Frequently Asked Questions
Why ParagonED?
InterlacED education through ParagonED meets children where they are, without judgment.
Conventional methods of education were developed specifically to prepare large numbers of children to enter the workforce. ParagonED campuses are specifically designed to allow each child to move at their own pace, allowing children who need more support with certain skills to receive it, and those who are ready to move ahead the ability to find the challenges they crave.
ParagonED education emphasizes more than just academics.
In our schools, academics share equal emphasis with efforts to develop other aspects of the child, including emotional, spiritual, business, and practical life development. We integrate the arts and movement into everything our children do, rather than isolating these areas of study into a separate class. We intentionally teach children the soft skills and how to navigate and resolve conflict.
How are ParagonED campuses different from traditional learning environments?
To discover how ParagonED schools differ from common learning settings, you first need to understand the concept behind the InterlaceED learning. It is comprehensively child-centered and based on how and when a child’s mind is naturally ready to adapt and learn. It then applies the education so students aren’t asking, “Why do I need to know this?”
The significant differences between the two styles of learning are:
ParagonED environments are clean, organized, calm, and intentionally designed. They include hands-on learning materials at low levels, student-sized furniture, and cozy spaces for reading. Traditional classrooms typically consist of bright colors, plastic materials, chalkboards, and desks.
ParagonED classrooms are often filled with mixed-age groups for collective learning and to encourage social skills, versus traditional classrooms that largely contain same-aged students. Most often our classroom experiences are built in grade-band groups.
In the ParagonED classroom, students have ability to work with their teachers and mentors to select their learning programs to more closely align to their interests and long-term needs, which encourages deep engagement and a love of learning. In traditional classrooms, students are held to a strict timeline and set facts.
What are the benefits of an education at ParagonED?
InterlacED learning is based on the growth of the student and focuses on a combination of activities that aid in their full development. An education at ParagonED provides many advantages:
Student-Centered System: InterlacED learning stems from the idea that each child is unique. We build each class’s curriculum based on individual group needs. Each curriculum focuses on the personal growth and development of the child and is Kingdom-led, instilling in students a sense of accomplishment.
Active Lessons: Student lessons are guided using intentionally-designed hands-on materials. The student engages concepts through many multi-faceted materials, ensuring that each lesson is thoroughly absorbed. Using these tactile materials gives the child a firm grasp of the lesson, while the action of learning feels more like play and results in better knowledge retention.
Individualized Education: ParagonED campuses adhere to InterlacED learning. Students receive and progress through lessons at an individualized speed and structure. Students are optimally able to repeat or advance to lessons outside of the rest of their classmates.
Uninterrupted Work Cycles: Work cycles at ParagonED allow children uninterrupted time to work at their own pace, with the ability to dive fully into their project-based activity. Children are free to complete their lessons, in any time span, with minimal time barriers and any subject in any order on their remote days. Additionally, they are encouraged to start a new lesson once they have fully absorbed and completed a lesson. As a result, children are able to learn without limitations and are imparted with self-motivated growth.
Interactive Classrooms: Our campuses have comprehensive classrooms allowing students to expand and collaborate with one another. Activities and lessons are planned with the objective of allowing students to interact and cooperate, encouraging academic growth alongside application and soft skills reinforcement.
Why do ParagonED campuses have multi-age group classrooms?
Multi-age classrooms are designed to naturally foster opportunities for independence and accountability, helping build environments of compassion, respect, and consideration among students. Students are afforded the opportunity to learn and grow quickly with different age groups. Often, younger children are delighted to learn from older children, and older children are authorized to become leaders in the classroom. Our classrooms are most often assigned based on grade bands (K-2, 3-5, 6-8, 9-12).
What areas of education are covered in ParagonED’s InterlacED curriculum?
ParagonED starts with a digital infrastructure (although our goal is to get students away from their devices as quickly as possible once they are on campus) and starts with the four core content areas (Math, English, Science, and History) that is then InterlacED with our three core pillars (Critical Life Skills, Business Experience, and Kingdom Values). That means that a student could be working on fractions in Math, but our project that week is baking with our partner at Young Chef’s Academy where the student must double the recipe. This will interlace their Math and Critical Life Skills work into one-real world application.
Mathematics: Utilizing tangible materials, children are able to delineate numerals and their quantities, understand place value, patterns, and practice addition, subtraction, and multiplication. Hands-on materials and engaging activities support children in developing a substantial understanding of mathematical concepts.
