Anyone interested in sending their kids to Liberty should

attend a public-information  presentation this week or next. In fact, due to a  change in Liberty's enrollment policy, they must attend one in order to be moved up through the enrollment-lottery process.

Liberty's policy and approach to enrolling new Liberty families has changed making these meetings noteworthy. If you know of anyone wanting to get their kids into Liberty, please urge them - strenuously - to come to one of the following info nights:

This week's info nights are on Tuesday, January 21st and Thursday 23rd from 6:30-8:00 PM in the Elementary Gymnasium. Next week's info night is Tuesday, January 28th from 6:30 - 8:30 PM at the high-school Great Hall.

Attendance at either location satisfies the requirements of the new policy for students enrolling in any grade K - 11. The kindergarten lottery for the 2014-15 school year will be conducted on January 27th. The lottery for grades 7 - 11 will be held February 3rd.  

The reason Liberty's Board of Directors has adopted the new policy is a solid one. Parents must have a clear understanding of the school's philosophy before they choose the school. They ought to find broad agreement with the school's expectations for academic rigor, behavior, and curriculum.

As such, the content of the public-information nights is different than in years past. Mr. Churchill and I are spending more time discussing school's philosophy and its history in these new presentations.

The Board also established a new Parent-Education Committee to furnish additional strategies to help all Liberty parents and faculty develop a deeper understanding of these things. It is a critical undertaking under any circumstance, but especially right now. Here's why.

Over the coming years, public schools throughout the country will be consumed and overwhelmed, indeed sidetracked, by the latest national fad to hit public schools. Known as the Common Core Standards, this political effort to influence classroom curriculum represents a massive nationalization of public education.

These new standards are not good. An obscene amount of public funds is being spent to force them on all children.

The effort represents dumbed-down ambitions for public education. These government standards are more skills-oriented, and less intellectually oriented. They are aimed at workplace jobs and community-college readiness, not selective-university readiness.

The new national Common Core Standards are not internationally benchmarked. The underlying dogma informing these new standards drifts from the classical philosophy of our school.

Schools that are not well grounded in their philosophy, mission and purpose will easily get swamped. The Common Core Standards laws bring with them new testing requirements which regrettably apply to all Colorado public schools including Liberty.  

This will inevitably raise critical questions throughout our Liberty family, throughout the broader Northern Colorado community, the state and nation. Therefore, everyone associated with our institution needs to be familiar with the terms of the conflict, and prepared to advocate the commonsense approach of our Core Knowledge Sequence, and our classical college-preparatory high-school curriculum.  

Everyone needs to understand what we teach at Liberty and why. They also need to understand why it is best for Liberty to maintain the school's relative autonomy in management, curriculum and vision.

The upcoming public-information nights are good opportunities for those wanting to join the Liberty family. They are also good opportunities for those of us who are current Liberty parents who might want to refresh their understanding of the truly great school at which our kids are privileged in attending.