The Headmaster’s Perspective
Welcome to Ridgeview
Ridgeview Classical Schools, above all else, offers an experience as much as an education. We are fortunate to be situated along the Front Range in Fort Collins, Colorado, and we have endeavored to make the most of our location and the talented people it attracts. We take pride in cultivating curious minds and resilient spirits through a classical liberal arts education and the Socratic method. Our mission is to develop students holistically, fostering intellectual rigor, moral character, and a deep appreciation for the adventures to be found in the great books and in our native state.
At the heart of our approach is a commitment to timeless principles and texts. Our curriculum emphasizes critical thinking, articulate communication, and an unparalleled engagement with literature, history, mathematics, and the sciences. We believe that an appeal to wonder and curiosity inspires students to ask profound questions and seek Truth, Goodness, and Beauty with honesty, courage, and humility.
The school harnesses the breathtaking Colorado landscape to enrich our students’ experiences. Our rigorous outdoor program challenges students physically and mentally, develops lifelong friendships, perseverance, and an enduring connection to nature. From hiking in the Rockies to studying ecology in our backyard, students discover the joys of adventuring together and the value of stewardship.
We nurture the whole person—mind, body, and spirit. Our dedicated faculty guide students to grow not only as intelligent citizens but also as compassionate, principled individuals ready to lead and serve. By blending classicism with alpinism and combining it with a virtue-based character education, we prepare students to thrive in and adapt to an ever-changing world while remaining grounded in enduring values.
I invite you to explore our website, visit our campus, and join our community. Together, with family and school aligned, every student can be empowered to reach his or her fullest potential.
Warm regards,
Mr. Derek Anderson, Headmaster
On Cooperation
Note: This is the first in a series of perspectives on Ridgeview’s character pillars. Over the coming year, a perspective will be published on each of the character pillars and their relevance to the Ridgeview experience.
Welcome Back to School
August 22nd will mark the beginning of Ridgeview’s twenty-second year. We are excited to welcome our new and returning families, and very excited that we are beginning to move away from the strangeness of the past two years that was marred by the pandemic and its related restrictions.
State-of-the-School Address 2022
Thank you for being with us this evening. It is a tremendous privilege to be on stage as the representative of so many different people’s hard work. I hope that my words tonight will do justice to the passion and stamina of our teachers, staff, and students.
A Spring Renewal
Ridgeview’s annual Valborg event will take place on April 2. This will be the first time in some time that our community will come together to welcome spring in this uniquely Ridgeviewian way, and we are seeking and anticipating one of the largest turnouts in our history.
The State of Things
In a recent essay entitled The Unbearable Bleakness of Schooling for Commentary magazine, Robert Pondiscio has written about the “psychic toll” the pandemic and its related restrictions have taken on children.
Our Ambitions for Youth
We have ambitions for our students. Every school does. If they are not singularly unique at Ridgeview, I would nevertheless assert that they deviate from the majority’s contention about what school is for.
Keeping up with Covid
As many are now aware, Larimer County has chosen to end its mask mandate on February 12. The recommendation from the health department is to continue masking children in schools; however, Poudre School District, Ridgeview’s authorizer, has elected to return to a mask optional setting and Ridgeview will do likewise.
What We Make Our Own
Once, as a new teacher back in 2007, I was walking down the upper-school hallway as classes were going on. A group of girls were talking loudly and laughing walking toward me near the drinking fountains, while a man stood on a ladder changing the long, fluorescent bulbs in the ceiling.
In the Spirit
In our hardened tempers and quotidian frustrations, it is easy to dismiss the miracle of a season acclaimed for its liberal feeling and liberal giving. Nevertheless, this little community of ours has never failed to rise to the occasion and to reaffirm that people are worthy of our most humane hopes and ambitions.
The Time Between
The time between Thanksgiving and Christmas is too often cast as a mere prelude to some more magical season. Time passed, though, is still time gone, and it is for us to make of any span of life something more memorable than the humdrum of early-winter droning.
Veterans Day
Today is Veterans Day – the 102nd since President Wilson brought it into being as Armistice Day in 1919.