Language: Difficult concepts such as vocabulary, and the skills needed to learn reading and writing are taught on ParagonED campuses. Hands-on materials are used to help guide children in learning letter sounds, combining sounds to make words, and how to use a pencil to begin writing. Further expansion as students get older include learning cursive and how to express their thoughts, dreams, and goals through both verbal and written modalities.
Culture: ParagonED fosters culture into each child through the exploration of their community and the wider world. Curriculum including the study of geography, botany, zoology, science, history, music, and art create a sense of wonder and appreciation for the world around them. We then interlace all of these learning opportunities with Kingdom Values to ensure our students understand the need to live a life of service to our local community and make eternally based decisions.
Is ParagonED a religious microschool?
Yes. One of our core pillars is Kingdom Values. We teach our core content with a Biblical framework and teach our students to live a life of service to our local community.
Does my family have to be Christian to attend a ParagonED Campus?
No. While your family does not need to be a member of a Christian faith to attend our school, you will be required to acknowledge that this is a Christian school. While our chapel services are optional, all of our coursework is from a Christian worldview. Our staff and students will pray during the school day and Bible verses will be referenced.
All students will be required to honor our Kingdom Values in order to maintain enrollment in our school.
Is ParagonED a franchise? Who can open a ParagonED campus?
ParagonED is not a franchise. We are one school with multiple campuses. They are all a part of the same nonprofit and have the same Headmaster, even though each campus may have a building level administrator.
Is ParagonED Accredited?
Yes, we are accredited by Cognia. Cognia® is a forward-thinking nonprofit improvement organization committed to serving schools and other education providers. They offer accreditation and certification, assessment, improvement services, and professional learning within an evaluation and continuous improvement framework. Serving over 40,000 public and private institutions from early learning through high school in more than 100 countries and territories, Cognia brings a universally recognized perspective to advancing teaching and learning. Learn more at Cognia.org.
How are your teachers trained?
Each of our teachers and mentors have been background checked and vetted by our headmaster. All instructors and most mentors are certified teachers with valid and current teaching certificates.
Do ParagonED teachers and mentors follow a curriculum?
Yes. We have a fully aligned curriculum that includes digital lessons, live instructional sessions, project-based lessons, presentations, and research projects. Our students utilize a curriculum that exceeds the local public school’s learning objectives in Math, English, Science, and History. We also offer elective courses that are aligned to national standards and have the opportunity to attain a badge, certification, etc., where applicable.
ParagonED classrooms don’t look like regular classrooms. Where are the rows of desks? Where does the teacher stand?
The different arrangement of a ParagonED classroom mirrors the InterlacED instructional method’s differences from traditional education. Rather than putting the teacher at the focal point of the class, with children dependent on his or her for information and activity, the classroom shows an application approach. Children work at tables and shared desks where they can spread out their materials, and the teacher circulates about the room, assisting with each groups hands-on lessons and doing live instruction activities. You will never find a classroom with 30 students in rows at ParagonED as that is not a real world scenario after high school.Yes. We have a fully aligned curriculum that includes digital lessons, live instructional sessions, project-based lessons, presentations, and research projects. Our students utilize a curriculum that exceeds the local public school’s learning objectives in Math, English, Science, and History. We also offer elective courses that are aligned to national standards and have the opportunity to attain a badge, certification, etc., where applicable.
Are ParagonED campuses as academically rigorous as traditional schools?
Yes. ParagonED classrooms encourage deep learning of the concepts behind academic skills rather than rote practice of abstract techniques. Our InterlacED learning approach ensures that students don’t simply memorize a date or world event, but instead can apply learning in a meaningful way and explain the consequences or benefits behind the project.
How is the ParagonED student’s progress tested and are they successful when they leave the InterlacED environment?
We take the dashboard approach to success. Too many schools simply focus on high-stakes testing. There is a time for that, but it should only be one indicator. Our students are required to present their findings to their classmates and then answer questions about their work. Other times they join our ParagonED Revolution podcast to share what they’re learning. Additionally, our project-based learning is graded on a rubric that ensures participation, understanding, and soft skills. Instead of a single letter grade, the student can see what parts of the course they are succeeding in and where they may need to do additional work.
Do students wear uniforms?
Uniforms are required. Students follow a basic dress code to maximize their comfort and minimize distractions. The full-dress code can be found in the Parent and Student Handbook, but generally speaking students are required to wear Navy or Khaki bottoms and white or navy pollo shirts. No crocs, open toed shoes, or sandals are allowed in elementary and middle school classrooms. High Schoolers are required to wear business casual shoes and school branded sweaters when on campus or at school events.
