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Trinitas Classical High School Press Release

March 28th, 2025

Trinitas Classical School expands from K–8 to a K–10 school for the 2025-26 academic year, on track to be a K–12 school by 2028.

Trinitas Classical School is thrilled to announce that it will be opening its doors to grades 9 and 10 for the upcoming 2025-2026 academic year. This will be the first phase of expansion as it moves from a K–8 institution to a K–12 school over the next few years.
Since its conception in 2006, Trinitas Classical School has offered a uniquely excellent academic experience for children in grades K–8. Trinitas is known for its God-centered, family-focused, and screen-light learning environment and its vigorous virtue education. “These key values will persist in Trinitas Classical High School as it is launched this fall,” says Mrs. Michele Hinthorne, Head of School.

While the K–8 school has well-prepared students for a variety of high school experiences over the past twenty years, Trinitas families have long desired an expansion that would ensure the continuation of the exceptional classical Christian education they have grown to cherish. With Trinitas Classical High School’s first graduating class anticipated for 2028, this vision is finally becoming reality.

Mrs. Hinthorne, with the support of the Trinitas Board of Directors, envisions a high school experience where students are rooted in strong, healthy relationships with their peers, teachers, and God. “We intend to accomplish this,” shares Mrs. Hinthorne, “through intentionally limited class sizes, multi-age interactions, family partnerships, dedicated faculty, and Scriptural grounding.”

Limited seats are available for the Trinitas Classical High School grade 9–10 launch. For more information regarding the admission process and the expansion of Trinitas Classical School, please contact the school at 616-855-6518.


CCE Corner – Self-discipline, Calling, and the Untrue Artist

March 20th, 2025

There is a special kind of joy that comes from being part of an educational community rich in beautiful material and interdisciplinary discoveries. I recently had a delightful conversation with a Trinitas teacher about connections between our Thoughtful Reader Book Club author, Mrs. Tellinghuisen’s recent Lenten reflection, and our Virtue of the Quarter. If you are curious how these fit together, read on! 

For Thoughtful Reader Book Club this year, we chose two books by George MacDonald (1824-1905)—students read The Princess and the Goblin, and parents and staff are reading Phantastes. MacDonald was a Scottish pastor, poet, and writer of fantasy fiction and a favorite author of many of our favorite authors—Tolkien, Lewis, Chesterton, Carroll, and L’Engle, to name but a few. MacDonald’s vast influence is difficult to overestimate. C.S. Lewis famously said that Phantastes “baptized” his imagination, opening the way for his conversion to Christianity. Of MacDonald’s influence on him as an author, Lewis wrote, “I have never concealed the fact that I regarded him as my master; indeed I fancy I have never written a book in which I did not quote from him.” And speaking for so many other writers, Madeleine L’Engle wrote, “Surely George MacDonald is the grand-father of us all—all of us who struggle to come to terms with truth through imagination.”  

The work of MacDonald surely made, and still makes, the world a better and more beautiful place. From our perspective so many years later, it looks like he was blessed to have found his vocation or “calling.” *  Theologian Frederick Buechner famously defined vocation as the place where “your deep gladness and the world’s deep hunger meet,” and students around the globe are often encouraged to find their own calling, to find work that coincides with their passions and “changes the world.” We’re not sure MacDonald always experienced his own work this way though.

MacDonald’s passion was poetry, and while his work received good reviews, he struggled to support his young family. His publisher encouraged him to write fiction, and so MacDonald wrote Phantastes, “a kind of fairy tale in the hope that it will pay me better than the more evidently serious work.” * For a significant part of his career, MacDonald put aside his first love, spending time engaged in what he probably felt were less-preferred tasks. What message is there in his example for us?  

