+ Philosophy Statement

It is our philosophy that all students benefit from a content-rich, educational program that develops academic potential and personal character. We provide an environment that fosters academic excellence through the habit of thoroughness, the willingness to work, and the perseverance to complete difficult tasks. Through a defined traditional, classical, liberal arts curriculum, students are prepared to become active, responsible members of their community.

+ Academic Standards

Ridgeview upholds high academic standards for all students. The curriculum is content-rich, following a traditional, classical-liberal educational model, with provisions to help all students fulfill their individual academic potential.

• Objective standards will be monitored and maintained as defined by the Charter School Law.
• Promotion and graduation requirements will meet or exceed PSD/state requirements.
• Students shall take the defined curriculum and must earn promotion and graduation.
• The student schedule will be predominantly occupied by the defined curriculum.
• Students will be assessed through class-work, regular assignments and periodic tests, the levels of which will be calibrated against District, State, and National norms as defined by the Charter School Law.

+ Academic Philosophy

Ridgeview stands out against other charter schools by its commitment to a classical, liberal arts tradition.

• Our curriculum gives equal time to the humanities and the natural sciences.
• We believe that an American exceptionalism exists and is worthy of examination and reverence, and that through a proper understanding of one’s country, genuine patriotism is both possible and admirable.
• We respect character above intellect and seek the fullest moral development of each of our students.
• Our curriculum adheres to the unabridged and original Core Knowledge sequence, Singapore Mathematics, American Cursive as outlined by Michael Sull, Riggs phonics program, martial arts, visual arts, music, and conceptual science.
• Latin is taught from kindergarten, Greek is taught from third grade, and students learn root languages before they are taught derivatives such as French or Spanish.
• Our students learn to develop a thesis, to interpret texts, and to order their thinking, writing, and presentations according to a classical order of arrangement.
• Every student is required to write a senior thesis answering the question of what is essential to the good life and present and defend it to an audience of their peers, the faculty, and members of the public. Seniors are also required to undertake a leaving exam in order to graduate. There is no bluffing one’s way through.

Our Faculty are life-long learners, and they cultivate a love for the life of the mind in their students.

• We believe our students should not only read books, they should love them.
• We believe our teachers should know their students, and no student should graduate who has not proven him or herself to the Headmaster, who shall have taught them for at least one semester prior to their graduation.
• Our faculty are an intellectually diverse group, and yet all are brought together in friendship through texts, barbecues, conversation, tea, and not infrequently, the beauty of the American West.

Ridgeview doesn't just transform minds - it builds a community.

• Camping trips are organized, parents are drawn out to the mountains and the prairies, and whether in a classroom or around a campfire, the great conversation builds up an authentic sense of community.
• We are a small school who knows our students intimately, and as a result, we are capable of guiding them, instructing them, and not infrequently, of loving them.

+ Character Education

Our environment and curriculum are designed to promote and build strength of character in students.

• The values of a democratic society will be identified and clearly taught.
• Administrators and faculty will encourage and model habits of honesty, respect, social responsibility, and self-discipline to promote these traits. Students will be given opportunities to practice and develop these traits.
• Outstanding people will be used as role models throughout the curriculum to teach character.

+ Learning Environment

We promote a safe environment that fosters learning and character development.

• There will be a defined standard of appearance and a regulated campus.
• Positive student/parent/teacher relationships will be fostered.
• Extra-curricular activities will be encouraged.
• Success in our rigorous academic program is dependent upon consistent student effort and completion of assignments.
• The faculty will be a unified group of professionals focused on student achievement.

+ Study Skills

We provide the opportunity for all students to acquire the mastery of study skills, which make learning possible and encourage self-motivation.

• Study skills, e.g. time management, research skills, note-taking, will be integrated throughout the curriculum.
• Teachers will evaluate the mastery of study skills.

+ We are Dedicated to Truth & Virtue

+ Resolution Against the Common Core

The Ridgeview Classical Schools Board of Directors adopted the attached resolution against the Common Core:

Ridgeview Classical Schools Resolution Concerning Common Core and PARCC Assessments

Adopted by the Board of Directors on October 3, 2013

WHEREAS, parents in Colorado were granted the ability to choose the education they felt was suitable and appropriate for their children, and that this was acknowledged by the state legislature as a right in the Colorado Charter School Act of 1994, specifically granting local control over schools to include "diverse approaches to learning and education and the use of different, proven, or innovative teaching methods," and allowing "the development of different and innovative forms of measuring pupil learning and achievement;"

WHEREAS, Ridgeview Classical Schools have successfully pursued and proven the value of rigorous academic standards in a program that combines academic and character education, as well as an appreciation of the Good, the True, and the Beautiful that is possible only through a classical, liberal arts curriculum that treats the individual student as an end in himself and as the inheritor and future steward of a rich legacy dominated by the ideas and values of our Western heritage;

WHEREAS, the Common Core State Standards, while potentially exceeding previous state standards in certain respects, do not accurately assess the rich curriculum that has been conveyed to Ridgeview's students, nor does it value any of the intangibles that make up much of a liberal arts curriculum;

WHEREAS, the Common Core State Standards run contrary to the idea of education being either a private or a local matter, and are contrary to the idea of the states as "laboratories of democracy," as U.S. Supreme Court Justice Louis Brandeis articulated in New State Ice Co. v. Liebmann (1932) in describing how a state may, "if its citizens choose, serve as a laboratory; and try novel social and economic experiments without risk to the rest of the country;" and that the Colorado Charter School Act effectively chose to provide precisely such a laboratory when it noted that "different pupils learn differently and public school programs should be designed to fit the needs of individual pupils and that there are educators, citizens, and parents in Colorado who are willing and able to offer innovative programs, educational techniques, and environments but who lack a channel through which they can direct their innovative efforts;" and that charter schools like Ridgeview are the innovative programs that legislators had in mind;

WHEREAS, Ridgeview Classical Schools has reviewed the content standards of the Common Core and found them wanting as well as identifying the ineffectual protection of student's privacy and the exceedingly expensive technological requirements necessary to administer the tests, and found the Common Core and its associated assessments to be of a significant disadvantage to Ridgeview's students and community;

THEREFORE BE IT RESOLVED that Ridgeview Classical Schools board of directors hereby express their general opposition to the imposition of the Common Core State Standards for two reasons: (1) because charter schools should retain greater autonomy that would be provided for under Common Core; and, (2) because Ridgeview is able to pursue a better education for its students that is more rigorous, less costly, less intrusive, and more accountable. Ridgeview remains, as it always has, committed first and foremost to its students, and to fully living up to its mission and philosophy.

On behalf of the Ridgeview Board of Directors,

Kristina Menon, Board President