Good Work, Done Well, Here at Home

Cincinnati Classical Academy exists to form young people — not to credential them, not to prepare them for a sequence of standardized tests, but to hand them a civilization and teach them to inhabit it. That work happens in Latin class and in the study of Euclid. It happens when a student memorizes a poem until it becomes part of how he thinks, or when a ninth grader traces a classical column until her hand begins to understand what her eye has only just learned to see. It is slow, serious, and irreplaceable. Every decision about how to spend the school’s resources, including the time of its teachers, must be measured against that standard.

 

With that context in place, I would like to share an important decision about the Eighth Grade Washington, D.C. trip and offers a candid account of the reasoning behind it.

 

For the past two years this program gave our eighth graders a genuine encounter with the monuments and institutions at the heart of American civic life. That experience was made possible almost entirely through the extraordinary dedication of Mr. Misleh, who designed, organized, and directed it with a level of care that was genuinely remarkable. Managing logistics, preparing itineraries, and attending to every detail of a demanding multi-day journey with a group of adolescents is not small work. It is the kind of labor that draws quietly and persistently on a person’s energy and time. Cincinnati Classical Academy is grateful for everything Mr. Misleh invested in this program.

 

After much discussion and careful reflection, the school has decided to discontinue the D.C. trip for the foreseeable future.

 

Scale is the first reason. Beginning in 2026–27, the eighth grade class will grow to approximately 104 students. Even with a single bus of 40, chaperones found the preparation, coordination, and oversight required to care properly for every student genuinely formidable. Extending this experience responsibly to a full class of over 100 is not something the school can do without compromising the quality and safety of the trip itself.

 

Leadership is the second reason. Mr. Misleh has stepped down from this role, and no faculty or staff member has been identified with both the capacity and the willingness to take it on. The teachers here at CLASSICAL give an enormous amount of themselves to students every day — in the classroom, in Citadel Life, in the countless hours of preparation that make a classical education possible. Their time is finite and precious, and the school will not ask more of it than is reasonable. A program of this scope will not be offered under reduced leadership.

Fairness is the third reason. This year’s trivia night raised a considerable amount to reduce costs for every student, which reflects how seriously the school took the goal of accessibility. And yet practical limitations held enrollment to 40 spots for a class with considerably more interest — leaving roughly 30 students on a waitlist. That is not a tension the school has been able to resolve, and it is not one Cincinnati Classical Academy is willing to simply absorb and repeat.

 

Taken together, these factors point clearly toward investing that energy in what CLASSICAL does best and most distinctively. This is a school where students study the classical orders of architecture and design monuments for a real campus site, where Citadel Life competitions move from basketball tournaments to Shakespearean monologue recitals without breaking stride. This is the school where kindergartners learn to write by hand and high schoolers read Homer as a living voice, where a fourth grader can stand before 450 adults at a gala and explain, in his own words, why he loves being a CLASSICAL student — and hold the room in silence. The programs that produce those moments deserve the school’s full attention and resources.

 

Grade-level field trips and Citadel Life experiences remain a valued part of students’ formation, and the school is committed to deepening them.

 

The annual trivia night — Are You Smarter Than a Sixth Grader? — will continue as a beloved community tradition, now designated as a fundraiser for much needed resources for the school library.

 

To families who have inquired about a potential summer trip to Greece and Rome for rising seniors: the vision behind that idea is exactly right. However, Cincinnati Classical Academy is not in a position to organize it responsibly at this time and will not pursue it until ready to do it well. When that day comes, it will be worth the wait.