Now begins a new year, though before proceeding to what will be, we should review briefly what has been, as this past summer has not been without event. Many of us have had the opportunity to spend time getting to know our students in some fairly unconventional settings. We have learned to orienteer using a compass and map, watched students prepare camp meals together, hike fourteeners, and explore caves. There is a lot of conversation along the way. Some of it is perfunctory, some of it is more considered and erudite, all of it is revelatory in some way.

Ridgeview’s unabridged Latin credo is neque popularitati neque utilitati at veritati virtutique dedicatum. Translated into English, this means, “Dedicated not to popularity or utility, but to truth and virtue.” Herein, ‘dedicated’ does not have a commemorative sense. Instead, it expresses what individuals working and studying at Ridgeview are dedicating their lives to.

If we have done our work rightly, you have been supported and challenged. More to the point, you will not have all experienced the same journey.

Those fortunate enough to attend a performance of Guys and Dolls this past weekend will have some sense of how much work goes into a show of this kind.

Nearly a decade and a half ago, the founders of Ridgeview set out on an experiment as much for the benefit of their own children as for the preservation and betterment of their country.

We would like to thank everyone who helped to make this year’s Hoplite Hoedown a success.

Our recent break gave us thunderstorms, the last of the year's super moons, and the spring equinox. Ridgeview endeavors to welcome each of the seasons, and we welcome spring with our unique rendition of the Swedish holiday Valborgsmässoafton on Saturday, March 30 at Sylvan Dale Guest Ranch in Loveland.

There is some question as to whether the principal writes out of an egotistical wish to be read or in attendance to his duties.

It is lamentable that schools say so little about what this day celebrates, but when one considers what they do say, it is easy to conclude that it would have been better had they instead said nothing.

Educationally, the nations of the world seem to either count the children within their borders as if they were serfs, or where the state is destitute, as burdens for which no educational remedies can be provided. It is a curiosity as to which of these is the worse scenario: the one in which a great deal happens that is passed off as education and a preparation for citizenship, or the one in which the citizens hardly recognize themselves as such so great is their freedom and their deprivation.

What King dreamed of is essentially the American dream and one that Ridgeview wholeheartedly endorses.

This community, the sharing and holding of something in common with others, of our mutual participation and association, is what Ridgeview aspires to when its aspirations carry it beyond the narrowness of the classroom.