Cultivating Young Minds for a Brighter Future

It’s Friday afternoon, and Brooks McDonald is busy walking the halls at Founders Classical Academy of Corinth. The day’s last class has ended, and she is enveloped by a buzz of playful energy from students spilling into their afternoon routines. 

One eagerly runs up to their friendly headmaster with the ease and familiarity of an old friend and shares great news about her upcoming senior thesis. Nearby, another student grabs a snack from his backpack, high-fives a friend, and dashes off to cross country practice like a man on a mission.

Several younger kids are having a spirited debate with another teacher over what they took away from a presentation in their last class of the day, while others hurriedly weave through the crowd with homework in hand to find their parents waiting in the pickup line. Amid the lively and welcome chaos, McDonald takes it all in with a knowing smile.

“Every Founders campus has its own personality, and I’ve noticed in my four years in Corinth that there’s something unique about the Lake Cities. These kids have a lot of heart and spirit,” she said. “Some public and private schools have large graduation classes. We have around a hundred kids per grade level, so, they know each other very well. Everyone is connected in a special way.

“It has become a learning community of students, staff, and families, and we encourage that.”

There are ten Founders campuses in North Texas, including four in the immediate area (Denton, Corinth, Lewisville, and Flower Mound). Corinth is the only one with two campuses—one for kindergarten through fifth grade near Hickory Creek Town Hall and the much larger Grammar Campus for grades six through 12 off Meadowview Drive and Interstate-35. This structured approach to campus organization reflects Founders’ broader commitment to providing a distinctive educational experience. 

In fact, parents accustomed to choosing between traditional public and private schools may be surprised to learn that Founders of Corinth is neither of those. It is a charter school with a unique middle ground—tuition-free, like public schools, but with the flexibility to create specialized academic environments based on the traditional liberal arts and sciences curriculum our founding fathers preached for generations. 

For instance, McDonald said their curriculum includes three years of Latin, which helps students improve in areas such as critical thinking, writing, mental discipline, and language skills. They also take classes in ethics, literature and philosophy, and astronomy.

While taking a campus tour, you might hear students discussing the teachings of Plato, Aristotle, and the concepts of free will. Kids who traditionally compete in sports like basketball and football also participate in school plays through the theater department. Rather than seeing kids roam the halls with school-issued laptops, they have textbooks.

At the heart of this is a house system where every student is valued, included, and feels a sense of belonging, regardless of their background or abilities. Each student is sorted into a house—each one is named after the Cardinal Virtues—to encourage friendship, healthy competition, and leadership opportunities while inspiring every student to take pride in their achievements.

“It is an atmosphere that needs to be seen to be believed,” McDonald said. “When parents drive past us, they almost always think we are a private school. Minus the uniforms, we’re free. Charter schools have no religious affiliation and abide by the same state and federal testing standards. We’re open to all students, and once parents see how everything works, they want to send their kids to us.”

While McDonald has been the headmaster in Corinth for four years, she has been an educator within Founders for 10. Time and again, she has watched with pride as students graduate and move on to have happy, productive, and successful lives. Founders of Corinth boasts a 100% college acceptance rate and has surpassed $500,000 in scholarships this school year.

“Our kids can grow up to be whatever they want to be. That said, we do have plenty who have earned full rides to SMU and Baylor. We have a former student at the Moody Institute in Chicago, and another current student will be studying abroad in Ireland this summer. She just called to let me in on the good news. 

The best part is that when they reach that next stage of their life, they are prepared and empowered with the skills and confidence to succeed.” She added, “Watching them grow within our family and community has been a blessing.”

For more information, visit FoundersCorinth.com