Orange County Classical Academy shines as a tuition-free educational alternative for OC families.
At a time when families across the state are struggling to find a satisfactory solution for the education of their children, a new, nationally popular alternative – classical education – has arrived in Orange County, California: Orange County Classical Academy. OCCA is a tuition-free public classical charter school that has, despite being only in its fifth year, grown to regularly attract a waiting list of over 1000 students, while garnering attention for its impressive student outcomes as a California Distinguished school.
The irony is that OCCA’s “secret” is that it prioritizes virtue and the classical wisdom tradition over everything else.
At OCCA we understand what every parent knows in their heart, that their student’s future success will ultimately depend on character. Our approach succeeds because it’s a classical, time-tested curriculum, taught with high academic expectations, and driven by a mission centered on moral character and civic virtue.
Still, our results have been the cause of some skepticism among critics. Recently we have heard that our success is the result of our “favorable student demographics”.
But what you’ll learn if you come to visit our school is that if you hold all students to high expectations, regardless of background or category, they respond by rising to the challenge. All of our students read the classics from Homer to the moderns, study latin, logic and rhetoric, and are challenged to engage socratically with the most important topics and profound ideas from a 2500 year long conversation that equips them for the complex world they are about to enter.
The results you can see for yourself. Our test scores average 25% more than the state averages. We have just published side by side comparisons of our student outcomes to district and state results on our website. Not only do our average students excel by comparison, but so do our Latino population, as well as our English Learners, Economically Disadvantaged students and Special Ed students.
We believe we succeed because our mission, and the mission of our students, isn’t just about “college and career-readiness”, but excellence, truth, goodness and beauty. And if a school succeeds in realizing that mission the students will respond and flourish and they will continue to do so as future citizens, leaders, and generous members of their community.
We also believe it’s true that every other school could do what we’re doing, but the challenge ultimately comes down to holding students to very high expectations, which means we hold ourselves to an even higher standard as a school.
Excellence is hard, and to excel as a school ultimately comes down to character and how seriously you take it as a pedagogical principle.
And as a classical charter school, character is at the very foundation of our mission.
Families interested in learning more can visit https://orangecountyclassicalacademy.org/ where they can schedule a tour and register their student to be considered in the lottery. OCCA is now enrolling students up to 10th grade for the 2025-26 school year.
Michael Davis is OCCA’s director of school development and culture and father of fourth grade twins attending OCCA.