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A new private “classical” school in Columbus will begin 2023-24 enrollment next month and plans to accept no more than 100 students in its first year.
Liberty Academy of Columbus will begin accepting applications on Dec. 15 and anticipates offering a total of 80 seats. According to the school’s website, interested families should submit an admissions inquiry and attend an informational meeting prior to applying.
There will be an in-person information session on Dec. 7 from 6:30-7:30 p.m. in the Red Room of the Bartholomew County Public Library with another planned for Jan. 4, with the location to be determined. There will also be virtual sessions available via Zoom on a variety of dates spanning December to July.
Families who plan to attend a session, whether in-person or virtual, should RSVP at libertyacademycolumbus.com. They can also contact the school to set up an appointment, if the provided dates do not work with their schedules.
Founding member Victor “JR” Huff said in a previous interview that Liberty will be a private school with no religious affiliation. The school’s website states that while Liberty’s “ultimate goal” is to offer grades K-12, school officials expect to open with K-7 “in order to cultivate the culture necessary for a proper classical education.”
A location for the school has yet to be announced, but Huff said he is working on a proposal for a facility. The school is looking at a few different sites and plans to situate itself somewhere that is “centrally located” in Columbus.
In regards to staffing, he said that this will be driven by enrollment.
“While I have had some very productive discussions with several potential teachers, your hiring process when you’re beginning a school doesn’t really start until about February,” said Huff. “So we do have some strong candidates, but in terms of officially hiring staff, that process doesn’t begin until you’ve started to get your first wave of enrollment in and really understand what your staffing needs are.”
In terms of tuition, Liberty Academy plans to scale fees so that families with lower incomes pay a smaller percentage of their income.
Final out-of-pocket tuition costs will depend on verification of income level, verification of Indiana Choice Scholarship eligibility track and the status of the school’s fundraising efforts to support student scholarships.
“Liberty Academy will be accredited through the Indiana Department of Education and will be eligible to receive Indiana School Choice Scholarships (i.e. “Vouchers”) and Tax-Credit Scholarships,” the guide states. “Estimates of out-of-pocket tuition costs assume that applicants qualify for one of the Choice Scholarship Program Eligibility Tracks in addition to meeting income requirements.”
There is also a $150 enrollment fee for Liberty Academy. Huff said this will not be paid until a family has decided on Liberty, gone through the financial aid process and had their student(s) enrolled. There could potentially be some kind of scholarship to help low-income families with the fee, though this is not guaranteed.
According to Huff, the school plans to reserve one-third of its seats for low-income families.
“You just use the same standard that basically every school everywhere uses for that, which is free and reduced standards that’s put out by the federal government,” he explained. “So that’s the same standard that’s used for the Choice Scholarship program. It’s basically the same standard that your public schools use too, when they’re putting out their demographic information about at-risk students.”
According to the Indiana Department of Education, one of the eligibility guidelines for an Indiana Choice Scholarship is that the student must be part of a household with “an annual income of not more than 300% of the amount required for the individual to qualify for the Free/Reduced Lunch program.”
Huff said that the school is looking forward to sharing more information with interested families.
“While we, again, are still searching for that facility, all of the other pieces of the plan are falling right into place, and we’re just really excited to be able to come out and through either virtual sessions or in-person sessions be able to offer this additional option for families,” he said. “And we hope that many families find it to be the right option for them.”
