Thales Academy, a college preparatory network of independent Pre-K-12 schools, will be hosting a parent interest meeting Tuesday night regarding its new campus in Franklin, Tennessee.
The informational meeting is scheduled for June 9 at 6:30 p.m. at The Gate Community Church, the address of which is: 3835 Carothers Parkway, Franklin, TN 37067. Thales Academy is a secular school and is not affiliated with The Gate Church.
Thales Academy founder Bob Luddy and two campus administrators will deliver a presentation and take questions.
Franklin joins Richmond, Virginia as locations Thales Academy has identified for expansion in the 2020-2021 academic year. Both are scheduled to open in July. The Franklin campus will begin with grades K-3 during its first year and expand from there. In addition to Franklin and Richmond, Thales Academy operates eight schools in North Carolina.
In each community, Thales Academy is working with local groups who want to give students and parents in their area the opportunity to be part of a high-quality, low-cost private education based on traditional Judeo-Christian values. The Thales model emphasizes Direct Instruction rather than Common Core to learn the basics of reading, writing, and arithmetic for K-5 students, and a classical curriculum for 6-12 students.
“Direct Instruction is a teaching methodology,” Rachael Bradley, principal of the Franklin campus, said in a recent interview with The Tennessee Star Report.
“There are over 50 years of research behind it. It’s a data-driven, mastery-based program. So all our children are achieving mastery. It allows us to skill group the children so we can meet the needs of everyone sitting in the classroom. It’s fast-paced,” she said. “And we maximize student engagement. So everybody is learning and is engaged every minute of the school day.”
Another factor that sets Thales Academy apart is its ability to provide a high-quality, private education at a low cost. Tuition, for instance, is $5,300 annually for elementary school, and $6,000 annually for junior high and high school. These costs, Luddy has suggested, are roughly half of the “quality private school price” in North Carolina.
“So if you look at a K-5 school that has 500 kids, students, we have a principal and she has an administrative assistant. And that’s it. So all these plethora of jobs that exist in the public schools, they don’t exist in our schools. That’s huge,” said Luddy, noting that his schools “don’t have virtually any bureaucracies.”
The school announced in April that it is offering a significant tuition reduction to “offset the effects of the struggling economy” brought on by the coronavirus pandemic
“Due to the economic effects of statewide closures, we have decided to reduce tuition to help make our affordable tuition model even more accessible to families in the Franklin area during this challenging time,” Luddy said in April.
For more information, visit the Thales Academy website here, or read The Tennessee Star’s feature story on Luddy.
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Anthony Gockowski is managing editor of The Minnesota Sun and The Ohio Star. Follow Anthony on Twitter. Email tips to [email protected].
