What is a CHARTER School?
How does a charter school differ from public or private?
01
Public- Tuition Free
A charter school is a public school that operates as a school of choice.
Charter schools cannot be religious schools.
Colorado Charter Schools must be non-profit by law.
Charter schools use non-discriminatory enrollment practices.
There are no test-in requirements to attend charter schools.
03
Accountable
Charter schools rely on families choosing to enroll their children, and they must have a written performance contract with the authorized public chartering agency.
Charter school students must take state assessments.
Charter schools are subject to the federal Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA).
Colorado charter schools are geographically dispersed across the state and serve urban, suburban and rural communities across 70 localities.
02
Autonomous
Charter schools have local parent governing boards.
Charter schools have the flexibility to design and utilize a different curriculum from district-run schools.
Charter schools receive certain waivers from the Colorado Department of Education which allow for greater autonomy over the operations.
04
Student Specific
Charter schools make decisions close to the students, empowering teachers to provide innovative, high-quality instruction and giving them the autonomy to design a classroom that fits their students’ needs.
Charter schools are led by principals who have the flexibility to create a school culture that best fits the needs and demands of their surrounding community.
Charter schools serve a broad range of students, including: low-income students, racial and ethnic students of color, and students with disabilities or other special needs.
Charter school programs and academic designs are as diverse as the students they enroll. Some charters implement longer school days, while others implement curricula specifically designed for at-risk students, gifted children, pregnant/parenting teens, juvenile offenders, and more.
What is a CLASSICAL School?
How does a classical curriculum differ from others?
How to Think, Not What to Think
By classical education, we refer to the type of education developed and passed down through centuries, from the ancient Greeks, to our Founding Fathers. Classical education describes the time-tested curricula, materials, methods, and aims traditionally used to educate our youth, and serve to build and preserve our Western civilization. This liberal-arts tradition includes teaching objective standards, the instillation of real knowledge, and instruction in moral character and civic virtue. Classical schools seek to cultivate virtuous habits of thought and action in order to orient students’ minds and affections.
The time-tested classical model achieves these aims through a curriculum that emphasizes the histories, literary works, and achievements that shaped our society and inform our understanding of what it is to live a meaningful life. It challenges students to master the works and subject matters of Western civilization’s greatest thinkers. In the true and original sense of the liberal arts, it provides an education that is fitting for free men and women, and that fits them to be free. It prepares youth to become flourishing individuals capable of personal self-governance. It fortifies the foundations for political self-governance in our Republic, so that future generations may profit from its strength and longevity.
The TRIVIUM (or how to learn) is in three parts: grammar, logic, and rhetoric
01
GRAMMAR STAGE
"The first years of schooling are called the 'grammar stage'--not because you spend four years doing English, but because these are the years in which the building blocks for all other learning are laid, just as grammar is the foundation for language. In the elementary-school years...the mind is ready to absorb information. Since children at this age actually find memorization fun, during this period education involves not primarily self-expression and self-discovery, but rather the learning of facts and training in basic thinking skills: rules of phonics and spelling and how how to use them, rules of grammar and understanding good sentence structure, poems, the vocabulary of foreign languages, the stories of history and literature, descriptions of plants and animals and the human body, how numbers work and the basics of mathematical thinking."1
02
LOGIC STAGE
"Somewhere around fourth or fifth grade, children begin to think more analytically, middle-school students are less interested in finding out facts than in asking, 'Why?' The second phase of the classical education, the 'logic stage,' is a time when the child begins to pay attention to cause and effect, to the relationships among different fields of knowledge, to the way facts fit together into a logical framework. A student is ready for the logic stage when the capacity for abstract thought begins to mature. During these years, the student begins the study of algebra and applies mathematical reasoning to real-life situations. She studies the rules of logic, and begins to apply logic to all academic subjects. The logic of writing, for example, includes paragraph construction and support of a thesis; the logic of reading involves the criticism and analysis of texts, not simple absorption of information; the logic of history demands that the student find out why the War of 1812 was fought, rather than simply reading its story; the logic of science requires the child to learn and apply the scientific method."2
03
RHETORIC STAGE
"The final phase of a classical education, the 'rhetoric stage,' builds on the first two. At this point, the high-school student learns to write and speak with force and originality. The student of rhetoric applies the rules of logic learned in middle school to the foundational information learned in the early grades and expresses her conclusions in clear, forceful, elegant language. The student also begins to specialize in whatever branch of knowledge attracts her; these are the years for art camps, college courses, foreign travel, apprenticeships, and other forms of specialized training."3
1 Susan Wise Bauer and Jessie Wise, The Well-Trained Mind: A Guide to Classical Education at Home, (New York: W.W. Norton & Company, 2016), 13-14.
