Now Enrolling · Grades K–2 & 4–5
McConkey-Harris Classical School Crest

Cultivating Wisdom, Virtue, and a Love of Learning

A whole-child, deeply personal education — rooted in devotion to the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, cultural heritage, and the great conversation of civilization.

Online · Distance · Self-Paced Christian Education Crestview, FL · (850) 401-5010
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A Letter from the Founder

Why This School Exists


This school is named to honor our parents. Scotland–Ireland–Kentucky became the simple map of 200 years of history. Ancestry at this point becomes repetitive. Immigration, war, migration, tragedy, lost parents, and great love. My dad was an angel, with personality traits inherited from an unknown parent. Only the name was known and that his parents were in love. My dad lived through life with laughter and the ability to love exponentially. He knew that in spite of trouble and sadness, our Heavenly Father has always been the source of all love.

The Harris name belongs here too. My husband and I have built 45 years together, and his family carries its own heritage of quiet strength. This school bears both our names because it is the work of both our lives.

Heritage is never about geography, money or power, it is about sowing. Passing God's love and the child's identity in God forward to the next generation. Ethnicity and heritage can be celebrated but is certainly never required! I am offering ethnic heritage tracks because it is rich with laughter, stories, art, and is important to the child.

Your child deserves to love learning the way my father loved poetry. Not because it is needed, but because it is beautiful. That is why this school exists.

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— Laura McConkey-Harris

Founder, McConkey-Harris Classical School

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A School Built on Permanent Things


At McConkey-Harris Classical School, we hold that every child is made in the image of God and carries a distinct heritage — spiritual, cultural, and intellectual. Our mission is not merely to educate minds, but to form whole persons: lovers of beauty, truth, and goodness, shaped by a deep and living commitment to the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. We draw from three great streams: the rigor of Classical Education (the Trivium — Grammar, Logic, Rhetoric), the living-book richness of Charlotte Mason's philosophy, and a curriculum that honors each student's faith tradition and cultural background as enrichments woven alongside the core sequence.

"The sense of beauty comes from early contact with Nature."

— Charlotte Mason

"You must tackle books that are beyond you — only books of that sort will make you stretch your mind."

— Mortimer J. Adler, How to Read a Book

A Distinctive Vision: Beauty First

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At McConkey-Harris Classical School, we depart from the traditional philosophical ordering of Truth, Beauty, and Goodness — and do so deliberately. Our founder's doctoral research proposes that children do not first encounter God through proposition or moral command, but through Beauty. A child hears a poem read aloud by a father who loves it. A child feels a kitten purr against her hand — and realizes that this little life is miraculous and beautiful. A child is drawn into a hymn before she understands its theology.

Beauty is the door. Truth is what she finds inside. Goodness is what she becomes.

Beauty

The door

Truth

What she finds inside

Goodness

What she becomes

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About the Founder


Laura Harris came to education the way good things come — slowly, through love, and by many roads at once. She earned her Bachelor of Arts in Philosophy from Indiana University, where the ancient questions of Beauty, Truth, and Goodness first took hold of her imagination and never let go.

She returned to Indiana University for a Master of Library Science, drawn to the intersection of books and people — to the belief that the right story, placed in the right hands at the right moment, can change a life. For fifteen years she served as a professional librarian across the suburban counties of Indianapolis, counseling hundreds of families in literacy, education, and learning.

It was during those years among families — and during twenty years of homeschooling her own children — that Laura's understanding of classical education moved from theory to lived practice. She saw how children actually learn: not through abstraction first, but through story; not through testing, but through narration and imitation; not through institutional efficiency, but through the patient, attentive rhythm of a home where books are read aloud and questions are welcomed.

Laura is currently a doctoral candidate in Theology, pursuing her PhD with a focus on the ordering of the transcendentals — particularly the proposal that Beauty precedes Truth and Goodness in the child's encounter with God.

She built McConkey-Harris Classical School not from a business plan but from a life — from a father who read poetry because he loved it, from a mother who made a home that felt like heaven, from a husband and partner of forty-five years whose family name is inscribed beside hers on the school because it is the work of both their lives.

"If you have been looking for a school that loves your child the way you do — with high expectations and a gentle hand, with rigor and with wonder — we would be honored to welcome your family."

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— Laura McConkey-Harris

B.A. Philosophy M.L.S. Library Science PhD Candidate, Theology

Founder, McConkey-Harris Classical School

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Three Paths, One Lord


We believe that faith rooted in the person of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit is inseparable from classical learning. McConkey-Harris Classical School honors the full breadth of the historic Christian faith — united in love for the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Our school seeks to support Christian families in their earnest desire to bring up children where Living for Christ is front and center.

