Your summer back back of information. I love how they just cover everything. Fifty five KRC the talk station atoh five, the fifty five KRC, the talk station by the Times here wishing everybody very happy Thursday slash Friday. Bottom of the r I heard media aviation expert Jay Ratliff and as with a distinct pleasure to welcome back to the fifty five KRC Morning Show doctor Jed Hardings, who is the president of the Cincinnati Classical Academy. You can find
them online. It's sincey with y sincy Classical dot org. Get in line. It is an amazing education opportunity, classical education and this is the kind of thing and it's really truly amazing. Welcome back, doctor Hardings. It's a pleasure to have you on the program. Every time I see your website, I just stare in awe. You got almost one thousand students from sixty three zip codes in the greater Cincinnati area. That is a huge draw. If you
build it, they will come. And in terms of people clamoring for a better education for their children, guess what you find it It's in Santa Classical Academy. Welcome back, Doctor Harding's pleasure to have you here.
Thanks so much, Brian.
Is there a line all the way around the block to get in? I know you're accepting applications at least cording to the website for the twenty five to twenty six school year, currently it's K through nine correct.
That's correct. Yep, We're going to have nine hundred sixty students this fall, just in a few weeks here in kindergarten through ninth grade, and then we'll of course be adding a grade level each year until we're fully through the twelfth grade with thirteen hundred students.
Well, demand, I imagine his outstrips supply in terms of space. How many people will be applying for these nine hundred and sixty spots.
Well, they've already applied. I mean, that's nine hundred and sixty that we have room for, and then there's a further wait list over five hundred long. So yeah, it's been a real struggle to meet the growth and the demand through these years, especially on a charter school budget. But you know, the big news now is that we
do have that solution in place. We bought the property in Blue ash By Summit Park, signed the purchase agreement just less than eighteen months ago, and now we're ready to open it as our middle and high school campus.
Oh that's fantastic.
Yeah, it's really wonderful. And you know, we're going to have a grand opening celebration on August eighteen. This is open to the public. It's an open house for two hours from four thirty to six thirty, with a formal ribbon cutting ceremony and everything. You know, maybe, Brian, we hope you'll consider coming out to join us, because really just thirty minutes of visiting the school will give you a different idea of what education can and should be well.
And you know, I look at your curriculum and it's really just so healthy and refreshing to see how you approach learning explicit phonics, you know Latin. I mean, I know you teach Latin at the SINSI Classical Academy. There's a lot of reasons that people should still be, you know, learning Latin because it's the core foundation for our language. Classics reading, and I love reading the classics and I still do as an adult, and I think that's fantastic.
Talk about building your thought processes and your logic and learning ability by reading classical education. You got the seventeen seventy six curriculum and Singapore math. What is Singapore math as opposed to the kind of math or teaching in public schools for example.
Singapore. It's based on a program used in Singapore, which has been the number one country globally in math instruction for a decade in running. So they must be doing something right. But it's just it's it's no, it's not the new quote new maths as we've heard about in public schools. It's just common sense maths the way you would you would have been taught and I was taught.
But it's also it's also explaining a little bit more about the concepts underlying the arithmetic manipulations rather than just memorizing the rules for for instance, how to do long divisions.
And you've had some great success with students who've been through the since a classical academy. Are you tracking where what they have done after lead departing the since classical academy and the success that they're having.
Well, of course we don't have graduates yet, we're just starting our first freshman class. But the test results, Brian has been you know, off the charts. The school exceeds. Well, we just calculated this, which is that a student at Cincinnati Class School Academy is three and a half more times likely to test as proficient in math, reading, and science compared to the Ohio average Ohio public school three and a half times more likely to be proficient.
That's outstanding. But I imagine, you know, the children who've left the since I classical academy, say at grade nine, probably have a profound advantage and leaps ahead of folks in the same situation who've been through K through nine in the public schools. I mean that might serve they might be a little bored when they get over to public school after leaving the classical academy.
Yeah, well you would think so. But there are many students where we can look to see if that happens. Because we've had a retention rate at the school between ninety right around ninety eight percent, so very students are leaving, and we were particularly cited that ninety five percent of our eighth graders from last year have returned to the school for high school.
I have to think, and you correct me if I'm wrong, Doctor Harding's that a parent who hears about the Sinsant Classical Academy and enrolls their child there and whatever efforts they have to go through to get their child from wherever they're living over to the Sinsant Classical Academy physical location. Those folks are truly concerned about ensuring that their children
get a great education. I have to imagine that parents like that who would go through this process and through the extra logistical hurdles to get there, get their children there each and every day. The children are probably I have to imagine, very disciplined. They're not problematic, and they're not disruptive. Coming from a solid background, you have less interruptions in classroom and better opportunity to actually teach as opposed to deal with disciplinary issues.
