Currently, the academy — which is a public school, free to students — comprises two classrooms on the back side of a campus building. According to the Davidson's book, "Genius Denied," they were driven to open the school out of concern that schools in the United States were underserving the very brightest students.
"Remember when we were 10th graders and what would have happened if we were forced to be in the fifth grade?" asked Jan. "I mean, to sit in fifth grade. That would have been very hard for us to take."
"As a result of being underchallenged, many of our nation's brightest students are either tuning out or dropping out," said Bob Davisdon.
"This is a population that is not getting any accommodation for their special needs," his wife added.
Emma, who at 14 has already written a novel and started a school newspaper, is now taking a college-level course in comparative religion.
Her parents said her old public high school back in Montana just didn't have the resources to tailor a program to a child as intellectually gifted as Emma.
"The resources in small, rural schools tend to go toward sports and just not serving the gifted population," said Kerry Schmeltzer.
"The group that we are dealing with is so rare that a school may see a child like this every 20 or 30 years," said Bob Davidson. "Even a big school may see a child like this every 10 years, and it is really beyond their normal experience."
One student, Drew Fodor, went to several private schools before coming to Davidson.
"When Drew was born, all I wanted to do was give him unconditional love and the best education that I could," said his father, Tim. "And I thought that meant Duke, Yale, Harvard, Princeton when he was 18. But it didn't take long to recognize that Drew had some exceptional requirements."
"Actually my principal, when I was in the third grade, said to my dad, 'Stop teaching him,'" said Drew. "'Let all the other children catch up. You don't need to do anything with him at home. It's just going to make it worse.' … It was like it was a disease — it was bad."
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