​
2 Susan Wise Bauer and Jessie Wise, The Well-Trained Mind: A Guide to Classical Education at Home, (New York: W.W. Norton & Company, 2016), 13-14.
​
3Susan Wise Bauer and Jessie Wise, The Well-Trained Mind: A Guide to Classical Education at Home, (New York: W.W. Norton & Company, 2016), 13-14
American Classical Education
Well-Rounded Course of Study
Students receive a well-rounded education in the liberal arts and sciences. All students study literature, history, mathematics and the sciences, the fine arts, Latin, and physical education because the K-12 years are the years we are coming to know ourselves and the world around us. The successful development of literacy and numeracy and a solid foundation in the core subjects are necessary before advanced or specialized training and study.
Rooted in Human Nature
The study of the liberal arts does more than prepare the way for specialized training. A classical education teaches us to seek knowledge of the nature of things, especially the nature of man and of the universe as a whole. Human beings are that part of the universe who seek to know where we stand within it, and who wonder about its ultimate origins and character. We are also driven by a desire to know ourselves--to understand our nature and purpose in life.
The Humanities and Sciences
The surest guides for this quest are the great works of literature, philosophy, politics, and art that mankind has produced, which teach us about human nature and the human good, along with the serious study of mathematics and the sciences, which teach us about the natural order. Together with the study of history, which teaches us to know ourselves by understanding our place in the unfolding of the human story, the serious pursuit of knowledge across all subjects equips us for fully human lives.
Classical education liberates us in the true sense. It frees us from ignorance and confusion, from prejudice and delusion, and from the wild passions and fanciful hopes that can degrade and destroy us. It liberates by making us rational, allowing us to see the world clearly and honestly. In revealing our nature, it necessarily reveals what we need by nature--what is right and good for us.
Moral Formation
For these reasons, classical education provides, in part, moral education. Rather than do violence to human nature in a vain attempt to remake it, a classical education cultivates human nature so it can grow properly and flourish. By teaching students to cultivate moral virtue, it guides us into freedom, making us self-reliant and responsible, capable of governing ourselves and taking part in self-government of our communities.
Civic Education and Thoughtful Patriotism
The serious pursuit of a classical education shows us that the life of the mind and the existence of education itself depend on the existence of civilization--not to mention political order, security, and freedom of thought. A thoughtful study of history shows us how difficult these goods are to achieve, while giving us an appreciation of how rare and precious our own American cirumstances are, and shows us how important it is to preserve them.
In studying the origins of our country and its history, in all of its triumphs and tragedies, students acquire a mature love for America, one that appreciates our unprecedented founding--a product of reflection and choice--and measures the health of our republic in light of the standards set forth in our founding documents. From that knowledge, we become citizens capable of judging rightly what ought to be preserved and what ought to be changed, and in making this judgement we fulfill a central part of our human nature, becoming free citizens.
CURRICULUM Info
Academics
Montrose Classical Academy will offer a classical education for students in grades K-5 (adding one grade per year until fully reaching K-8). All students will study literature, mathematics, history, the sciences, the fine arts, Latin and physical education. Students will gain a solid foundation in the core subjects and become Exemplary Leaders who are taught how to think, not what to think.
Academic and personal integrity are essential to the success of our educational mission. MCA will partner with parents to develop the student’s intellect and character by grounding them in strong morals and responsible citizenship. By investing years of character education into the lives of its students, MCA will provide scholars with the moral tools needed to live in a democratic republic and share in common virtues.
