MILLS — The local Hillsdale College member classical charter school continues to grow as staff and students started the school year Monday in a new 36,000-square-foot, $15 million building.
The Wyoming Classical Academy, a charter school, celebrates its third year of operations by moving into the two-story structure on the corner of Poison Spider Lane and Robertson Road in Mills.
This year the school will feature grades kindergarten through eight — one more grade than it offered at its temporary building on Second Street in Mills last year.
The official ribbon cutting and launch last week included remarks from Wyoming Superintendent of Public Instruction Megan Degenfelder and Russ Donley, Wyoming Classical Academy board chairman and founder.
Degenfelder told the crowd of about 300 students, parents, staff, teachers, and construction representatives that the school represented a historic change in Wyoming.
“When I took office two-and-a half years ago, we had zero, we had no allowed state-authorized charters in the state of Wyoming,” she said. “Today we not only have this school, but we have several and that is a testament to you all and the board and other policy makers in this room.”
Donley, a former Wyoming state legislator from 1969 to 1984 and House speaker from 1983 to ‘84, told the group that it all began as he watched the “boob tube” in 2020 from the couch and saw Wyoming youth rioting and demonstrating and calling for a “system of socialism.”
He said he told his wife that they needed to do something about it and that “there was only one place who knew how to do it right and that was Hillsdale College.”
When he contacted the college, he was told they wouldn’t come because the state education laws made it difficult for charter schools to operate because school districts had to authorize them.
Donley then worked to get the law changed.
When efforts to do that succeeded in 2022, allowing the state’s top five elected officials to approve three new charter schools, the Mills school was one of them. Hillsdale agreed to help create the school which opened its doors in 2023.
The school’s mission statement informs parents that it will “train the minds and improve the hearts of young people through a content-rich classical education in the liberal arts and sciences with instruction in the principles of moral character and virtue.”
The new school year will give Wyoming Classical Academy students a new environment to learn in. (Dale Killingbeck, Cowboy State Daily) 
First-grade teacher Emily Baird said she likes the “rigorous curriculum” the school provides her students. (Dale Killingbeck, Cowboy State Daily) 
The Wyoming Classical Academy offers its students a liberal arts education that includes music (Dale Killingbeck, Cowboy State Daily) 
The second-floor hallway in the new building that will welcome students to the new school year at Wyoming Classical Academy. (Dale Killingbeck, Cowboy State Daily) 
Those attending the Wyoming Classical Academy ribbon cutting ceremony applaud Russ Donley, the school’s founder and board chairman. (Dale Killingbeck, Cowboy State Daily)
Hillsdale Curriculum And Training
Wyoming Classical Academy Headmaster Matt Teterud said, as a Hillsdale member school, the school uses the Hillsdale K-12 program guide for curriculum and also has teachers who are trained by Hillsdale staff.
“I free up some budget money where we send a team to Hillsdale where we are equipped with how to manage a class, how to deliver this American classical education and we get down to real brass tacks. We teach reading, writing, math and how to do that properly in this philosophy.”
Teterud said the staff get trained in the summer on the material and roll it out during the school year and then mid-year, Hillsdale sends some of its members to Casper to sit in on classes and give staff feedback.
Teterud moved to the Wyoming Classical Academy to take the headmaster role from the Natrona County School District’s Casper Classical Academy in 2022. He had served as its principal.
In its third year of operation, Teterud said the school started with grades kindergarten through sixth in 2023-24, added seventh grade last year and is adding eighth grade this year.
“Each year we hope to add a grade level until we are a full K-12 school,” Teterud said.
This year there will be 35 staff members and about 380 students. Teterud said the school launched in 2023 with 220 children and had 260- 270 students last year.
“The trajectory is going up each year. Once parents find out the quality of education you can get with this Hillsdale curriculum and the values it stands for and they realize that its tuition free, it’s not $9,000 a year like a lot of private schools, that’s where we are seeing a bump in enrollment.”
Subject Matter
Hillsdale’s curriculum includes the subject areas of reading, writing, speaking, math, science, history and civics, literature, foreign languages, fine arts, and physical education.
For language, grades K- 2 focus on Spanish, fourth-and-fifth grades study Latin and Greek roots, and sixth through ninth, Latin. The higher grades can continue advanced Latin or another language.
