FOOTHILL LYCEUM
A Classical Independent School
Claremont, California · A private family school

A school built on how to think, not what to think.

Foothill Lyceum is a small classical school serving one family. Students read the books that shaped the questions, argue about them at the table, and learn to reason carefully in writing and aloud. History is read through its literature, mathematics and science are taken in sequence, and nothing is assigned that a student cannot be asked to defend.

The school is not open to enrollment. This page describes its program, calendar, and standards for the families, instructors, and institutions who work with our students.

The learning

Three habits, practiced until they hold.

Reasoning

Formal logic is taught as a subject, not a byproduct. Students learn to name a fallacy, follow a proof, and tell a strong argument from a merely confident one.

Discourse

Every class is a seminar. The text is on the table, the question is open, and a student is expected to speak, to be answered, and to change their mind when the argument requires it.

Expression

Writing is revised until it is clear. Students give recitations and defend a thesis each spring — the same skill, out loud, in front of people who will push back.

Altiora petamus — let us seek higher things.
The school motto
The week

School is not a room.

The week is deliberately hybrid. Some courses are taught in a classroom with other students, some at the local colleges, some at our own table, and a good deal of it outdoors and away from home entirely.

Hybrid campus
Core seminars and laboratory science are taken at a hybrid school alongside other students, with the balance of the week at home for reading, writing, and revision.
College courses
Upper-year students take coursework at local colleges — the first taste of being one adult among many in a room, with the reading list set by someone else.
Self-directed study
Each student carries a subject of genuine personal interest, pursued on their own terms and presented to the family when it is ready to be questioned.
Field study
History and science are taken to the places they happened. Travel, museums, working sites, and long field days are part of the calendar, not an interruption of it.
Athletics
All three students race competitive mountain biking. Cora holds a black belt in taekwondo and teaches as an instructor — training, coaching, and racing are treated as coursework, because they are.
Outdoors
Riding, racing, and field days are scheduled first and the academic week is built around them.
Literature
History is read through the writing of the people who lived it, not summarized in a textbook chapter.
Mastery
A subject is finished when it is understood — not when the calendar says the unit has ended.
School of record

Kept properly, on purpose.

Foothill Lyceum is a private school operating under an annually filed affidavit with the California Department of Education pursuant to Education Code §33190. It is a family school and does not enroll students from outside the household.

Attendance, course descriptions, grading policy, and credit are recorded continuously and issued as an official transcript. Registrars, dual-enrollment offices, and athletic organizations may request records from the administrator.