"Shall we just carelessly allow children to hear any casual tales which may be devised by casual persons, and to receive into their minds ideas for the most part the very opposite of those which we should wish them to have when they are grown up? We cannot…Anything received into the mind at that age is likely to become indelible and unalterable; and therefore it is most important that the tales which the young first hear should be models of virtuous thoughts…”
- PLATO'S REPUBLIC
Curriculum
At MCA, a commitment to the Core Knowledge Sequence and classically-oriented curricula, virtue-focused character education, professional classroom instructors, and extraordinary parental engagement will prepare MCA graduates for successful citizen leadership.
CORE KNOWLEDGE
THE GREAT BOOKS
MCA will follow the Core Knowledge Sequence© in grades k-8. This curriculum encompasses language arts, mathematics, science, history, geography, fine arts, and physical education.
Core Knowledge is founded on the idea the ease with which one learns new information is highly determined by the amount of background knowledge one has already learned on a given topic. The more you know, the more you can learn. Reading with comprehension, speaking and writing fluently, and critical thinking all rely on a rich vocabulary and broad knowledge base. The curriculum is characterized by knowledge that is:
​
-
Context-rich – lasting, unchanging knowledge such as important events of world history;
-
Cumulative – a planned progression building on students’ previous knowledge and eliminating excessive repetition and gaps;
-
Content-specific – clearly defined knowledge at each grade level ensuring fairness for all students;
-
Coherent – explicit knowledge identifies what children should learn at each grade level to ensure an articulated approach to building knowledge across all grade levels.
​
It is not because they are old, but because they add to the enduring conversations about life. The great books seek to answer the hard questions of life. How ought we live? How ought we order things? How ought we engage with one another? Stemming from the great books is the backbone of civil discourse itself. Reclaiming the great books for young minds teaches them first how to listen, then how to think, and finally how to persuade.
PHONICS
Phonics instruction teaches children how to decode letters into their respective sounds, a skill that is essential for them to read unfamiliar words by themselves.
Explicit – directly teaching children the specific associations between letters and sounds, rather than expecting them to gain this knowledge indirectly.
​
Systematic – English has a complicated spelling system. It is important to teach letter sound mappings in a systematic way, beginning with simple letter sound rules and then moving onto more complex associations.
SINGAPORE MATH
Singapore Math is a cohesive, deep, and focused mathematics curriculum for kindergarten through seventh grade with the goal of developing algebraic thinking. In typical U.S. math programs, students get a worked example, then solve problems that very closely follow that example, repeating all the same steps with different numbers.
​
In U.S. math programs, concepts and skills are more compartmentalized within and across grade levels than in Singapore math, where a strong sense of connectivity to past learning is woven throughout.
​
Singapore math not only helps students become more successful problem solvers, it helps them gain a sense of confidence and resourcefulness because it insists on conceptual depth. This naturally prepares students to excel in more advanced math.
For more information visit: https://www.singaporemath.com/
HISTORY
At MCA, students of history will become armed with background knowledge and sufficient analytical skills to objectively evaluate our nation’s place in the world through a deep appreciation of its history, and intensive study of related civilizations including their rising and falling. They will be able to grasp nuances of relevant cultures including their languages, religions, governments and economies.
​
This means more than learning dates and important historical figures. It is the story of how people subsisted, how economies worked, and what influenced the growth and decline of civilizations. This necessarily includes geography, agriculture, economics, technology, health, transportation, and other factors.
FINE ARTS
Classical educators understand the importance of truth, beauty, goodness, and perfection and there is no better way to cultivate a love and appreciation for beauty than by learning to create beauty for oneself. When a student learns to make music or paint, they also learn to see and enjoy the details and skill in someone else’s music and art. The fine arts also overlap, perhaps inextricably, with the liberal arts. For instance, the fine arts of painting and music also express ideas — the goal of rhetoric — and music is itself listed as one of the liberal arts.
LATIN
Latin is both a language and a discipline. Decoding Latin instills logical and precise thought. The goal of Latin instruction at MCA will be to empower students to think, speak, and write with clarity and precision in English thereby expanding their vocabulary as well as their world.
