Blackwell Academy
Hidden under and within the Highcourt district of Empire City, this school teaches students the skills they need to take control of their lives and improve the lot of their fellow man. There are no more than 15 graduates a year, but all who own the school ring go on to great things.
The Academy is essentially a 9th to 12th grade (in the U.S. system, roughly 14 to 18 years old, though students can also get post-graduation "work study" placements that pad the resume and allow them a year of real-world work) school set up to do three things in the modern day:
1 - To provide a top-tier comprehensive education, without the distraction of worrying about standardized tests or college placement (it's a private academy that blows away minimum requirements and has enough pull that most graduates get their pick of colleges).
2 - To provide students with the mental and social tools necessary to act as agents of change on the local, regional, or national scale. We're talking sociology, civics, law, economics, and more.
3 - To instill the skills necessary to engage in different forms of masked vigilante activities. Every student takes some of these courses, just as every student takes at least some of the civics-focused classes, but this is almost like a separate graduation track; those who wish to take the upper level classes must meet increasingly high standards of mental and physical acuity.
The school is mostly for nonpowered individuals, in large part because it's invite-only and aims to be far below the radar (which many people with powers find difficult) but some students activate as Changelings and others are taken as-is just because they fit the sort of background and psychology the Headmaster is looking for.
All sorts of different backgrounds are accounted for, from the super-elite to the homeless urchin and even a few juvenile offenders.
Each class (freshmen, sophomores, juniors, seniors) is theoretically capped at 30 students, though there is a two-month orientation period where incoming freshmen have limited access to the school (usually when it's thought that certain candidates have a chance of dropping out) and some recent classes have actually broken 30 by one or two for this reason.
There's a heavy network among graduates, but people drop off the radar all the time (and a few have even fallen prey to the worst excesses of RDS) and not everyone graduates willing to walk the normal path.
