RAI Digital High provides an instruction that is founded on the research-based principles of a classical liberal arts education using California’s content standards. Students are taught to recognize how standards in one content area relate to another, and how basic knowledge learned is the foundation of more complex ways of thinking. The instructional program applies the principles of the trivium (grammar, logic, rhetoric) and insists that a good education encompass abstract thought, aesthetic appreciation, empirical inquiry, and spatial relation that integrates its contributions to our society. It is language focused and teaches the tools of logic for the organization of knowledge in order to equip all students with the ability to express conclusions effectively.

RAI is a community of learning where classrooms are organized around Socratic dialogues that provoke thinking and insights. All knowledge is interrelated and taught by an interdisciplinary team of teachers. This pattern lends coherence to the study of history, science, mathematics, and literature – subjects that are all too often fragmented and confusing. Teachers are coaches and mentors to their students.

Although students may be assigned homework for each core subject area as needed to ensure mastery of the content standards, after class assignments will be achieved through projects using an integrated approach wherein students independently, or in small groups, integrate the knowledge learned in the core areas to address real world issues. The "RAI Block" period is reserved for project based learning activities.

All learning materials provided by RAI are on a loaned basis for the period of use by the student.