 Welcome to Serving Locally with Me, your host, Michelle Dynas, the podcast where we spotlight service in the Longmont and surrounding communities. All right, let's connect. This week's episode of Serving Locally, I am here with Alicia Burns from the Twin Peaks Classical Academy and I just want to say thank you for coming, making time and coming out and sharing with us what about your guys's academy and so we'll just start off with who are you and what is the Twin Peaks Classical Academy and just a quick little overview. Sure, well I really like the school so if I go way too long you'll have to stop me, okay. So Twin Peaks Classical Academy is a tuition-free charter school here in Longmont. We're just down off of Sunset Street so not far from where we are now. We are pre-K through 12 so we have three-year-olds through 19-year-olds in the building and we do things a little bit differently than the school district and so it's fun to get out here and get the chance to share what we do. We think everybody deserves to know their choices for educating their children and part of that is making sure they know what the choices are. That's good to know because I know public school and I know really expensive private school and that's why we home school. So education is key to the future of our kids and just in general so education to us is a huge part. That's why my husband works really hard so I can stay home and try to give our kids the best education that they can get that we think but that's not for everyone. I totally understand that and yeah so having options is wonderful. So can you give us a little bit of a background about it's not really an organization? No, yeah we're a school. So give us a little bit of a background about your school. Sure so we started in 1997 where the oldest running charter school in St. Brain Valley. We used to be in the building on Main Street off of what is it main and 8th ish the old school building. My husband calls it Hogwarts. Yes it does look a little bit like Hogwarts. Yes that's true yeah but we moved into our new facility in 2010 and have since expanded to open a high school and have really grown. It's been fun to watch that it's been fun to watch our development over the last few years. I've been at Twin Peaks for 14 years started as an English teacher 7th grade English and we have really grown into being I think what this community has asked us to be. We started as a charter school obviously but in the last five to seven years since our executive director Joe Messling joined us have really honed our vision on being classical and differentiating ourselves from what the rest of the district is doing. Not because what they're doing is bad but because as you mentioned it's not for everybody. So charter schools exist to provide a different choice and a different option for families. So we wanted to be something different. We wanted to be something standout-ish in the community. Awesome can you just tell me as somebody that is wondering what does classical mean? Yeah that's a great question. Classical education is interesting in that the more you learn about it the more questions you have so it's it's not an easily definable answer. Perfect. Yeah so see I could talk for hours about classical education. I think the the biggest part that people coming in with with very little knowledge about classical education the the biggest things that are impactful to those families are one we believe our most important job is raising and helping to raise great humans. So we do that through our content and through our focus on literacy and numeracy. However our main goal is to to create better humans. We talk a lot about virtue and we talk a lot about character and we talk a lot about morality and and being human and what connects us to humans from back when when we were reading the classics and why we still read the classics is that that shared humanity we have with every generation. One of my favorite parts is we teach a classical curriculum. So my my daughters are in first and third grade and I always like this example of my third grader was in second grade last year and she was learning about Paul Bunyan and she was fascinated with Paul Bunyan and the blue ox and and the whole storyline. So she called my dad or grandpa and was telling him what she had learned about Paul Bunyan and my dad goes oh and babe the blue ox and her eyes were like whoa we can talk about we can talk about this you know that's great and what she is learning is what I learned and it's what her grandparents learned and we have that commonality and that common language to to mingle the generations and and what a cool opportunity that I think a lot of kids are missing these days. Absolutely I completely agree with that. Yeah just to be able to talk to anybody. Yes yeah huge thing. So what is your focus at Twin Peaks Classical Academy? So as I mentioned the classical education another big part of classical education is we believe that we are a tool for parents in educating their child. So we're not there to replace parents we're not there to to step on your toes and teach kids things that you don't want them to know. We're very careful we're very transparent with our curriculum and and what we read and and what we're teaching and that's with the intention of we believe our role is to assist in educating your child not to replace you. So we are very intentional with that. You can access all our curriculum online and ask questions and parents are very involved. Yes some not even as involved in helping in the school as kids get older you know there's very few parents that can come and teach calculus but involvement means different things to different families. Yes so being able to see what every teacher's agenda was for the day what they taught what the homework was what the objective was that's a role and an involvement that a lot of parents don't have the chance to have even if they're just too busy to come into the school they can still be very involved in their child's education and that's our goal with our level of transparency with parents. That's awesome I thought a lot. So who are you trying to reach with your guys at school? Anybody. Again we're pre-k through 12 so we we really I think in the last couple years