Yeah, I think that's correct. I think that families are driving a long way, in many cases an hour each way. They're making a lot of sacrifices because what's more important than the education of their children. What their children are being exposed to for you know, forty hours a week, and their families that have done their homework and value
this and seek for their children an education. Not only that's going to you know, teach them the three RS and you know, give them good skills, but it's going to teach their children moral character, pacivil virtue.
That's what I was hoping to hear from you. And you know I've said a.
Million times habits of mind, heart and soul.
Mind heart, and yep, what a profound shift from the what you get in the since they are in the public schools generally speaking. You know, doctor, I've always said, the second best gift my parents ever gave me, after the gift of life, was a gift of education. I was commenting and reflecting earlier in the program, if we were talking to the help squad about people on life's margins needing a leg up. Is how blessed I am
to not have to look back. And you know, my parents save me from that by getting me a solid education. I've been able to take care of myself because of my education background. And here it is right there, Sin Sant Classical Academy. Now, going back to your new facility again next to the Summit Park, how many more children are you going to be able to serve there? Beyond the nine hundred and sixty that you take care of.
Now we'll have capacity to go up to thirteen hundred students. Total between our two campuses. So we have the lower school campus K through four in Reading, Ohio, and then three miles away at some at Park in Blue Ash we'll have capacity for another eight hundred and fifty students, which will be grades five through twelve.
Now, you need more space to expand as the years roll on, you keep adding an additional grade or will this new space along with the other space satisfy your needs.
We've built all the space in the past nine months that we will need to go all the way through twelfth grade. That's great, problem solved. We are excited. We're excited to gove in this campus. We're excited to grow over the next three years and just to focus on education and learning. I mean for the board and for all the supporters. Most of the campus development problem that
is solved. So you know, I think it's one of the biggest stories in education in Cincinnati in the last decade or more at least.
Yeah. No, I just kind of wonder if you can explain my listening audience. I know you're a Hillsdale College member school, but this wasn't there one day and the next thing you know, you've got a since Ani classical Academy. How did you launch this effort? How is it that this wonderful organization that people are that there is in fact a line around the block trying to get in. How is it that it got started and it even exists right now?
Doctor myself and a couple others just had the idea when we discovered, you know, that there was this classical education and we're enamored with it as the solution to all of the ills that plague our other schools and
universities and colleges. We just got together and just started doing the work in twenty nineteen, and it took about three years to apply to Hillsdale and get affiliation to use their curriculum and have the school's support in terms of instruction and guidance, and open the doors in twenty twenty two after three years of effort.
Now I know my listening audience can help out. You do accept donations to this Insie Classical Academy.
Yes, absolutely, Go to Cincy Classical dot org and click on the giving page. We accept gifts and all forms, the state, gifts, one time, contributions, you name it. We would love to have any one support, especially because the financial challenges are real. Charter schools get about a third
less funding than the average state school. We get about nine thousand dollars per student from the state, and compare that to you know, twenty or twenty five thousand dollars that you know Indian Hill or Wyoming or Sycamore school districts receiving funding. So it's yeah, we're getting the same test scores you know, or better so, and we're teaching with some different aims. So I think it's a really worthy cause that really transcends considerations just of where your
kids are going to school. This is a national movement, a restoration of the education needed for a free thinking and self governing citizenry. So I think that that would be an appealing cause for everyone, regardless of whether you have children or have children in school or not.
Well, I wish you had the resources to take an unlimited number of students because I know you're doing the right thing for those young people and their education and helping them secure a solid future where they can in fact take care of themselves. They do think critically and can logically and reasonably analyze things, as opposed to just you know, churning out something that was memorized by some woke professor or teacher. You know, God bless what you're doing,
Doctor Hardings. And I just encourage my listeners to check out all the information at Sincey with a Y Sinceyclassical dot org. If you're lucky, one of the lucky few to get in, I'd do it for your child. You'd be doing all lifetime's worth of benefit. Doctor Harding's anything else you want to add for we part company today.
No, I think that covers it. I we'd appreciate the support of anyone who believes in teaching how to think, not what to think, who thinks it's important to learn logic, economics, history, government, moral philosophy. Come on out and join us on August eighteenth for our open house four thirty to six thirty and we'll have a celebration afterwards. And Brian, I really thank you, thank you for having me.
On August eighteen, four thirty to six thirty at the Blue or at the Summit Park campus location. Doctor Hardings, God bless you, sir. Keep up the great work and look forward to another school year of learning excellence at the Sinsante Classical Academy.
I do too, thank you.
Take care of my friend. It's eight eighteen right now, I fifty five kro City Talk station. Oh if only all the schools taught that way, and only if only all the auto repair places charged like Foreign Exchange, we'd all be a lot happier. Don't go to the dealer to get your automobile fixed. If you had an imported car traditionally manufactured or a Tesla and you want to save money, automobile repair expenses have gone through the roof.
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