Lance Stewart
Founder & Head of School, Aim Academy — Draper, Utah
Lance Stewart is the founder and Head of School of Aim Academy, a learner-driven Acton Academy in Draper, Utah. He has spent his career on one question: what would school look like if it were built to maximize what each child is capable of, rather than what is easiest to measure?
Lance has taught children of all ages in five different countries, in traditional classrooms and far outside them — including urban districts in downtown Chicago and Jacksonville, Florida, as a Teach For America corps member. He is also an education entrepreneur whose small businesses along the Wasatch Front have employed more than one hundred Utahns, and a public policy hand who has analyzed Utah education policy for Governor Herbert and worked on the campaign of his father, Congressman Chris Stewart.
He holds a Master of Education in innovative school leadership from Teachers College, Columbia University — the top-rated program in the country for launching innovative schools — along with a Juris Doctorate, an MBA, and a BS in Economics, all from BYU. The unusual combination of law, business, economics, and education is deliberate: running a school that works requires all four.
Why he built Aim Academy
Lance founded Aim Academy in 2020, starting with ten students in Sandy, Utah, in the middle of a pandemic. The school has since grown into its permanent home in Draper and graduated its first class in June 2024. Aim Academy is built on a conviction Lance came to as a teacher, a school leader, and a father of five: learning to do, learning to learn, and learning to be matter more than just learning to know.
At Aim, students govern their own studios, hold one another accountable to contracts they write themselves, and take on real-world quests and apprenticeships — an approach Lance and his team have refined into the Crucible Method, Aim Academy's signature framework for turning challenge into character. You can read the story of the school's journey — from ten students in a pandemic to a thriving learner-driven community — on the Aim Academy blog, where Lance writes regularly. The method's research and licensing arm, The Crucible Institute — also founded by Lance — now brings it to partner schools nationwide.
Lance lives in Draper, Utah, with his family. He is a father of five, a composer of music, and an unapologetic UFC fan. Meet the rest of the Aim Academy team here.
Come see the school Lance built
The best way to understand Aim Academy is to visit it.
