Mountain Life Church in Silver Creek is home to Telos Classical Academy, a new private school that opened two years ago as result of the COVID shut down.
Steph Murray has a master’s degree in education and is the founder of the classical academy. She said she started the new private school after the COVID-19 pandemic hit because her son was struggling with reading and wasn’t thrilled with school in general.
“So, through my digging, I found this thing called classical education, classical schools,” Murray said. “And I had never heard of it in all my years of education about schools, and I thought, ‘What is this thing?’ And the more I delved into it, the more I was blown away. It was this beautiful curriculum around the true, the good and the beautiful, reading good books focused on grammar, Latin, just learning all the beautiful things that the world has to offer.”
Murray said the school is private because it started as a pilot program with 20 students to see if it would work. So far, it has.
“We have a K through 8 school right now. And we're adding one year, every year so that we will be a K through 12,” Murray said. “But I just thought that education is such a personal choice for families, and not all schools fit every person's what they want. And so I thought this is an option. This is Park City’s only classical school. It's the only Christian school in Park City. So, it filled a void that wasn't there.”
Murray explained it’s a Christian school because at the heart of classical education is virtue education and character education which are considered as important as academics.
While the Bible is a significant part of the education at the classical academy, Murray said all denominations are welcome.
“We teach from a non-denominational Christian perspective,” Murray said. “We begin the morning with the Lord's prayer then the Pledge of Allegiance, we say the Apostles Creed, but the students are also memorizing poems and Bible passages that go with character education. So it's really welcoming all faiths.”
Katherine Bathgate is board chair of Telos Classical Academy. She has four children, two are enrolled in the Academy. She was homeschooling her oldest and realized her son needed something more than the public school was offering.
Bathgate said the low-tech curriculum was one of many things that drew her to the school.
“I was excited about him having to really focus on developing his writing, not spend a lot of time on screens or iPads, that was important to our family,” Bathgate said. “I liked that he'd be in a small community where I'd get to know the parents well, the teachers well and could really be a partner in his learning.”
Bathgate said the school teaches cursive writing and her son has made it his third-grade goal to improve his handwriting.
Murray said the school focuses on cursive as well standard print because it’s an important skill to have.
“If you don't know how to read and write cursive, you can't read your grandma's letters,” Murray said. “You can't read the Constitution and all sorts of other important things.
The academy has 60 students enrolled. Tuition is $13,000 per year. Murray said they also provide scholarships.
For more information visit the Telos Academy website.