especially the last year had this kind of realization that people don't always know about us and people go we I didn't even know you were over here and we thought well what a shame you know a classical education isn't for everybody charter schools aren't for everybody and that's okay but everybody deserves to know that we're there and everybody deserves to know that there's a different choice that there's a different options for families um tuition free we're free just like any other public school but we offer something very different and so I think our biggest focus is making sure the community and we have families that come from all over we have families from Berthold and Meade and Weld County and Boulder County so we have families from everywhere but just making sure that people know we're here and we're a great option and we'd love for everyone to come check us out. That's fantastic. What makes the work of Twin Peaks Classical Academy different than other similar schools? Yeah well one thing I haven't talked a lot about yet is St. Brain has been really intentional with putting technology in kids hands. A classical education does not and we are we are pretty low-tech not that we don't have technology and not that we don't teach kids how to use it but our our philosophy is that it is not and should not ever be a replacement for a great teacher teaching great content to kids so we we do have technology we probably have enough devices to be one to one but philosophically we'd rather our kids be reading real books yeah and be writing with paper and pencil. You can't see off screen but my my son's nodding his head. He likes the real books. There's something it was funny I was talking to one of my friends and she was saying she homeschools too and she's like you know we have the kindles and stuff she's like but there's something about flipping the page yeah and feeling the weight shift from not knowing on this side to knowing on this side that every page you feel the weight of you knowing something more and I just I loved that yeah oh man that's great yeah so we we talk a lot about human interaction too and through COVID and just crazy screen time that kids have these days a lot of that is going away yeah kids have lost the ability to make eye contact and shake hands and and Greek people and to talk and to talk yeah so we we talk a lot I would say most of our classrooms are our conversation driven so we we learn through talking we learn through interacting with other not just shorthand yeah yeah how do we actually use vocabulary we teach kids to annotate so they write in their books the books we give them so they own that book that's great and they write and they underline and they ask questions so while they're feeling the weight of that knowledge they're also writing and interacting with that book and they can look back and yeah oh yeah I like that a lot we recently had one of my students she's an eighth grade this year and um she had her backpack was in the backseat with her water bottle and her water bottle leaked onto her novel her Romeo and Juliet and she lost all her annotations and she was crushed that all those annotations she'd worked so hard and all the notes and thoughts and I was an IB in high school and yes we had to annotate our books yeah because we had to like it was so funny up until up until that program do not write in the book yeah they don't belong to you exactly and just not okay and so I can feel that to to lose that oh man she is devastated I don't she she's gonna hear this when she's still not over it she was very crushed it'll be okay yeah you can do it again yes yes you can do it again and better because you'll you'll be thinking about it again yeah but yeah so I think that's one of the biggest things parents come to us too is uh St. Brain has made the decision to give an iPad to every student so students come in in kindergarten and are given an iPad that I think is we'll see what all that screen time is doing to kids right but the iPad was intended it was made it was created to be a distraction device right it's a game so then expecting kids to learn how to read and write and become better humans on an iPad yeah I don't know that I I don't know that I buy that that's why we're classical yeah I like it um but think of what what you're saying is your greatest need is just exposure yeah what other needs do you guys have yeah uh well we're a public school so I you know anything is always helpful um I think knowing that we're an option um an exposure and letting Longmont know that that we're a choice uh is probably our greatest need we we do supply all of our our school supplies to students as well as part of their um enrollment process and things like that so we we do always welcome donations and anything like that um we do have a gala planned here in Longmont on March 9th uh so our website will will start be ticket sales hopefully on Friday maybe next week um but our gala will be at the Dickens this year so we're pretty excited about that so that would be something I think the community whether you have kids or not that might be a fun evening to come join us and um learn about us and support the work we're doing with kids that's fantastic so um did you have any events coming up obviously in March yeah um or volunteer opportunities that if anybody feels like this is something they like to do yeah give me a call if you if you have any uh special talents or anything that you feel like would be would be great to share with kids let us know we have uh career days for our high school are coming up and they're kind of throughout the year so we bring in people from the community we bring in um all sorts of different a lot of them are parents but not all of them so coming to share about different career opportunities um we have a bunch of high schoolers that are very talented individuals in lots of different areas and they're also great kids they're they're fun to be around uh so anybody maybe that has internships or or anything like that maybe opportunities for our high school kids um would also be welcome that's that's great and when when do you guys hold that um the gala or the the career day uh well they're kind of throughout the year so we do several of them okay yeah so yeah just just keep an