Meet our Head of School - Michele McCoy

Welcome to website for The Chesterton Academy of St. Finbar.  We hope the information here has piqued your interest and that you will continue to follow us as our vision, from conception to actual opening in the Fall of 2025, unfolds.

 I can appreciate your interest, as I discovered the original Chesterton Academy located in Minnesota in 2010, two years after its opening and four years after I began homeschooling our 4 children.  My background in Classical Studies helped me to appreciate that learning comprises so much more than rote memory and preparation for quizzes and tests.  In this vein, then, I began schooling our children in the classical model which addresses a child’s natural curiosity by emphasizing critical thinking, reading of the Great Books, and a wholistic approach to learning via the liberal arts, mathematics, and the sciences.   Additionally, I wanted to ensure that our children would grow in their Catholic Faith, thereby placing their schooling squarely within the realm of spirituality, faith, and reason.  Passionate about children and education, I continued my research into what was happening in Catholic education, to include Catholic schools and homeschooling.  It was through this research that I discovered the website for the original Chesterton Academy founded in 2008 by Dale Alquist and Tom Bengtson.  I remember saying to my husband then that Minnesota’s Chesterton Academy represented the gold standard in Catholic Classical Education.  

My love for learning began in my childhood, as I was highly curious and a voracious reader.  I was so captivated by books and learning that my high school English teacher approached me near the end of my senior year and asked whether I had ever considered academics and teaching.  As I was interested in pursuing the study of Law, I politely responded that I would continue in academics but that teaching had never been a part of my life plan. 

I did go on to study Law.  In fact, after receiving my B.A. in English and Classical Studies, I proceeded to study and receive a degree in Religion and Theology (M.RTh.), as well as in the Law. (J.D.).  About five years after beginning my law practice, I also began teaching undergraduate and graduate law-based and Moral Philosophy courses quite by happenstance when a friend at a local university, in need of an attorney to teach a course, contacted me.  Surprised, yet curious, I accepted the opportunity, and there began an integral part of my professional career that would span 29 years.  It was during this almost 3 decades of teaching in higher education that I began to realize that the US education system had several concerning issues and, in some areas like critical thinking and writing, had glaring deficiencies.  My desire to work with my students to improve in these areas became a mission.

All of the above brings me full circle to where I began this introduction:  I remain passionate about children and about learning.  When approached about becoming the Head of School for The Chesterton Academy of St. Finbar, I immediately thought of my high school English teacher who saw something in me that I had not seen in myself.  Moreover, 40 years later, I can look back and see how God has oriented much of my life’s journey towards children and education.  It is with this realization, and much prayer and discernment, that I look forward to the awesome responsibility of working with many of Charleston’s high school students in their endeavors to seek the good, the true, and the beautiful through the lens of a rigorous classical education.  Excelsior!