Last night I attended a parent information meeting about a new charter high school opening in the western suburbs, Veritas Academy. I met the school's newly hired director (principal), but I already knew the woman in charge of recruitment and marketing, Sherokee Ilse. I know Sherokee from the repeal-the-Profile and academic standards efforts. She also works over at the Hill School in Orono, a private non-profit K-8 school.
Veritas Academy will be dedicated to a rigorous, classical, liberal arts, college preparatory curriculum. It will be opening in the fall of 2005 starting with 75-100 9th and 10th graders. Veritas will add 11th grade in 2006 and 12th in 2007. Being a charter school, it will be a public school, meaning no tuition. The school's college prep emphasis also makes it unusual among charter schools.
As a parent, I am attracted to Veritas Academy for many of the same reasons as I would be attracted to Providence Academy or one of the other private schools: a classical knowledge-based liberal arts curriculum, traditional math, Latin, uniforms, smaller class sizes, individual attention. Students will work with the McPhail Center for Music (a plus, my kids play piano) and the Minnetonka Center for the Arts for the visual arts.
Parent meetings will continue through the spring, check out the Veritas Academy web site for the schedule and more information. As I learn more about Veritas, you'll read it here first.