eye out yep keep an eye out or contact us give us a call and and we can always add more to that's the next question how people contact yeah and find out more about Twin Peaks um so our go to our website TwinPeaksClassical.org um we have all sorts of different information on there there's several videos um about what we do and and how we're different uh so learning a little bit more about that um also all of our social medias are are great ways to to see what's happening at the school um facebook and instagram and and checking us out and seeing all the great things our kids do yeah and they'll be under my qr code so you can find it there also great thank you for that yeah um sounds really good um is there anything else that you'd like to add that maybe we've missed or you just feel passionate about talking about for a minute because we we got some time we got some time yeah we're really fast you know what you're talking about yeah i love this place i'll talk about Twin Peaks all day yeah um i just think we're we're very unique you know my my girls have been there my girls are in again first and third grade uh they've been there since preschool and and watching them grow and develop and in the elementary school has been amazing um the phonics based reading uh and algorithmic math that i can help them with and and things like that have been really um fascinating to see on the elementary side as well so classical i think kind of has the reputation maybe of being for older kids or or we talk a lot about books and we talk a lot about Moby Dick and but also for our little ones learning to read and annotate and hold real books um that's hugely impactful for for those developing brains too is their little yeah um i don't know what else lots of things i always tell my kids and like i just want you to have a good foundation yeah as long as you can read write well and do your basic math yeah you can learn and teach yourself anything yeah i mean especially with youtube out there you can watch any video learn how to do anything but seriously like if you can if you if you can learn how to just what's it good would be um the words are escaping my head when you read something and you can comprehend yeah and you can problem solve and you can remember and you can summarize and you can write about it like that's invaluable tools yeah so i i kind of didn't even get to that part we talk i talk so fast i get excited yeah i get excited um so a classical education is based on the trivia so this the concept that there is a a path to learning any new material so so through that path the initial stage is the grammar stage and that's a heavy and elementary of learning basic facts and skills and dates and times and all of the things that you need in order to learn anything later in life so like you were saying a strong foundation so then the next stage which is heavy in middle school is that logic stage where kids start to connect the things they've learned and now that i know a and now that i know b what can i gather about c um and putting that information together um is the the logic stage where developmentally these kids um i don't you probably know this with your middle school are over here they are developmentally it is their time yeah to challenge oh yeah and to ask questions oh yeah and to argue and to say but why but why wait let's logic this out yeah so that is very developmentally appropriate and we really lean hard into that in middle school yeah we want you to ask questions let's think of good questions let's think of well now that you have an idea how do you defend it right what is your evidence for your opinion it's not whether you like moby dick or not right your opinion about whether you like moby dick or not does not change that it's a classic right it doesn't change the worth of the book so how do you um provide evidence to defend your claims so we really lean hard into that in middle school so the the third stage is the rhetoric stage so as kids get a little bit older now how do you articulate new ideas and how do you have those conversations with people and and create new things and articulate it and writing and and orally so that people understand you you know there's this big focus on stem and science technology engineering and math which is great but people who make it far in those fields also have a strong foundation and how to read and communicate and write very well yes so that's that's our philosophy is teaching those kids those skills and it's important it's true it's very important so that's great so you guys do stem program then we don't have a stem program okay nope we uh so we're more of a classical education is it leans heavier towards liberal arts so the humanities and and discussions and things of that sort however we're continuing to see that people that are are moving into successful careers even in the stem field really do need that foundation in in the liberal arts of of being able to read and write and and do those things well is is crucial if you're going to be successful so we've had students accepted to every all different programs we have students at john hopkins and we have students and you know the school of minds and things like that that are doing very well even though they didn't spend their entire high school career learning science technology engineering and math they're they're very well prepared because they know how to learn right know how to go through that grammar logic and rhetoric phase so they can learn any new skill very quickly but they have spent a lot of time learning how to articulate and how to discuss which ultimately makes them more successful right that's awesome um yeah you know we do things differently we're being a classical public school um there's a good balance there of again i think sometimes classical schools and charter schools in general have this reputation of being for the elite and and being for for the the richest of the right and the privileged but we are we are very diverse we have a very diverse student population we mirror the the minority and rates of of the city of longmont so we're we're pretty well diversified in that area and it's to me i feel like our curriculum and teaching the classics and teaching students how to interact and literacy and