Today we’d like to introduce you to Chrissi Cawthon.
Trivium Academy was founded by three public school educators, Chrissi Cawthon, Marsha Cawthon, and Sheryl Bradley. We were feeling stifled and frustrated by the demands of traditional schooling. We felt that public education was moving towards a focus on student performance and standardization to the point of letting students fall between the cracks. We didn’t see that the schools were meeting the individual needs of all students. We always said, “What if we could start our own school?” We talked about all the great things we would do to put students first, to teach the whole child, and to build a community where students felt safe and free to learn.
We decided that applying for a charter school was the best option we had because we wanted a school that was accessible to all, and since charter schools are free to those living in the boundaries set by the charters, we started our journey to open Trivium Academy. It took two years of writing the 300 page application, conducting research to determine if our idea was viable, and participating in multiple interviews with TEA and the State Board of Education. Finally in May of 2015, we were awarded our charter and the real fun began! Now were are about to wrap up our third year and we are very proud of how far we have come. We are still working to fine tune our school, but at the end of the day we have produced a tight knit community of families and teachers who focus on using best practices to engage students in learning, teach students to examine information critically, and feel safe enough to express themselves and their knowledge freely.
Our students work to develop oracy skills to become effective communicators, participate in active learning where they don’t “sit and get” all day, and work on social emotional skills through daily morning meetings. We are active participants in growing young humans who will become active participants in their world both now and in the future. At Trivium, we believe that the teachers are the heart of our school and should be allowed to create lessons that make students love coming to school, and our students do love coming to school!
Overall, has it been relatively smooth? If not, what were some of the struggles along the way?
Our road has certainly not always been easy. It takes a lot of resiliency which is a skill we really work on with our own students. Hiring the right staff, training teachers in our model, educating parents in our philosophy have all presented challenges. But from all the hard work we have amazing teachers who take ownership in the educational model. We also have the most supportive parents who pour their hearts and time into growing the school and helping the teachers. I believe the tremendous amount of hard work and hours from our community have paid dividends we cannot measure.
Please tell us about Trivium Academy.
Trivium Academy is a small grass roots charter school that was birthed out of reform for public education. We’re getting back to the basics of how we learn through curiosity and inquiry. Our students participate in Genius Hour multiple times a week. Genius Hour is a concept adapted from Google’s 20 per cent time where their employees are given time each week to work on their own projects. Some of their best ideas have come from giving their employees this freedom. We allow our students to research and learn about topics that they are interested in and then they share their new skills, knowledge, or creation with others. It’s really beautiful to see how much students grow during this time. We value play and collaboration, so grades K-6 have two recesses a day and active learning classrooms.
The reading culture at our school is, I believe, the most significant accomplishment we have. Through book clubs and student choice in reading, we tell our students that we respect and value their participation in our curriculum. Everyone has an active role in the curriculum. We have emphasized to our community that children are more than results on the STAAR test. Although our school must teach the Texas State Standards and our students participate in STAAR testing, we don’t teach the test all year; we teach students all year. Our students don’t feel a tremendous amount of pressure to perform on standardized tests. We make sure our students know that they are a year full of learning and growth, not a score.
If you had to go back in time and start over, would you have done anything differently?
I’m not sure we would do much differently. Every victory, every mistake, and every failure has helped direct our path to where we are today. We try to use each experience as a learning experience. We’ve come a long way, but we still have a long way to go to fully achieve our dream!
Pricing:
- Trivium is a tuition-free public charter school
Contact Info:
- Address: 2205 East Hebron Parkway, Carrollton, TX 75010
- Website: Www.TriviumAcademyTX.com
- Phone: 469-854-9007
- Email: info@triviumacademytx.com
- Facebook: https://m.facebook.com/TriviumAcademyTX/
Getting in touch: VoyageDallas is built on recommendations from the community; it’s how we uncover hidden gems, so if you know someone who deserves recognition please let us know here.