Civics and history begin with kindergarten. Literature begins with classic children’s books and poetry in the early grades and progresses through classic and modern works in the upper grades.
Students at the school are required to wear a uniform that includes a navy-blue shirt or blouse and gray slacks, skirts or shorts.
Teterud said the Casper school has a sister school in Cheyenne. But the Cheyenne Classical Academy is a curriculum-only school, not a member school. Its teachers do not receive the training and feedback from Hillsdale College.
Teachers, students, and parents are excited about the new building and say they see good things happening at the school.
Delania Witt, who teaches seventh- and eighth-grade math and science, said this is her second-year teaching at the school.
“It is life changing. I get to teach all day long and to dig deep and truly explore the subjects and watch the wonder,” she said. “Having taught in public schools prior (to the academy) that didn’t have this philosophy, it is different. This is about virtue as well as a great classical education.”
Witt characterizes her students’ response to the classical model as “truly joyful.”
Math curriculum for seventh graders is pre-Algebra, and eighth graders is Algebra 1. Science classes introduce chemistry for seventh graders and physics for eighth-grade students.
“It’s beginning to what you could compare to 10th-grade physics,” she said.
Wyoming Superintendent of Public Instruction Megan Degenfelder said the Wyoming Classical Academy represents a change in schooling in the state and congratulated its board and others for their work launching the school. (Dale Killingbeck, Cowboy State Daily) 
Headmaster Matt Teturud has led the nonprofit, tuition-free charter school for the past three years. (Dale Killingbeck, Cowboy State Daily) 
A second-floor classroom at Wyoming Classical Academy is set up for its first students. (Dale Killingbeck, Cowboy State Daily) 
Junior high math and science teacher Delania Witt said she enjoys teaching at the Wyoming Classical Academy. She characterized the school as “life changing.” (Dale Killingbeck, Cowboy State Daily) 
The school cafeteria will see its first students next week. (Dale Killingbeck, Cowboy State Daily) 
History and understanding the nation’s important documents are all part of the Hillsdale College curriculum that Wyoming Classical Academy students receive. (Dale Killingbeck, Cowboy State Daily)
Parent: ‘It’s Amazing’
Parent Kelli Wilson was at the open house with daughter Tori Wilson who will enter sixth grade. Wilson said her daughter has transformed at the school.
“It’s amazing, the education is so much better. She has improved tremendously, and her confidence is unreal compared to where she was before, she just keeps improving,” Wilson said. “She actually wants to go to school. She gets up in the morning dragging me out to the car to get here, which is the complete opposite of where she was.”
Margo Weber, an eighth grader, said she has been at the academy since sixth grade.
“It’s a lot better than what you see at other middle schools,” she said. “We have some really good teachers here and some really good students. The way that we are being taught here is amazing.”
She said her favorite thing about the school is the teachers. The uniforms, Weber said, have good and bad points. The good?
“You don’t have to pick out what you wear each day,” she said.
A Challenge
Brighton Quinn was homeschooled before arriving at Wyoming Classical Academy as a sixth grader. As he enters eighth grade, he likes that the school teaches him things not available at other schools.
“Most other people won’t know Latin,” he said. Quinn said in sixth grade his Latin class began with words written on a white board that they “had to try to figure out the meaning of” and progressed to a Latin book that they worked through in seventh grade.
The school has challenged him.
“It gives me more inspiration to do difficult stuff now,” he said.
Emily Baird was in her new first-grade room preparing for the opening of school. She teaches reading, writing, math, science, history, and Spanish.
She had several years of teaching experience in a public school before staying home with her family for a season.
“This is my second year in a classical education setting. I like the rigorous curriculum that we offer to the students,” she said. “I think they become very well-rounded individuals because we train the minds and improve the hearts and just really work to help minister to the whole child.”
Baird believes the curriculum will help the young people trained in the building to flourish later in life because they learn to be a lifelong learner as well as pursue the “things that are beautiful and true and important.”
She also is grateful for the new environment.
“It’s a dream. It’s by far the most beautiful building that I’ve ever taught in, so this is going to be a very exciting year,” she said. “I am thankful for all the people who worked behind the scenes to get us in.”
Dale Killingbeck can be reached at dale@cowboystatedaily.com.
