Since 1996, the mission of Veritas Academy is to cultivate loving, serving, thinking students through classical Christian education. Accredited by the Association of Classical Christian Schools and Middle States Association of Colleges and Schools, Veritas provides a rigorous and Biblical education that follows the great liberal arts tradition of the ages. This is how the world’s foremost leaders and thinkers – from ancient times, through the Renaissance, through America’s founding – were taught.
We have two campuses; our preschool is located at Highland Presbyterian Church and serves children age 3-5 with two, three, and five-day programs, both morning and full day options. Our main K-12 campus is at 26 Hillcrest Avenue in Leola.
The three-phase of the Trivium that our curriculum follows – Grammar (K-6th grade), Logic (7th-8th grade), and Rhetoric (9th-12th grade) – is a time-tested model of academic excellence that forms students who are well-versed in the facts, well-read, well-thought, and well-spoken, by teaching according to a child’s natural development. All subjects are seen as an interconnected whole and taught as such, with Christ and his truth at the center and with meaningful and joyful traditions surrounding each season of the school year.
Extracurriculars include athletics (our Monarchs sports teams include soccer, volleyball, cross country, and basketball, plus dozens of co-op sports), theater/drama for grammar school and secondary school, orchestra, choir, chess team, service honoraries, and more. Beautiful and quirky traditions are a memorable part of student life, such as class-specific feasts, school-wide events, special field trips, and our secondary school House program which places students in one of five Houses that become their school “family.”
Grammar School is full of interactive, dynamic lessons that include lots of memorization through songs, chants, movement and more. Students retain their knowledge exceptionally - and have so much fun in the process - with this method, which gives them a firm foundation upon which to build with the more complex concepts in upper school. While we do embrace some technology, we are largely a “low-tech” school. You will find lots of book reading, handwriting, chalkboards, and more to engage our students in face-to-face and active learning!
One benchmark of our curriculum is a Great Books humanities program that allows students to study history, literature, theology, philosophy, and civics all together by reading the original sources (as opposed to textbooks), meaning that instead of reading about a time period in history, students read the actual writings of the leading thinkers and authors during that time period. Students begin learning Latin in second grade, preparing them to have a greater grasp of language by the time they are in high school. This humanities focus does not mean that math and science suffer; rather, ours is an accelerated math program that has all 7th graders taking Algebra 1 and goes up to Calculus II for students in the Honors track. This is owed to the style of teaching beginning in early Grammar school, helping students move more quickly through math than a typical school. Additionally, our robust science program includes college-level courses and electives that prepare students well and enhance their knowledge and appreciation of God’s creation.
Classical Christian education is best experienced first hand. We invite families to visit us for a tour to see the difference, talk with students and teachers, and understand how an education at Veritas Academy can ignite their child’s love for God and for learning…for life.