To Live Is Christ — Philippians 1:21a

"Therefore if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature: old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new."

— 2 Corinthians 5:17

Eastern Orthodox

The Byzantine & Patristic Tradition

Formation rooted in a deep love of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit as expressed through the prayer life of the Eastern Orthodox. History studies will include the great Christian centers of the apostolic cities. Orthodox families may choose Greek as the primary ancient language in conjunction with learning Latin on all levels K-12.

Key Elements:

  • Classical Greek Language in all grade levels
  • Plutarch's Lives from Alexander the Great, Influence of the Greek Empire
  • Early Church History prominent for all faith tracks
  • Sacred art studied for all students
  • Greek Patristics (Basil, Gregory of Nyssa, John of Damascus) read by Middle and High school

Catholic

The Latin & Patristic Tradition

Formation rooted in a deep love of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit as expressed through the prayer life of the Catholic Church. Latin is taught on all levels, K-12.

Key Elements:

  • Latin Instruction in all grade levels K-12
  • Plutarch's Lives from Alexander the Great, Egyptian Key figures, and Roman Leaders
  • Early Church History prominent for all faith tracks
  • Sacred art studied for all students
  • Selected Church Fathers (Augustine, Jerome, Chrysostom) read by High School
  • Lives of the Saints studied across all grade levels

Protestant

Scripture, Hymns & Prayer

Formation grounded in a living devotion to the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit through the authority of Scripture, the great hymns of the faith, and prayer life. History studies will include the period of European Reformation against the background of Medieval Europe.

Key Elements:

  • Apologetics and Bible Reading for all levels
  • Hymn study and sacred music

All three Faith Tracks share the same classical curriculum — the enduring works of literature, the Trivium, mathematics, history, and the sciences. The faith track shapes formation, not content restriction.

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Bible Study for Every Child


Bible Study is assigned by the school as an integral subject. Bible study at McConkey-Harris follows the ancient principle of Scripture interpreting Scripture. Students are led to let the text speak for itself — passage illuminating passage, theme tracing through theme across the whole canon. There are no Bible commentaries assigned. The text is the teacher.

Bible resources are assigned by the school based on each student's grade level — these are required tools for the course of study:

Elementary (Grades K–4)

Students use the Golden Book Illustrated Bible — chosen for its beautiful illustrations, accessible language, and ability to bring Scripture alive for young learners.

5th Grade through High School

The Thompson Chain Reference Bible is a required course tool for all Middle School and High School students. Its chain-reference system guides students to trace themes, words, and doctrines through Scripture without the intrusion of any author's personal interpretation.

All Students will read through the Bible for three cycles during their time with McConkey-Harris: once during the Grammar stage, once during the Logic stage, and a final time during High School.

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Your Heritage, Woven into the Canon


Great literature is always particular before it is universal. At McConkey-Harris Classical School, we believe children are formed by stories — and that the stories of their own people are a gift, not a distraction. Our Heritage Literature Pathways layer culturally specific literature and primary sources into the broader classical reading list. Folklore is the perfect lens — every culture has passed its deepest values, its sense of honor, beauty, and belonging, through the stories it tells its children.

🇮🇪 Irish Heritage Pathway

The Celtic Literary Tradition

Featured Authors & Works

  • Lady Gregory — Irish Myths and Legends (K–5 read-alouds)
  • W.B. Yeats — Poetry and Celtic Twilight (Grades 6–12)
  • James Stephens — The Crock of Gold
  • Patrick Kavanagh — Poetry (High School)
  • The Book of Kells — Illuminated Manuscripts (Art integration)
  • St. Columba — Irish Monasticism (History integration)
  • Jonathan Swift — Gulliver's Travels, A Modest Proposal
  • C.S. Lewis — Belfast-born, Narnia through Till We Have Faces

Elementary

Folk tales, Celtic art, Irish legends retold for young readers.

Themes & Traditions

Irish literature is layered into Grammar stage folk tales, Logic stage Romantic literature, and Rhetoric stage Modern literature as living threads. St. Columba enriches the Medieval Church history sequence.

🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿 Scottish Heritage Pathway

The Highland Literary Tradition

Featured Authors & Works

  • Robert Burns — Poetry (Grades 6+)
  • Sir Walter Scott — Ivanhoe, Rob Roy (Grades 7–9)
  • George MacDonald — The Princess and the Goblin, Phantastes, Lilith
  • Robert Louis Stevenson — Treasure Island, Kidnapped, Jekyll & Hyde
  • Covenanting Literature — Scottish devotional works
  • Francis Hutcheson — Scottish Enlightenment (High School philosophy)
  • Adam Smith — Wealth of Nations excerpts (High School economics)
  • Thomas Carlyle — Sartor Resartus (Rhetoric stage)

Elementary

Illustrated Highland legends, picture books of Robert the Bruce, tales of the misty glens.

Themes & Traditions

Highland history, Ulster Plantations, Scottish Missionaries.

🏴󠁧󠁢󠁥󠁮󠁧󠁿 English Heritage Pathway

The Anglo-Saxon & English Literary Tradition

Featured Authors & Works

  • Beowulf — Anglo-Saxon poetry (Grades 9–10)
  • William Shakespeare — Full integration across Grades 6–12
  • Charles Dickens — Great Expectations, A Tale of Two Cities (Grades 8–9)
  • G.K. Chesterton
  • J.R.R. Tolkien — The Hobbit, The Lord of the Rings

Elementary

Illustrated retellings of King Arthur, Robin Hood, English folk tales like Jack and the Beanstalk.

Themes & Traditions

Anglo-Saxon heritage, medieval England, English literary tradition.

🇯🇵 Japanese Heritage Pathway

Poetry, Art & Contemplation

Featured Authors & Works

  • Matsuo Bashō — Haiku (Grammar and Logic stages)
  • Miyazaki Hayao
  • Natsume Sōseki — Snow Country (Rhetoric stage)
  • Shusaku Endo — Silence (High School, faith integration)

Art & Practice

Shodō (calligraphy), haiku composition, origami, ink wash painting.

Elementary

Japanese folklore, calligraphy, origami, haiku for young learners.

Themes & Traditions

Japanese folklore, art, poetry and language celebrated.

🇰🇷 Korean Heritage Pathway

Dynasty, Devotion & Modern Identity

Featured Authors & Works

  • Classic Sijo Poetry (Grammar and Logic stage intro)
  • Yi Kwang-su — The Heartless (High School)
  • Park Wan-suh (Rhetoric stage)
  • Euny Hong — The Birth of Korean Cool (High School)
  • Korean Folktales — Heungbu and Nolbu, The Sun and the Moon (Grammar stage)
  • Historical Sources: Three Kingdoms, Joseon dynasty, March First Movement
  • Korean Christian History
  • Art: Hanji art, Minhwa folk painting, Hangul calligraphy

Elementary

Illustrated Korean folk tales — Heungbu and Nolbu, The Tiger's Whisker — Joseon-era traditions, Minhwa folk art.

Themes & Traditions

Beauty and ethics, the Korean Church, History of dynasties, resistance, modern identity.

🇷🇺 Russian Heritage Pathway

The Great Russian Literary & Spiritual Tradition

Featured Authors & Works

  • Russian Folktales — Baba Yaga, Firebird, Ivan Tsarevich (Grammar stage)
  • Alexander Pushkin — Eugene Onegin, The Captain's Daughter (Grades 9–10)
  • Nikolai Gogol — The Overcoat (Logic stage)
  • Fyodor Dostoevsky — Crime and Punishment, The Brothers Karamazov (Grades 10–12)
  • Leo Tolstoy — Short stories and plays (Grades 9–10)
  • Alexander Solzhenitsyn — One Day in the Life…, Gulag Archipelago (High School)

Elementary

Illustrated Baba Yaga tales, Firebird, Vasilisa the Brave, Russian folk stories.

Themes & Traditions

Suffering and redemption, Russian Orthodoxy and the soul, autocracy and freedom, rich history of the Russian Orthodox Church.

🌍 African Heritage Pathway

The Great Storytelling Traditions of Africa

Featured Authors & Works

  • The Epic of Sundiata — founding epic of the Mali Empire (Grades 7–10)
  • Anansi the Spider — West African trickster tales (Grammar stage read-alouds)
  • Arrow of God (High School)
  • African Proverbs & Wisdom Literature — oral tradition (all grade levels)
  • Pan-African Poetry (Rhetoric stage)
  • Great Zimbabwe & Nubian Kingdoms — Historical sources
  • Swahili Coastal Culture — Trade, language (Logic stage)
  • Langston Hughes, Zora Neale Hurston — Harlem Renaissance Roots (Grades 9–12)
  • Art & Music: Adinkra symbols, storytelling and oral narration, call-and-response song, textile arts

Elementary

Anansi picture books, illustrated griot tales, African animal fables, proverbs — tales of the clever spider, the wise tortoise, the great storytellers.

