Upcoming Changes for the 2020-21 Academic Year

We’re very pleased to announce several upcoming changes to our Rhetoric and Logic programs for the 2020-21 academic year. These changes will help us more fully leverage our curriculum and align our program with ACA’s enormous and important goal of partnering with parents to equip young men and women for lives of faithful discipleship to all the places God calls them: home, work, service, church, their cities and neighborhoods, and beyond. 

You’ll find details of these changes by clicking here, which we encourage you to read, but here are the highlights:

• Logic School will now be 6-8th grade, which more fully aligns with the Trivium. Sixth grade will be a transition year focused on equipping our youngest Logic students to change classes, learn to study under different faculty, and build organization and study skills. Our curriculum will include some pre-logic learning as well.

• Rhetoric School, grades 9 through 12, will now have an alternating Friday schedule (Week A: Monday through Thursday; Week B: Monday through Friday; then back to Week A again). This change enables us to more fully leverage the robust curriculum and engage in more varied pedagogical approaches—such as workshops, labs, guest speakers, student government, and formal discipleship time. 

• Rhetoric School will offer early athletic release for students who take advantage of new opportunities to play sports with nearby schools, including D’Evelyn and Golden View. 

• Rhetoric and Logic schools will move to classrooms in Belmar Church, which has a fantastic education wing. This move accommodates our growing school and gives our Logic and Rhetoric students space for both academic work and social engagement.

• Rhetoric School will have new uniforms. More info to come!

We welcome your questions, and we encourage you to send them to info@augustineclassical.org. In response, we will send out regular communication with answers and with updates as the administration and Board build out the Logic and Rhetoric school programs based on the framework described in this document.

For now, here are a few answers to questions you might have:

Why did you add Friday classes every other week for Rhetoric school?
Rhetoric school is, in many ways, the culmination of a classical, Christian education. Whereas it’s tempting to think of this education as a tiered cake--with Rhetoric school as the small, top tier on a foundation of Grammar and Logic--it’s more helpful to think of Grammar and Logic education as widgets that combine, in Rhetoric school, into an engine. 

The Rhetoric school curriculum is robust and meaty: The additional Fridays give teachers time for more in-depth discussion and for more and different learning opportunities via writing workshops, extended science labs, and guest speakers. The days also gives time for student government and focused discipleship. 

Plus, for students who will take advantage of early release for athletics (and, we hope, for fine or visual arts), the additional time on Fridays compensates for their time off-campus at the end of the academic day. 

The administration, in tandem with the teachers, will identify the elements of the curriculum that would be better served with more time and areas of the curriculum where additional time for in-depth discussion, workshops, and labs would help students dive deeper and gain greater value from the curriculum.

How will ACA measure the success of our academic offerings in our Rhetoric school?
As the Board and administration considered the schedule change for our Rhetoric school program, we looked at schedules and course catalogs from more mature classical, Christian schools. Obviously, quality comes not only from curriculum, but also--importantly--from teaching, but in considering these changes, ACA’s leadership examined the offerings at schools with strong outcomes: National Merit Finalists and Scholars, admission for graduates to top colleges and universities, strong standardized test scores, etc.

ACA will continue to administer standardized tests as a tool for benchmarking, and the administration is considering the Classical Learning Test, offered in 8th, 10th, and 11th grades. The CLT aligns well with classical, Christian education’s pedagogy and content, and it’s becoming an increasingly popular alternative not only to grade-level standardized tests for middle- and high-school students but also to college entrance exams. 

Is ACA working toward accreditation?
ACA is at a point in its development where accreditation is appropriate. A subset of the Board is at the beginning stages of exploring accreditation through the Association of Classical Christian Schools (ACCS), of which ACA is a member, and the Association of Christian Schools International (ACSI). In order to accredit ACA with ACCS, the school has to have graduated one 12th-grade class.

Will ACA offer AP courses?
Parents have expressed interest in both AP coursework and access to AP testing, the benefits of which include college credit at many post-secondary schools if students earn a certain score. Currently, several Rhetoric school students are preparing to take the Latin AP exam this spring.

Where AP courses are compatible with our curriculum, we are pleased to support students in registering for them and planning for exam locations. (Once ACA is accredited, we can administer these exams; until then, our students will take the exams at other locations.) Therefore, the fields of math, science, and language study will dominate our AP offerings because the terminal point for high school study coincides with our curricular goals. However, in the humanities, the AP curriculum would require us to alter our curricular goals. For this reason, we would likely not offer AP exams in these subjects.

Nonetheless, knowing that our humanities curriculum may sufficiently prepare some students for certain AP exams, our Rhetoric school administration will help students who wish to take those exams secure spots at locations where those students may sit for those tests.

What will the administrative structure be?
We are working on how best to support our expanded Rhetoric program administratively. As soon as we have updates, we will share them!

Will tuition increase?
For the 2020-21 academic year, the tuition increase for Rhetoric school is the same as it is for the other areas of our program: about 2.5%. Eventually, yes, tuition will be higher for Rhetoric school than it is for preschool through Logic school because the cost to all elements of the program are higher than they are for the rest of our academic offerings.

Will we have more faculty?
God has been tremendously good to ACA in providing excellent upper-school faculty. And yes, ACA is actively searching for a few more teachers who are skilled in and passionate about teaching classical education in a Christ-centered school. We know that learning from a variety of teachers is important for young men and women as they prepare for lives in college, trades, and/or the workforce. Please join us in praying that the Lord will provide precisely who we need to continue to shape our oldest students’ hearts and minds in light of the Gospel and build our program. 

ACA’s Board and administration takes seriously ACA’s work as partners with parents in educating and discipling our students. We invite you to continue to pray for ACA and the daily teaching and learning—as well as the long-term planning—that enables us to steward our students’ education.