numeracy is a great equalizer of we are we are equalizing the playing field that our students no matter what their background they're gonna be prepared and they're gonna do great things because they they deserve access to that so we we're very big on that and including everybody we're a classical education for everybody that's great because we believe that's the best way to educate kids yeah um do you do a lot of interaction between the grades yeah yeah so we're all in one facility um elementary is is on one side of the building and secondaries on the other so there's there's not a lot of reason for them to be on the other sides of the building um but our high school students do have the opportunity to aid in the classrooms on the elementary side so we have several students that go down there to help in the reading class we have um many students that are native spanish speakers that go and help in the el classrooms um we have office aides and things like that that are over on that side a lot um which is really fun it's it's fun to see that we have a lot of different especially in the fifth to sixth grade transition and then in the eighth to ninth grade transition we spend a lot of time getting them acclimated and coming over to our side of the building and meeting the teachers and and getting to know some kids the big kids the big kids yep um so we're we're really big on community and just we we are a tight-knit community we're a great team so bringing everybody together while we're doing different things we have an elementary and a middle and a high school that are are functional and they're all doing their own thing um but under the same umbrella and we we all believe that um what we're doing is is great for kids and so we we do it well together and do our best to bring everybody together in that that's great yeah um i don't know we you know we we're big on these are just kids and and we are here to make them better people so but we we we have some fun with our kids and um our elementary kids get three recesses a day and we we believe that outside and activity is good for their brains so we we offer a lot of yes play play for goodness sakes get them outside yes um so we we kick our middle schoolers out and and make sure that they're getting some fresh air every day and some exercise uh and off their cell phones yes um so we are we are cell phone free um every day eight to three uh our high school students do have the ability to access theirs they have jobs and different schedules right things like that um so kind of releasing some some more freedoms to our older kids you're integrating the real world yes that's yep um but we want to we understand that kids are on their device the second they leave us especially in middle school um so for me it is just it's so fundamental to to give them that time to be a kid and i will sometimes get some pushback especially from eighth graders and especially in the spring of can i just have my phone at recess right can i just have my phone at lunch and my answer is kind of sarcastic but also very seriously i'm saving your childhood like go play yeah uh and so our middle schoolers out there playing basketball and playing volleyball and playing on the play set that's great and things like that at in middle school you don't see all the time but they know how and they know how to talk to their friends and they know how to make conversation uh because we encourage it it's fantastic give them the environment to do it yeah yeah that's what they need that's right they need that structure yeah they do they want the boundaries they want the structure yeah just give it to them yep yep um but we we offer a lot of different extracurriculars for kids too you know i talked a little bit about how we want these kids to have every opportunity to learn and and play and be kids and part of that comes to extracurriculars too so we have lots of different options for kids we have all sorts of different sports at both middle school and high school we are chassis certified so we're a two-way high school so our kids compete just like they do anywhere i'm gonna say them and i hope i get them in the right order and get it right but for our sports we have girls volleyball we have boys and girls basketball we have cross country and track and field and men's and women's soccer as well so we have all the main athletics and then all sorts of different clubs we got robotics and we got student ambassador programs and student council and nhs and njhs all the different things a pretty normal middle school and high school experience in a smaller environment where staff really knows these kids and really care very deeply about them and we get to see them grow up watching those kids that we've known for 12 years is pretty amazing yeah because they grow up so fast oh my goodness yeah yeah even being home like you're growing up so fast it just goes well they keep getting older but i don't so i don't i don't understand how that works i like it but yeah so we have lots of different opportunities all the proms and homecomings and all do you guys have a music program we do yeah we have a really strong performing arts so we have band choir and orchestra that students can participate in we have a theater program so we have a drama program as well so we're we're just getting ready they're gearing up to start the spring musical just finished auditions for that nice so all our our kids are getting excited for the spring musical so all sorts of fun things like that it's a great art program everything everything that you would think of is in the school just a little different yeah just a little different that's awesome yeah with a different goal yeah right so our our goal is to to make sure students are prepared oh yeah thanks for being on the show today thanks for having me and um yeah check them out and um yeah there's other other ways for schooling for kids yeah it's not always the same that's right okay thanks yeah thank you yeah thank you to my guests my listeners and my supporters serving together we can strengthen our community please like and subscribe do all those other things you know you got to do them because that's the easiest way to that you can serve right now all right now go connect with others and be a blessing