Themes & Traditions

African folklore is among the world's richest storytelling traditions — trickster tales, hero journeys, proverbs, animal fables that carry the moral imagination of entire peoples. Anansi teaches cleverness and resilience. The griot preserves the community's memory.

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The Architecture of an Education

Classical rigor, Charlotte Mason vitality, Trinitarian faith, and cultural rootedness — not as competing philosophies, but as a unified whole.


Grammar Stage

Grades K–6

Absorbing the world through story, song, and wonder. Children receive heritage folk tales woven alongside the core reading list, catechism memory work, nature study, and first encounters with great authors in Charlotte Mason read-alouds. Copywork serves as Grammar and English language instruction. Latin instruction provides logic-inflected language instruction critical for academic foundations. Math, Science, and History are served via Online Tools including IXL, various Christian Publishers, and Art/Nature Studies. Heritage literature appears as folk tales and picture-book biographies layered into the standard coursework.

K–1st: 1-3 hr active learning Grades 2–5: 3-5 hrs active learning

Logic Stage

Grades 7–9

Logic instruction for learning to reason and analyze. Students begin dialectical discussion, formal logic, and sustained reading of heritage novels and histories enriching and extending the core sequence.

5 hrs daily seat/learning time Grade 5-12

Rhetoric Stage

Grades 9–12

Finding their own voice. Students write and argue from a classical foundation rooted in devotion to the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Heritage authors are read at full depth — Dostoevsky, Chekhov, Yeats, Endo, Han Kang — woven alongside the enduring works of civilization. High School students are introduced to Philosophy of Art, Introduction to Ethics, and Christian Philosophy. Their senior thesis integrates faith, heritage, and classical learning into an original argument.

Art, Sports & Extracurricular Life

At McConkey-Harris, we want your child to experience friendships, music, art, and the world of sports. Parents contract with us stating which art lesson or sports team the child will participate in during the week. This can include music lessons, local sports teams, children's church, 4-H, Girl or Boy Scouts, Basketball teams, and Youth Group. A placeholder voucher paid to the provider of the Art/Sports Team will be sent directly from the school. This will be included in all McConkey-Harris student tuition packets.

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Academic Benchmarks & Stage Promotion


McConkey-Harris Classical School holds students to distinctive academic benchmarks at the completion of each classical stage. Advancement to the next stage is not automatic — it is earned through demonstrated mastery.

Students must demonstrate:

  • Reading fluency and comprehension at or above grade level
  • Foundational writing skills: narration, copywork, and dictation
  • Mastery of core grammar and spelling patterns
  • Engagement with Scripture using the Golden Book Illustrated Bible
  • A portfolio review with your educator

Students must demonstrate:

  • Analytical reading and written argument construction
  • Proficiency in formal grammar, composition, and logic
  • Demonstrated Scripture literacy using the Thompson Chain Reference Bible
  • Satisfactory completion of assigned heritage and faith enrichment coursework
  • A written and oral review with your educator

Students must demonstrate:

  • Mastery-level written rhetoric: essay, argument, and original composition
  • Public presentation or defense of a senior thesis or capstone project
  • Comprehensive Scripture study completion
  • Integration of classical learning, heritage, and faith formation across all stages
  • Final portfolio and oral review with your educator

These benchmarks ensure that every student who advances through the classical stages — and every graduate who bears the McConkey-Harris name — has been genuinely formed in beauty, truth, and goodness, not merely passed along. Mastery is reviewed by your educator across all three faith tracks — Orthodox, Catholic, and Protestant — with equal rigor and equal care.

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A Curriculum Set by the School

Trust is the foundation of classical education.


The curriculum at McConkey-Harris Classical School is set by the school. Personalization is provided based on each student's assessed reading level, writing development, and comprehension. Ethnic heritage and faith backgrounds are woven into the core curriculum as enrichments, deepening and extending what is already there rather than replacing any part of it. This is not a buffet — it is a banquet, prepared with care and served in the right order.

Assessed Placement

Reading level, writing development, and comprehension assessed by your educator.

Heritage Enrichments

Woven alongside the core sequence, enriching without replacing.

Daily Learning Time

K–1: 1-3 hr active | Gr 2–5: 3-5 hrs active | Gr 6–12: 5 hrs active instruction.

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We'd Love to Hear From You

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