CURRICULUM MAPS
Montrose Classical Academy plans to model much of its curriculum after the outstanding curriculum used by Liberty Common Charter School in Fort Collins. This curriculum has proven to be extremely successful for students attending Liberty Common and it has been made available to schools who embrace this style of education. Below are the curriculum maps for grades K-5 and other specific subject maps; as MCA adds grades in the future, the Liberty Common curriculum will follow, up to grade 8.
Let's Look at the STATS
01
42% of students in Montrose Area Schools qualify for free/ reduced lunch programs. All eight elementary schools are Title 1 schools. This population presents a unique opportunity to benefit from a Public Charter School.
02
During the 2018 and 2019 school years, charter schools served a higher percentage of students of color and English language learners than non-charter Colorado schools statewide.
03
Charter schools have a 4% higher graduation rate than district run schools according to Colorado Department of Education in 2019. CDE also notes that over the past three years, performance on statewide English and mathematics for grades 3-8 and on the PSAT/SAT for grades 9-11 has been higher at charter schools — students overall.
04
Today, 268 public charter schools in Colorado serve over 137,000 students (2022-23). Charter school enrollment in Colorado is 15% of total public school enrollment in the state
05
With an enrollment of 5,995 students, Montrose County School District's demographic is diverse: 55% of students are White, 41% are Hispanic/Latino, and 5% represent other minorities. Approximately 42% of students qualify for Free and Reduced Meals, 11% are identified as Multilingual Learners, 17% as Students with Disabilities, and 7% are identified as Gifted and Talented
How is MCA funded?
As a district-sponsored, public charter school, Montrose Classical Academy will be funded through state and local tax revenues. Funding gaps are supplemented through grant appeals and fundraising.
Why do we teach Latin?
A solid understanding of Latin words and grammar does wonders when it comes to understanding English grammar and vocabulary. The ability to read critically goes hand in hand with the ability to carefully parse and interpret language. Our brains use Latin to learn to read, write, and speak a more intelligent form of English.
​
Students with two years of Latin training will be prepared to think more clearly, to express themselves more deftly, and to read literature more deeply than their peers who have no Latin grammar and vocabulary. In addition to supporting the advancement of English, our Latin courses provide historical, cultural, and geographical content. It reinforces the subject areas of history, literature, and civics. It also serves to deepen appreciation of our modern western civilization’s roots.
Does MCA charge tuition?
No. Montrose Classical Academy does not charge tuition. Parents will be responsible for a small student-fee at the beginning of each school year to help cover the cost of school supplies and optional co-curricular activities. Student fees will be waived for families who qualify for free-and-reduced lunch status, which includes indigent, homeless, and foster students.
Is there a dress code?
Yes! Montrose Classical Academy will institute a uniform dress code. The board is still determining the details.
Is MCA a religious school?
MCA is not a religious school and cannot be a religious school according to Colorado Charter Law 22-30.5-104
Why the Core Knowledge Sequence?
The Core Knowledge Sequence is a comprehensive curriculum used by 600+ schools nationwide! This research-backed approach builds strong educational foundations, grade by grade. Why we chose it for MCA: Proven effectiveness, Sequential learning, Rich content, Systematic approach.
Are students with special needs allowd to apply to MCA?
Yes! MCA encourages all students to apply, including those with special needs, different abilities, and Spanish-speaking or multilingual backgrounds. As a public charter school, anyone with an IEP will be accepted and there will be a full time SPED director to meet the needs of those with all ranges of disability.
What sets MCA apart from other educational options offered in Montrose?
MCA wants to serve ALL families of Montrose and surrounding areas. Our educational model is unique and focus on these four features: the Core Knowledge Sequence, Character Development, Critical Thinking, and Content-Rich Curriculum ​
How do I enroll my children?
At this time, parents are encouraged to submit a non-binding "Intent to Enroll Form" by clicking on the link below. Montrose Classical Academy will keep the community updated on the exact enrollment opening dates and lottery.