Almeda Lahr-Well may not be a household name, but it should be. This powerhouse educator is a hidden gem whose methods and curriculum should be shared at the national level. Lahr-Well’s resume is a dizzying synopsis of accomplishment, from her extensive experience as an instructor/professor at the university and college level to her international travels and proficiency in five foreign languages. She has taught at Southern Illinois University, where she earned her Bachelor’s degree, Washington University, McKendree College, and St. Louis University, where she earned her Ph.D., to name a few. (She gained her Master’s degree at the University of Illinois.)

But perhaps Lahr-Well’s greatest achievement is the small, Christian-based K-12 school she founded 40 years ago in southern Illinois, called simply the Lahr-Well Academy. Over the years, the number of attending students has varied from 10 to 40, and the school currently employs four teachers including herself. The academy’s website offers a wealth of information about its mission, achievements, and exceptional curriculum.

Observers of today’s educational landscape with its many alternatives might suggest that Lahr-Well was way ahead of her time. Her academy predated by four decades the many microschools that have sprung up since the pandemic, founded mostly by former public-school teachers fed up with woke propaganda and lack of solid academics. Like the Lahr-Well Academy, microschools serve small numbers of students, but few are likely to measure up to Lahr-Well’s level of academic rigor.

Earlier this month, Education Reporter had an opportunity to speak directly with Lahr-Well, who told us that, while indeed there are other schools with very good programs that “do some of what we do,” she has yet to find one that “comes anywhere near to matching all that we offer.” The content-packed, classical curriculum she created has turned out many hundreds of well-educated, well-adjusted students, and she has tried to share its success with others, including government education agencies as well as in the private sector, without much luck. (See Book Review, this issue.)

Most recently, she captured the ear of WorldWide Technologies’ corporate executives, but so far, they are only interested in implementing her program online, whereas her goal is to establish on-site schools for employees’ children. She explains: “I’d like to show them how they could keep their employees, especially their key employees, from going to other companies, whether here in the U.S. or internationally, by offering an in-house school for their employees’ children.” While she is not opposed to online learning per se, she believes children “need face-to-face time in addition to online instruction.”

Lahr-Well says that students who graduate from her small academy typically do so one-two years early, and still test at a second- or third-year college level. (Results are based on her pupils’ nationally standardized test scores.) “They are given a foundation in classical literature and world philosophy,” she explains, “and have more knowledge when they graduate than I have seen in any bachelor’s degree program at any of the universities where I have studied or taught, including St. Louis University and Washington University.”

The Lahr-Well Curriculum Concept

Lahr-Well’s K-12 curriculum, officially titled Lahr-Well Curriculum Concept (Learn Well, Lead Well, Lahr-Well), takes “a very classical approach” to education. She described how large companies like WorldWide Technologies and others could use it on-site to teach their employees’ children and reap the benefits later by employing those children after graduation. “Companies could offer internships to graduates,” she clarifies, “because unless they are going into the medical fields or deep sciences, these students don’t need college degrees. Rather, they need training specific to their areas of employment.”

She adds: “Furthermore, companies wouldn’t have to ‘unteach’ what their new hires have been taught in college.” Of course, if a company wanted an intern to earn a higher degree, he or she could obtain it through a part-time work/school arrangement.

“I see this as a potentially huge national benefit for the U.S.; in business, in technology, banking, automotive, and other industries,” she continued. “My program can work to prepare students for any field,” such as international business, for example. Lahr-Well explained that students must study several languages, and that, “while they don’t need to be fluent, they must demonstrate that they have a foundation in each language.”

The curriculum begins with a reading program that uses the phonics instruction method and emphasizes reading comprehension. Math instruction starts with basic arithmetic and advances through Algebra I & II, Geometry, Calculus, and Trigonometry.

Language arts includes spelling and grammar, followed by public speaking and creative writing. Students are exposed to the great literary masterpieces, and the science curriculum is a STEM program that covers the earth sciences, physics, biology, chemistry, and engineering.

The social sciences include world history, geography, U.S. history and civics, current events, the U.S. and Illinois Constitutions, and both macro and micro economics. Lahr-Well’s fondness for languages is evident in the academy’s offering of instruction in Spanish, Italian, French, German, and Chinese.

As if all the above isn’t comprehensive enough, the academy’s curriculum also includes Biblical studies of the New and Old Testaments, and teaches the Lord’s Prayer in each of the foreign languages offered. Computer programming is also on the list, “directly and indirectly linked to the STEM studies.” Robotics, music history and appreciation, art, and world philosophy round out the areas of study.

With such a robust curriculum, small class size, and generally stellar results for students who graduate from the academy, one may logically wonder why more parents aren’t enrolling their children. Lahr-Well provided as an example the response of one mother who, after being told that students typically test years ahead of their peers after just two years at the academy, remarkably asked, “why would anyone want that for their child?”

She further believes that, at least in the Midwest, families place an emphasis on their children's’ participation in sports and extracurricular activities, which aren’t typically available at small private schools. She noted, however, that Lahr-Well Academy does include one-half hour of daily exercise, either outside or in a gym, and emphasized that there are many avenues through which students can participate in sports, such as on select teams in baseball, soccer, and other team sports. Additionally, some public-school districts allow private and homeschooled students to participate in sports without privacy-invading documentation requirements. She further pointed out that most communities offer “all kinds of extracurricular opportunities” in the civic arena, including choral groups, symphonies, and more.

Unique school calendar

Lahr-Well’s school calendar follows a unique year-round schedule, which gives families a variety of opportunities for travel and leisure. “We start school at the very beginning of August,” she explains, “and have a two-week break in October, which is a wonderful time to travel in the U.S. We have a three-week break at Christmas, followed by nine more weeks of study, and then an Easter break or spring break that includes Easter.”

The school year ends just before Memorial Day, but “even with that,” Lahr-Well says, “we exceed the state requirement of 880 hours of instruction per year.” Elementary and middle-school children log about 1,092 hours annually and high school students spend 1,100 hours in class.

She concedes that the instruction “is intense, and we want our students and our teachers to know it’s intense. So after nine weeks of power-packed education, we all need to step back and take a breath, and we do that, but we lose less because we don’t have the full three months off during the summer, and our students test way ahead [of the curve] as a result.”

Future plans

Lahr-Well laments that her attempts to reach out to government leaders at the U.S. Department of Education, as well as to governors, media outlets like Fox News, and corporate offices such as McDonald’s, Chick-fil-A, and others, have thus far failed to achieve the desired result. “We show in our advertising that after 4-6 years of study at Lahr-Well Academy, our children are testing 4-6 years ahead of their chronological age.”

She speculates that “most large companies have room to carve out space for a school at their headquarters or main satellite locations.” She believes that “if we could get our first company, first governor, or a state education department to hear us out, we might get our program more widely noticed.”

Lahr-Well will continue working to expand her successful education model, perhaps through a more concerted effort to engage the heads of education departments in red states, who may prove more receptive to classical, learning-intense programs.

Meanwhile, students lucky enough to be enrolled at the Lahr-Well Academy campus on the lower level of the Eden United Church of Christ in Edwardsville, IL, will continue their successful academic careers. Education Reporter encourages interested parents, grandparents, or anyone wanting more information about the Lahr-Well Academy or curriculum to call 618.288.8024, or visit the Lahr-Well Academy website.

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