M University.

For more information about the academy, visit https://vanhoustonacademy.com or call 281-879-7963.