Amy,
In Austin, there was a big protest about the school (being the founder is Islamic and he brings in his countrymen (turkey) as teachers and spreading Islam, and the founder's mentor was a reputed terrorist, etc.. I don't know how much of that was true. I found that out after submitting online application :-)
Anyway, my DD got accepted so my wife took her to the school to fill out registration, etc.. in early August. There was orientation for new teachers going on at the time and she saw a lot of Turkish or middle eastern men. My DD wanted female teachers > male and she decided she did not want to attend that school.
Their schools do have STEM programs and they compete in Robotics, Math Penathlon, Math counts, etc...