Occasional events are less formal and students are allowed to wear their ParagonED branded t-shirt and bottoms. These events are always included in the weekly newsletter(s) from staff.
Are meals included?
ParagonED does NOT offer meal services on campus. Since students are expected to be on site for either the morning hours (8:30-11:30) or afternoon hours (12:30-3:30), the expected lunch hour would be off-site. For those students who are staying for tutoring or other needs, each campus has a space for students to eat a lunch or snack that they bring from home. While a microwave is available, we encourage families to bring things that do not need to be warmed as the lines to heat food can become long. Occasional catered meals may be available to students on certain days. Options vary by location.Occasional events are less formal and students are allowed to wear their ParagonED branded t-shirt and bottoms. These events are always included in the weekly newsletter(s) from staff.
Which grades do you serve?
While that may differ based on campus location, ParagonED will serve K-12. Our first year (2024-2025 School Year) we served grades K-8 in Frisco. In the fall of 2025 we will add our second location and all sites will serve grades K-10. We’ll add grade 11 in fall of 2026 and then we’ll add grade 12 in fall of 2027 with our first graduation class being the Class of 2028.
What are the tuition rates?
At ParagonED, our goal is to make a ParagonED education accessible to as many families as possible. In alignment with our Kingdom Values pillar, we offer tuition assistance for families who qualify.
Eligible families complete a confidential application through a trusted third-party evaluation service, which helps us ensure assistance is awarded fairly and based on demonstrated need.
Thanks to the generosity of our donors, we’re able to offer support each year—and we commit to making every available tuition assistance dollar go directly to families as funds are received.
ParagonED does make the promise to all families that we will only ask for money two times throughout the school year: 1) Tuition payments and 2) Donation investment into our Kingdom Values Fund (which is our legacy project where we ask families, community members, and other kingdom leaders to invest in the future of Christian education. We will provide a report of investment dollars and projects completed from the previous year and our estimated plans for future projects.)
Will ParagonED accept Education Savings Accounts (ESAs)?
At this time, ESAs have passed in Texas, but they are not available for parents until fall of 2026. Education Savings Accounts will put parents back in the driver’s seat of their students education. We will accept these dollars once they become available so long as they do not infringe on our Kingdom Values in any way.
Does ParagonED support homeschooling families?
YES! We love homeschool families and we support them in several ways. First, we invite homeschool families to join us for things like chapel services, school sponsored family events (for instance, we had a Christian children’s author speak at our school).
We also offer a part-time enrollment option where homeschool families can enroll with us. ParagonED is ready to support with 4 Online core courses and 2 In-Person which courses, also offering access to our electives, which students tend to find more enjoyable with small groups than at home.
Our homeschool friends can also join us for our Thursday events by signing up for our InterlacED offering to get access to the cooking classes, music exploration, and business experiences without being enrolled in any (or all) of our core content areas.
Why are all of your campus locations small?
We are actually small on purpose. We love finding unique small spaces and running small groups of students in shifts throughout the day and the week. It allows us to keep costs down and prove the truly hybrid model works for a lot of students.
How does attendance work?
We have physical locations where full-time students will be onsite on Monday, Tuesday, and Thursday for live instructional opportunities and project-based learning. We have a digital component that allows students to complete some of their schoolwork remotely. We offer our optional chapel service, tutoring, career exploration, critical life skills, and Kingdom service opportunities on Thursdays. Since we are not funded based on attendance, we don’t take attendance on non-campus days. As long as required work is competed in time, we don’t care where or when it is completed. We like to mimic real life in this situation. As long as your work is done by Sunday night, it’s up to each student (and the partner-parent) to complete the week’s work.
Our structure is ideal for high level athletes and performers who have to travel for tournaments and recitals. Since we are a hybrid school, the core content areas can be completed remotely from any location. Simply work with your teacher before you leave, and they’ll assign the project-based learning requirements ahead of time and then log in remotely for key live sessions or even watch the recording after the fact.
Where can I learn more?
Sign up for a school tour or open house event. The best place to get your questions answered is onsite with one of our staff members.
You can also check out our ParagonED Revolution Podcast for more great info. Our episodes include staff and student run episodes that discuss current learnings, presentations, and the history of the school.
Call us today with any question: (682)292-8709.
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