EXCLUSIVE | Dale Ahlquist: Growth of Chesterton Schools Network reflects hunger for faith and virtue

As families seek an education that helps their children understand and live the Catholic faith, new Chesterton academies are preparing to open in the U.S. and abroad, offering students a classical education rooted in truth, goodness, and beauty.

In an Oct. 8 interview with Zeale News, Dale Ahlquist said the network now includes over 86 schools in the U.S. and nine other countries and is expected to surpass 100 schools in 2027.

“Chesterton is the patron of all the schools. He is the model thinker, and he's the complete thinker. … It's his spirit that is in these schools,” Ahlquist told Zeale News.

The network’s directory lists 15 schools scheduled to open across 11 U.S. states in 2027, including four new academies in Florida, including in Melbourne, Ave Maria, Wellington, and Jacksonville; two in Wisconsin in Wausau and Prairie du Chien; and others in Augusta, Georgia; Hammond, Indiana; Elkton, Maryland; Easthampton, Massachusetts; Bad Axe, Michigan; Gallup, New Mexico; Winston-Salem, North Carolina; Mandan, North Dakota; and Fredericksburg, Texas. An existing school in Brattleboro, Vermont, is set to join the network next fall as well.

The growth extends overseas, where schools already operate in countries including Italy and Australia. Chesterton Academy of Regina in Canada and Academia Chesterton Cordoba in Argentina are also scheduled to open in 2027.

Ahlquist said parents seeking an education that integrates the Catholic faith have approached the network for help starting schools in their own communities.

The network began with 10 students at the first Chesterton Academy in Minnesota’s Twin Cities in 2008. Ahlquist said the founders planned to open just one school, but families elsewhere wanted to bring the same education rooted in the Catholic faith to their communities. By 2014, four schools opened in other parts of the country.

“Parents are just hungry for what it is we're offering, and it's the parents that are starting these schools,” he said.

Each school has its own board and raises its own funds, with the network providing curriculum and guidance to help founders get started.

“All these schools have come to us,” Ahlquist said. “We've never gone out and solicited and said, ‘Here, you need to start a school.’ We just show them exactly how to do it.”

Ahlquist said students study philosophy throughout their four years at the academy, learning to think and reason so they can explain and defend their faith. Daily Mass and retreats accompany their academic studies and support their spiritual formation.

“We're teaching the truth, but we're also teaching virtue and goodness, and we really emphasize beauty,” he said.

That emphasis on beauty extends to the arts, which Ahlquist said are given the same importance as science, mathematics, and the humanities. Students learn to draw, paint, sing, and act.

Preparing to open a new Chesterton Academy

Katie Williams, a cofounder and vice chair of the board of Chesterton Academy of Winston-Salem, is helping launch the new North Carolina school in fall 2027. In an Oct. 8 interview with Zeale News, she said she hopes the school’s formation will help students navigate the pressures of the modern world. 

“We are in a hyper-digital culture where 24/7 access to social media creates constant comparison to others, anxiety, validation, and fear of missing out, overshadowing spiritual grounding, truth, and beauty,” Williams said.

She added that concerns about technology in the classroom helped inspire the founding team’s plans for a classical school in the Catholic tradition. The school will follow the Socratic method, emphasizing discussion and debate.

“Students will not be sitting in a lecture-style classroom behind a screen,” Williams said. “They will be conversing and participating in debate with other students and their teacher.”

Williams hopes that this kind of education will prepare students for their responsibilities in family and community life.

“I would hope students are able to think critically for themselves, apply virtues to daily life and their own families, and have a moral compass for making ethical decisions in their community,” she said.

About 35 families have expressed interest and support, Williams said.

“The common theme is a feeling of wanting children in a Christ-centered environment and a hope to go back to the basics of reading classical literature,” she explained.

The school plans to open in fall 2027 with 9th and 10th grades. Williams noted that the founders are interviewing prospective headmasters and hope to secure a location near a Catholic church, so students can attend daily Mass.

Williams credited the Chesterton Schools Network with guiding the preparations.

“They have been extremely supportive with all of our questions, ideas, comments, and concerns,” she said. “The beautiful thing about the network is that they know what works.”

Asked what gives him hope for the future of Catholic education in the U.S., Ahlquist pointed to what an education rooted in the faith can offer the next generation.

“That Catholic formation is what transforms people, and these kids are going to be imbued with the faith and living the faith as they go out into the world,” he said, “and I think they have great things to bring to the world as a result.”