What Does It Take To Build A Classical School?

People, Project Management, Commitment. That’s It!

..Besides good books, Trivium, and Socratic Methodology.

Marketing/Enrollment

Find your message and your students. Consistent messaging that matches your curriculum, teachers, and culture is crucial. Even if you’re an existing school, fresh marketin and messaging builds great culture and community.
Vision/Families

Find your passion and your parents. A school rises and falls on parent communication. If you don’t have educational events for parents like discussions, lectures, and coffee times, you’re missing out. These are great opportunities to cast vision.
Staffing/Vendors

Find your teachers and your supporters. We have build whole schools from scratch, so this takes lot of recruiting and project management to find the right vendors. You need staff and vendors who are sold on your vision and mission.
Operations/budget

Find your site and your line items. We can provide customized budget models and counseling for faithful operations. Depending on the size of your school, your operations and budget can consume the educational mission and distract from it.

Strategic Vision

Building & Sustaining Components

Initial Pieces:

Enrollment Plan
Hiring Plan
Facility Eval

This includes:

Site visit
Meet with the board
Discussion of vision and mission
Local evaluation
Values discussion
Curriculum discussion

Long-Term Ingredients:

Budget build
Website build
Parent events
Curriculum orders
Calendars
Handbooks
Charter eval
Master Schedule
Teacher Training
Much, much more..

Build Now

What Kind Of Leadership Does It Take?

A Classical view of leadership is gained through looking at great leaders and their works in Greece, Rome, England, America, and beyond. For example, studying the lives of Theseus, Romulus, Alexander, Caesar, Lycurgus, Solon, Augustine, Church Fathers, Machiavelli, Calvin, Luther, Cromwell, Churchill, Thatcher, Washington, Madison, Lincoln, Reagan, etc, not to mention the great philosophers (Plato, Aristotle, Cicero, Aquinas, Locke, etc) who constantly comment on what it means to rule well and have a just society (ancient terminology for modern leadership). This, of course, leads into a political view of ruling, which is perhaps a decent way to think of classical leadership.