These are exciting times for Fortis Academy for many reasons.  One of them is the clarity of a strategy and plan to execute on the vision of our school at every level, but especially in the upper school.  With that in mind, there is a vision and strategy meeting scheduled where the whole plan will be presented to the community on April 2nd.  Each week I try to explain more aspects of our strategy, but it all centers around a mandate to develop Christian thinkers and communicators.  Earlier today I had the opportunity to lay out our strategy to some people in our local community and they were excited because they understood what is at stake.  The conversation began as they were talking about the divisions in our culture and their concern for the future of our nation.  It was exciting to me because one man had heard John Stormer, the author of “None Dare Call it Treason,” speak about how it takes two generations to change the predominate values in a culture.  He mentioned that from his perspective one of the most important breakdowns of our culture is with regard to civil discourse and reasoned arguments.  He was also concerned about the breakdown of free speech and about a society where people are led by propaganda.  What I was able to present to him was the solution to his concerns through classical Christian education that teaches people to think critically and analytically with civility.  From that perspective, he saw how important it is to wrestle with the great ideas of Western Civilization from the perspective of Christian faith, moral accountability and responsibility.  That is one of our goals for a Fortis graduate.

In order to accomplish our vision with excellence at Fortis Academy, we have been making changes.  I am excited for the opportunity to discuss these with our whole community.  I am convinced that as we graduate students who exhibit the fruit of a Fortis education, that we will have a waiting list to enroll in our school.  This is a very reasonable expectation considering Liberty Hill is scheduled to build over 17,000 new homes over the next five years.  The reason that we are taking the risk with implementing changes throughout the year is because we want to get ahead of the population growth and position Fortis as a thriving academic institution in our community. Changes in any organization always include risk, primarily because they disrupt the rhythm of our lives, but I am convinced that when people are able to see where we are going and how we are going to get there, it will generate genuine excitement.