The Heritage Foundation has launched an online database that allows parents and guardians to find classical schools that are alternatives to the declining quality of public schools in their region.
Just two schools in Alaska made the list so far: Holy Rosary Academy in Anchorage and Kenai Classical School in Soldotna. Both are Christian-based schools; Holy Rosary is Catholic while Kenai Classical School is nondenominational Christian.
The Classical Schools Database has more than 900 public, charter, and private schools on the list nationwide (Hawaii has the fewest on the list with just one). The database features schools that are committed to offering a classical liberal arts education to their students. These schools are committed to three core ideas:
Character and Intellectual Formation: Classical schools emphasize the development of both moral and intellectual virtues, viewing them as inseparable, to prepare students to uphold and preserve American principles and freedoms through knowledge, wisdom, and virtue.
Transmission of Wisdom: Classical schools focus on passing down the knowledge and insights of previous generations through great books, the liberal arts (trivium and quadrivium), and Western religious traditions.
Preparation for Lifelong Learning: These schools aim to equip students with the skills and habits needed for self-directed learning, such as logic, rhetoric, recitation, and Socratic seminars, fostering abilities in attention, memory, reasoning, and dialogue.
Holy Rosary Academy was “disassociated” from the Catholic Church as an official Catholic institution, a status that began in October 2021 when the Archdiocese of Anchorage-Juneau, under Archbishop Andrew Bellisario, revoked its Catholic school designation. That decision stemmed from the school’s refusal to comply with certain mandates from the archdiocese, including giving the archbishop authority over hiring, firing, curriculum, and health-related decisions, such as mask mandates. The school has opted to operate independently, identifying as a “Classical School in the Catholic Tradition.”
Holy Rosary Academy was returned to a partial restoration of ties in 2022, but the archdiocese did not fully reinstate its official Catholic status. Instead, it allowed limited cooperation, such as access to sacraments for students and families at local parishes. The academy maintains its classical curriculum and Catholic identity but does so without the official endorsement of the archdiocese.
Kenai Classical School was founded in 2019.