In her recent Lenten reflection, Mrs. Tellinghuisen encouraged us not to “think big and start small,” as we are so often told to do, but to think small. She encouraged us to turn our gaze during Lent to “the little things on this road that show us the kingdom, in Jesus, has truly come near.” What if we viewed our vocations in this way too? It is certainly a blessing if our work and passions coincide and a further blessing if the result has a wide impact, but we are sometimes called to ignore our “deep gladness” in order to meet not the world’s hunger but the hunger (both figurative and literal) of those near to us. This requires the virtue of self-discipline. 

The Untrue Artist,” a poem by Reid McGrath, begins with the words of Irish playwright George Bernard Shaw (1856-1950):  

“The true artist will let his wife starve, his children go barefoot, his mother drudge for his living at seventy, sooner than work at anything but his art.” 

In contrast, McGrath paints a picture of the “untrue artist” who with self-discipline responds to the needs of love: 

I’ve put untapped potential on a shelf
much like a book one someday wants to read.
I’m less concerned with cultivating “Self;”
and now am more concerned with what we need. 

We’re married. You’re more beautiful than books.
The Muse is not my mistress anymore.
Despite how mainstream or mundane he looks,
the Pragmatist is no one to abhor. 

If I can make it to retirement,
I’ll pen the poems you deserve to hear.
But if the artist in his art is pent,
I’ll eschew those poor penthouses, my dear. 

I hope you know that when I stoke the stove,
get out the door, then labor out of sight,
I show my love—not with poems of love,
but with books of poems I won’t write.

MacDonald considered poetry the highest form of literary art. Phatastes was written by an “untrue artist,” one who was willing to show his love to his family for a time with the poems he didn’t write. This other-focused nature of the virtue of self-discipline is captured well in MacDonald’s dictum, “bethink thee of something thou oughtest to do, and go and do it, if it be but the sweeping of a room or the preparing of a meal or a visit to a friend. Heed not thy feelings. Do thy work.” Self-discipline is very often a matter of being faithful in little things, of performing small and consistent, sometimes less-preferred, acts of service and love for others. During this season of Lent and beyond, let us remember that it is often not in “changing the world” but in being faithful that we live according to our calling as followers of Christ. 

*Greville MacDonald, George MacDonald and His Wife (George Allen and Unwin, 1924), 288. 

**“Vocation” comes from Latin, vocare, “to call.” 

 

© ALP 


Grades 3 and 4 African Feast

March 14th, 2025

Grades 3 and 4 celebrated the end of a unit studying Africa this week with a feast. Students and guests enjoyed food from many countries and heard from former Trinitas teacher Maureen Richards and her husband Jay. The Richards shared about their service in a Rafiki village in Malawi. It was a delicious and delightful event!


Fun at Camp Roger

January 31st, 2025

Students had a blast at Camp Roger last Friday! They built fires, sleds, and shelters, made pancakes and popcorn, enjoyed snow shoeing, skiing, and hot chocolate…The list goes on!

Here are few reflections from the day: “I got to ski for the first time!” “Although many people fell down, we all laughed it off and kept being optimistic.” “Camp Roger has very supportive instructors. They help you when you struggle and keep up the positivity.” “Shout out to Camp Roger for letting me have this awesome time.”


RECAP: Explore Trinitas Classical High School Night

January 29th, 2025

We had an encouraging turnout for our event! Our head of school, director of classical Christian education, several teachers, and a Trinitas parent gave inspirational presentations about our vision for a proposed high school including opportunities for cohort dual enrollment, trades classes, internships, and Oxford tutorials. Feedback cards from those in attendance, both current Trinitas families and prospective families, indicated very strong interest. We will be following up with attendees. Please continue to spread the word that we are exploring the possibility of opening a high school with grades 9 and 10 in the fall. Spots in the inaugural classes would be limited! Interested families should contact the Trinitas office, info@trinitasclassical.org, for more information.


CCEC — The Blessings of Limitation?

