Malia Riggs and Sarah Stephens
Elmore Autauga News
Top Photo: Head of School David Withun, at left, stands with Brian Strain, Director of Operations
See layout of school as well as more photos from our visit below in the gallery.
The Ivy Classical Academy is set to open in the fall for the 2024 school year, with groundbreaking and construction right around the corner in the High Point Town Center located in Elmore County within Prattville city limits.
This means the Ivy Classical Academy will fall under the umbrella of the Elmore County School system.
We are very appreciative to officials with Ivy Classical Academy for giving the EAN a recent first look at the multiple buildings purchased at Highpoint and areas that will make up the academy for the future.
If students were originally pre-enrolled at Ivy Classical Academy when the school was set to be positioned in Autauga County, those students will have to re-enroll and be put into the lottery.
“We must by state law give preference to students in Elmore County. Because even if students were enrolled before, they must reenroll. Pre-enrollment is just expressing your intent to enroll,” Head of School for the Ivy Classical Academy David Withun said.
After all students in Elmore County have been accounted for, then the lottery will open up to other students who have pre-enrolled. There are 642 spaces available for year one, Withun stated.
A lottery system is in place to give preference to students who live in Elmore County. If applications are put in after February 5th, they will be added to the bottom of the waitlist.
“For us, it’s open to every single student. It doesn’t matter what their behavior record is, it doesn’t matter what their grades were. If they live in Alabama and will be in grades kindergarten through fifth, then they can apply and they’re in the lottery just like everyone else,” Withun said.
Applications opened on December 4th and will go through February 5th. Withun confirmed that Ivy Classical already has over 160 applicants as of December 15th.
“They’re from everywhere. Half are from Elmore, and the rest are from Autauga. I don’t even know where but even some from an hour north of here. We also have applicants from Montgomery as well,” Withun said.
Parents also have to complete an additional application for their child, “Parents will have to create an account and then enter their children’s names, grade levels, and address, so we can give preference for students in Elmore County,” Withun stated in an email with Elmore Autauga News.
“On February 5th, we will conduct a lottery using this information in which students will be given a seat or placed on the waitlist randomly,” Withun said.
That application can be found here, or on the Ivy Classical Academy website.
Four buildings were purchased to start the charter school, with construction beginning as soon as February. Initially the first phase for Ivy Classical will be getting kindergarten through fifth grade up and running.
“One area is going to all be green space. But we will eventually have a couple green spaces. Retail space transitions really well into classroom space. We have floor plans in place already,” Withun said.
With each year, as children progress, Ivy Classical Academy will be adding one grade level to accommodate students and eventually serve through 12th grade. At completion of the current plan, Ivy Classical Academy will be able to house over 1,000 students.
“With around 1200 students and 60 faculty, there will be 38 teachers, and eight to nine instructional assistants. Brian Strain, Director of Operations, will have a custodian, facilities manager, and we’re looking for a registrar right now, as well as a nurse and front office staff,” Withun said.
The construction currently planned is projected to be complete by 2026, and it will be broken up into three phases. Phase one is getting the K-5th in the building across from JC Penney and Peace of Cake. The bottom floor will have kindergarten and first grade while the top floors will serve second through fifth grades.
Phase two will be the middle school building which will be adjacent to the K-5, and phase three will be the high school campus which is currently the two buildings across from the perspective K-5 and middle school. Many of the buildings that will make up Ivy Classical have never been occupied since High Point originally opened.
In speaking one of the larger buildings which will eventually make up the high schools section, Withun said “This is any number of things; an auditorium, a gymnasium. It will probably be a multipurpose room for the upper school to use. It easily fits a basketball court here. This building is huge, you don’t really see how big it is from the outside,” Withun said.
The rear end of the buildings will be the front of the school where the drop-off line will be coming from Old Farm Lane. Withun stated that this is the least busy part of the establishment and doesn’t see much traffic.
Withun confirmed that existing, operating businesses will be staying in the High Point Town Center, and he hopes that by putting a school here it will boost the surrounding businesses in a fairly vacant shopping center.
The Ivy Classical Academy will be operating like any other public school in Elmore County. “We’ll receive funding like all other public schools. However, Charter schools, in general, receive less funding than public schools,” Withun said.
“We are public, and charter schools are functionally public schools. The only difference is that we get to determine our own curriculum and hire our own teachers and determine our own rules of the school and that sort of thing, which is determined by the board,” Withun said.
According to the Ivy Classical website, their curriculum focuses on a content-rich classical education in the liberal arts and sciences, with instruction in the principles of moral character and civic virtue.
“You can see how it will benefit the kids here and hopefully it leads to the public schools in the area improving as well. Because they will have competition,” Withun said.
Ivy Classical Academy is in partnership with Hillsdale College out of Michigan. Hillsdale College provides services, continued training and support for private, charter and public schools around the country.
“I’ve been working with them for almost 12 years now and the reason I’m still working with them after these 12 years is that they are some of the only people I’ve met in education in those 12 years that are in it for the good of the kids and not other reasons. I say that with a preface to how much they give us for nothing,” Withun said.
Withun stated that Hillsdale College provides teachers with yearly trainings and conferences and will send their faculty to campuses all across the country multiple times a year. They provide feedback and additional instructional support with the curriculum and the way the school is running during these visits.
In addition to training opportunities, Hillsdale College provides weekly Zoom meetings that are structured like a Q and A, to provide additional support for teachers that are teaching the same curriculum.
“They provide us with a curriculum that has everything we learn from kindergarten to 12th grade. Every book they read, every bit of phonics that they do and math and science and so on. It’s huge. They provide all of our teachers with training. If you’re adding up the cost of that training they’re providing teachers, it’s in the millions,” Withun said.
Withun stated that Ivy Classical is still looking for faculty, especially teachers. But the main thing Withun is focusing on right now is getting students enrolled, and making sure construction is set to be underway.
