Thomas MacLaren
Thomas MacLaren School strives to build a lasting community of learners in which each student is the agent of his or her education. We believe all students should be immersed in the best our tradition has to offer. We believe all students can be active and useful participants in the ongoing and enduring conversation that is a vibrant civilization. We believe all students can be formed in a habitual vision of greatness that makes lifelong learners of the doctor and the mechanic, the homemaker and the professor.
Mission
From the seminar to the science lab, from the music room to the playing field, we begin with the conviction that all human beings can know truth, create beauty and practice goodness. To that end, we expect students to develop basic tools of learning, ordered basic knowledge, moral seriousness, breadth and depth of imagination, artistic ability and sensitivity, and a sense of wonder.We believe all students can be active and useful participants in the ongoing and enduring conversation that is a vibrant civilization. Jacques Maritain, the French philosopher, described education as a human awakening. The goal of Thomas MacLaren School is to develop young men and women who are fully human and fully awake to the world.
Unique Features
Small class size: This allows faculty to know each student and to offer him or her personal attention. The student cannot easily avoid participation and will be encouraged to become the primary agent in his or her education.Single-sex classes: Research supports the understanding that boys and girls learn best in single-sex classrooms. It is well known, and confirmed in over twenty-five years of experience at Trinity Schools, that boys and girls learn in quite different ways. In a single-sex setting, Thomas MacLaren will be able to use approaches and strategies that complement those differences. The single-sex classroom also avoids the documented sexism of the co-ed classroom, frees boys and girls from the distraction of the presence of the opposite sex in the classroom, and generates a high degree of personal confidence and freedom.
Original texts, Socratic seminars and colloquia: In seminar, students read original texts. Commentaries, introductions, reviews, or summaries are not allowed. Students deal directly with the thoughts and words of the author, not with the ideas of some other reader or expert.
Performance-based program: In the music program, all students will play a stringed instrument in the school orchestra. In the visual arts, they will paint and draw. In drama, they will act. In seminar, they will discuss and write. In mathematics and science, they will solve problems and be engaged in experimentation.
School Facts
Thomas MacLaren SchoolLed by GSS Fellow Mary Faith Hall
Opening Date: August 2009
Grades: 6-12
# Of Students: approximately 160
Eligible Free/Reduced Lunch: 32%
Minority Students: 32%
Location: Colorado Springs
Address: 303 Austin Bluffs Pkwy, Colorado Springs, CO 80918
Phone: 719-313-4488
Fax: 719-313-4491
Website: http://www.maclarenschool.org/
Enrollment Information
Career Opportunities
Achievement Results
Based on 2010 CSAP scores, Thomas MacLaren’s Growth Index was the highest in its district in reading and writing.From the Colorado Department of Education’s 3 Year SPF Report
Plan Assignment: Performance
Academic Achievement: Meets (81.3%)
Reading: Exceeds (88.6%)
Mathematics: Meets (54.3%)
Writing: Meets (74.3%)
Science: Meets (50.0%)
Academic Growth: Meets (83.3%)
Reading: Exceeds (69%)
Mathematics: Approaching (50%)
Writing: Exceeds (69%)