January 28th, 2025

There is no shortage of books out there that are focused on, well, focusing. Indeed, it seems we live in a culture of inattention and distraction. There are reasons to be concerned. A day—or days—of endless screen scrolling can negatively impact one’s health: physical, emotional, relational, and spiritual. But if we are honest, smartphones and other devices have only amplified what has long been a reality of the human condition: our hearts do not always seek the good. But that said, is a lack of focus or attention necessarily bad?

We invite you to read this recent blog post, “Attention to our Limitation,” from Don Tellinghuisen, professor of psychology at Calvin University, and yes, Mrs. Tellinghuisen’s husband. A cognitive and experimental psychologist, his area of study is attention and distraction. He is currently working on a book that examines these topics from a faith perspective. And he offers us a little encouragement as we struggle to attend to the things we know we should (and turn from those things we know we shouldn’t). It’s actually good—and necessary! —that we have limited attention. Professor Tellinghuisen invites us to consider how we have been created and to think about focus and attention through the lens of Christian discipleship and stewardship. (Spoiler: We aren’t God. We can’t do it all. And that’s a very good thing!)


CCE Corner – Portrait of a Trinitas Graduate

January 17th, 2025

A quintessentially classical way of doing things is to begin with the end. And so, as we consider the possibility of a Trinitas Classical High School, we begin with a Portrait of a Graduate. The cultivation of those virtues we illustrate in this portrait already begins in kindergarten, and it is a joy to see them grow throughout students’ elementary and middle school years with us. It is our hope, God willing, to be able to play a role in the continued cultivation of these qualities throughout students’ high school years.  

Portrait of a Graduate: Trinitas Classical High School seeks to educate and spiritually form young adults with ordered hearts, courageous voices, and ready hands for obedient discipleship as they faithfully take the next steps in their education, work, and service. 

Young Adults 

“Don’t let anyone look down on you because you are young, but set an example for the believers in speech, in conduct, in love, in faith and in purity.” (I Timothy 4:12) 

The idea of a young adult perhaps brings to mind a person who is full of potential, someone who is a “future leader,” rather than a leader right now. Or it may make one think, a little negatively, of someone with a fair amount of freedom but with less responsibility. At Trinitas, we recognize that young people can be leaders now, and that freedom and responsibility should increase together. In a world that is reluctant to ask much of our teenagers, TCHS seeks to graduate young men and women capable and desirous of being examples for others both younger and older than they.   

Ordered Hearts 

“Whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable—if anything is excellent or praiseworthy—think about such things.” (Philippians 4:8) 

Education in the classical Christian tradition seeks to guide our hearts to love what is true, good, and beautiful. Our hearts are formed, in large part, by what we spend time thinking about. At Trinitas, we seek to engage excellent and praiseworthy material. We also do this because we know, as St. Augustine observed, that only a heart that is ordered toward its maker is truly at rest. In a world of restless striving, TCHS seeks to create a place of rest, a place of scholé where students, teachers, and families delight in their maker and in what is good and true and beautiful. 

Courageous Voices 

“But in your hearts revere Christ as Lord. Always be prepared to give an answer to everyone who asks you to give the reason for the hope that you have. But do this with gentleness and respect.” (I Peter 3:15) 

Our desire is for TCHS graduates to seek first the Kingdom of God, to revere and proclaim Christ as their Lord. The Rhetoric stage of their education is particularly well suited to help them share their testimony in written and spoken words and by living lives of love and service in whatever places and roles they are called. In a world that tempts us to cowardice or encourages aggression, TCHS seeks to equip students with courage that speaks truth and treats others with both gentleness and respect. 

