The mission of Classical Civitas is to serve and support homeschooled families by facilitating classical, Christian, homeschool programs. Our members have access to community, classes, field trips, and educational development opportunities.
Homeschooling on your own can be lonely. Classical Civitas seeks to build a diverse community among homeschooled students and parents. Civitas members have access to instant communication with our group through BAND for support, access to playdates, and social events for both younger and older students, as well as access to some parent-only events, to refresh, to recharge, and to encourage one another on this homeschool journey.
As part of a one-day-a-week community day that meets at Meadowcroft Presbyterian Church in West Chester PA, Classical Civitas hosts student classes on Wednesdays that are classical and diverse and taught from a Biblical World View. We meet for a total of 28 Wednesdays throughout the school year. Being a true co-op, every parent has a role and participates in facilitating our community day and/or serves our organization in another capacity. We follow a four-year learning cycle in history and science from PreK-12th allowing families to study topics together at home and scale across all ages. We also include cycle memory work in grades K-6. Memory work is taught at home and then co-op morning classes are used to extend their knowledge of the memory work in a fun, creative, integrated, and meaningful way. A shared curriculum is used in some grade-specific afternoon classes offered from 2nd-6th. Tutors of these afternoon classes guide class discussions and activities as well as assign work for the week. As the lead teachers in their homeschool, parents support their students at home through accountability, scaling, and grading when needed. In 7th through 12th grade, every class is run this way with a shared curriculum guided by two or three tutors and parental support at home. Exams, student feedback, and support are offered but ultimately the grade comes from the parent. Class enrollment is open to Classical Civitas Members only (see membership below). Participating in classes requires an operational fee to cover the costs of running the classes with a possible insurance balance divided amongst members at the end of the year if fundraising goals are not met to cover the costs of insurance.
Operational Fee per student $150
Highschool Lab fee per student $30
Plus any remaining insurance balance not raised by fundraising during the year
Classical Civitas organizes local field trips monthly that correlate with the content being taught in our classes. Prices for these field trips will vary between free, minimal cost, and pricey to meet every family's budget. Members often post unofficial get-togethers and other public homeschool opportunities in our local area as well. All these along with the social events keep our calendar full for members to do as little or as much as they would like.
As we seek to raise life-long learners, we ourselves want to be life-long learners. We seek to grow as educators and parents. Classical Civitas hosts regular book clubs to encourage spiritual leadership in our homes, and classical coaching events for members who seek to grow in their knowledge of the classical method as well as in general homeschooling.
Civitas memberships are active from June 1st through May 31st of the following year and are renewed between February and August of the same year. The membership fee for the 2024-2025 school year is $50 per family, which is non-refundable. After July 15th a late fee will be incurred making the membership fee $75 per family. There are two different memberships available:
Social Membership: Members read and sign in acknowledgment of Civita's statement of faith, and have access to field trips, playdates, educational development, parent events, and any other social event organized by the community
Co-op Membership: Members read and sign in agreement to strive to live by Civita's statement of faith and list a church affiliation. These members have all the social member benefits as well as the ability to participate in the co-op community day and enroll students in classes.
To become a Classical Civitas member, simply click the Join button at the top right to fill out our online application.
