[4] The Nova schools were originally jointly funded by the Ford Foundation and local sources, and were known for their progressive curricula and use of experimental teaching methods.

The school year consisted of eleven months of instruction, with a one-month summer break.

The earliest national academic games tournaments were held on the Nova campus during the late 1960s.

Nova faculty have, on average, 12 years of teaching experience and 49% hold advanced degrees.

[8] Members of the Nova High School speech and debate team have won nine National Championships since the year 2000: Jeff Hannan in Student Congress (2000),[9] Scott Jacobson in Student Congress (2002),[10] Matt Futch in Student Congress (2004),[11] Allison Pena in Extemp Commentary (2007),[12] Jared Odessky in Domestic Extemporaneous Speaking and Jamaque Newberry in Dramatic Interpretation (2011),[13] Gregory Bernstein in Congressional Debate (2013),[14] Craig Heyne in Prose Reading (2016),[15] and the team of Cornelia Fraser and Rafey Khan in Public Forum Debate (2017).