Ready Hands 

“Whatever you do, work at it with all your heart, as working for the Lord, not for human masters.” (Colossians 3:23) 

Since the time of the ancient Greek philosophers, classical education has elevated the life of the mind. The cultivation of our intellect is indeed an important part of what it means to live a flourishing life, but it is only a part. As Scripture tells us, human beings were made from both the breath of God and the dust of the earth—we are beautifully and mysteriously both immaterial spirit and physical body. And so, the work of our hands is also an important part of what it means to live a flourishing life. The Lord of the Sermon on the Mount was also a carpenter. But neither the life of the mind nor the work of our hands is our ultimate end. In a world that identifies and classifies us by what we do, TCHS seeks to form graduates who know their identity lies not in their work, but in the One they work for—graduates who work for their Lord and serve others with all their hearts, graduates who know they are loved by the One who first loved us and who find their joy and rest in this ultimate truth. 

 

© ALP 


History Class Feast

December 13th, 2024

Student tasting fish bone soupRecently in history class, Grades 5/6 re-read African fables about the tricksy (but well-loved) Anansi the Spider. The story came to life as students tried each of the foods from the story, including plantains, cassava, rice, and even fish bone soup!


CCEC – The Most Wonder-ful Time of the Year?

December 12th, 2024

“The Most Wonder-ful Time of the Year?” by Rebecca Tellinghuisen

When you think of “spiritual disciplines,” what comes to mind? Prayer? Reading the Bible? Fasting? Journaling? These are all good spiritual disciplines, or faith practices as they are also called. But what about wonder? I sometimes think — wonder! — if wonder is foundational for all spiritual practices. When the Spirit of the Lord moves in us and acts through us, any response of devotion on our part comes from, or should come from, a place of gratitude, reflection, and wonder. And isn’t Advent the very season of wonder?

We hope your household is spending time in the Gospel of John this Advent. And we hope that you are practicing wonder as you read and discuss together. Ask questions. Share stories. Draw pictures. And most of all, give thanks, for this wonderful gift: the Word made flesh who made his dwelling among us to bring light and life to all.

Wonder is certainly a spiritual act, but here’s the “discipline” part. Sometimes it takes work. Wonder can hit us out of the blue, without any effort on our part. It’s hard not to be left amazed while standing at the rim of the Grand Canyon. But what about an ordinary Monday when you feel overworked, underprepared, or just generally out of sorts? You may wonder how you are going to make it through the day, but you might struggle to stop, reflect, and wonder how God can use you – and even bless you — in life’s busier moments.


Speaking of busy, here we are halfway between Thanksgiving and Christmas. This can be a very full season. Lots to see. Lots to do. Lots to buy. Lots of this is good, of course. But does it leave us time to wonder? We invite you in the coming week to set aside time to pause and reflect on the beauty of this world, and specifically the beauty of the Incarnation, by reading or listening to “Recovering Wonder,” a short blog post from the Reformed Journal (and then taking a walk outside!) and by contemplating the words of the carol, “I Wonder as I Wander.”

© RRT, December 2024

“I Wonder as I Wander”
A Traditional Appalachian carol adapted by John Jacob Niles

I wonder as I wander, out under the sky,
how Jesus the Savior did come for to die
for poor ordinary people like you and like I;
I wonder as I wander, out under the sky.

When Mary birthed Jesus, ’twas in a cow’s stall
with wise men and farmers and shepherd and all.
but high from God’s heaven a star’s light did fall,
and the promise of ages it did then recall.

If Jesus had wanted for any wee thing,
a star in the sky, or a bird on the wing,
or all of God’s angels in heaven for to sing,
he surely could have it, ’cause he was the King.

I wonder as I wander, out under the sky,
how Jesus the Savior did come for to die
for poor ordinary people like you and like I;
I wonder as I wander, out under the sky.


Raybrook Field Trip

December 6th, 2024

Trinitas student preparing a card for Raybrook residentsStudents in Grades 3/4 visited Raybrook this week. Before the field trip, students made cards and gifts to give the residents. At Raybrook, the students performed a play they had prepared; they also did a craft with the residents and sang Christmas carols together. Students and residents were blessed by a wonderful time of fellowship and celebration in preparation for Christmas.

Thank you, Raybrook, for your hospitality! And thank you, Trinitas students for your kindness and joy!