Ohio Classical and Liberal Arts K-12 Conference

Fawcett's Signature Breakfast Buffet

Breakfast pastries served with whipped butter and assorted jams, peanut butter, seasonal fruit, choice of egg, Spanish potatoes, smoked bacon, pork sausage links, waffle station, fried chicken and biscuits with sausage gravy

Salmon P. Chase Center Executive Director Lee Strang welcomes attendees and provides an overview of this year's conference. In addition to serving as Executive Director and a professor of law at The Ohio State University Moritz College of Law, Professor Strang is  president of the Board of Trustees of Northwest Ohio Classical Academy, Ohio’s first classical charter school. 

Keynote speaker Jake Tawney, Director of Curriculum and Academic Resources, Catholic Liberal Education

Ohio elected officials, administrators, and policy experts discuss the regulatory environment classical schools face and offer their insights into current and future public policy relevant to the sector. Panelists will conclude with questions from the audience.

Moderator

Stéphane Lavertu, Professor and Associate Director, Salmon P. Chase Center, The Ohio State University

Panelists

Aaron Churchill, Ohio Research Director, Thomas B. Fordham Institute 

Mike Dovilla, State Representative, Ohio General Assembly

Colleen Grady, Chief, Educational Options and Improvement, Ohio Department of Education & Workforce 

Jane Timken, State Senator, Ohio General Assembly

The Midwestern Buffet

Chopped iceberg lettuce, smoked bacon, cheddar cheese, grape tomatoes, croutons, buttermilk ranch dressing, bleu cheese dressing, and Italian vinaigrette

Seasonally inspired pasta salad

BLT salad

Buttermilk marinated boneless fried chicken with grilled lemons and local honey

House-made meatloaf with mushroom demi

Smashed redskin potatoes

Creamed corn with oat-cracker crust

Oreo cream bites and chocolate chip cookies

School leaders share practices and offer advice for operating classical schools. The discussion will occur over lunch and will be driven by audience questions as well as questions that panelists pose to one another.  

Moderator

Jerilyn  Olson, Chief People Officer, Great Hearts Academies

Panelists

Tim Allen, Principal, Southeast Ohio Classical Academy

Angel Hennig, Headmaster, Heart of Ohio Classical Academy

Mike Mckenna, Headmaster, Mars Hill Academy

Eric Pfeifer, Principal, St. Mary School in Delaware

A district principal discusses her experience adopting a classical education model in a traditional public school. The discussion on managing such a change should be relevant to any school seeking to adopt classical liberal arts approaches to education, regardless of sector (private or public) and whether or not they wish to adopt the full “classical” model.  

Moderator

Benjamin Boyce, Director of Strategic Programs and Partnerships, Hamilton School, University of Florida

Panelist

Marlene Leyte-Vidal, Principal, Village Green Elementary Classical Academy, Miami-Dade County Public Schools

Members of CLT’s leadership team provide an overview of the Classic Learning Test and their new Classical Baccalaureate program and answer audience questions about the realities of administering the CLT exam and adopting the CB program. 

Moderator

Stéphane Lavertu, Professor and Associate Director, Salmon P. Chase Center, The Ohio State University

Panelists

Trent Kramer, Charter School Director, CLT

Soren Schwab, Chief Evangelist, CLT

Leaders of the classical and liberal arts school movement discuss the role of religion in K-12 education. Representing diverse faith traditions, they consider important questions including to what extent religion should be a part of one’s K-12 education and the various ways in which religion has been incorporated into classical schools. 

Moderator

James Hooks, Assistant Professor, Salmon P. Chase Center, The Ohio State University

Panelists

Eric Cohen, Chief Executive Officer, Tikvah

Adam Dufault, Superintendent of Schools, Catholic Diocese of Columbus

Troy McIntosh, Director of Ohio Christian Education Network (OCEN), Center for Civic Virtue

Tim Allen is the Founding Principal of Southeast Ohio Classical Academy in Logan, Ohio. 

Raised on a cattle farm in Vinton County, his blue-collar family helped him gain an appreciation for listening to wisdom and experience before busting your knuckles to repair an old tractor. 

His Middle Childhood Education and Biblical Studies degree from Ohio Christian University led him to the conclusion that any education that doesn't painstakingly draft a mission statement with consideration of man's causal factors is embarking on an odyssey destined to end up buried in the sands of Troy. 

Finally, he believes most dramas and challenges of today would be solved if we dusted off the tragedies and Proverbs of old.

Benjamin Boyce is Director of Strategic Programs and Partnerships at the Hamilton School at the University of Florida, where he leads initiatives in civic and classical education across K–12 and higher education. 

With more than two decades of experience teaching history and government, his work focuses on reviving the classical tradition of civic thought through primary source–driven instruction, drawing on texts from ancient Greece and Rome through the American founding.  

Boyce serves on numerous boards and advisory councils and is an advisor to the Department of Defense on topics of civic education and national readiness.

Aaron Churchill is the Ohio research director for the Thomas B. Fordham Institute, where he has worked since 2012. In this role, he oversees research  and commentary aimed at strengthening education policy in Ohio. 

He writes regularly on Fordham’s blog, the Ohio Gadfly Daily on topics such as state assessment and school accountability, school funding, and educational choice including public charter schools, private school choice, interdistrict open enrollment, and homeschooling. His work has appeared in media outlets, such as the Cincinnati Enquirer, Columbus Dispatch, Cleveland Plain-Dealer, Dayton Daily News, and Toledo Blade. 

He has also been a guest on NPR’s All Sides with Ann Fisher and The Sound of Ideas and participated in various panels discussing education issues in Ohio. 

He earned degrees from the University of Maryland, Wheaton College (IL), and Carnegie Mellon University.

Eric Cohen is the President and CEO of Tikvah, where he has served in a leadership role since 2007. 

He is one of the founders and chairman of the board of Emet Classical Academy, and he has been involved in founding many publications, including the New Atlantis (where he continues to serve as editor-at-large), the Jewish Review of Books, and Mosaicmagazine (where he serves as publisher). 

He was also instrumental in building Tikvah’s operations in Israel, and he serves on the board of directors of the Ethics and Public Policy Center and the Hertog Foundation. 

Cohen writes regularly in numerous academic and popular journals, magazines, and newspapers, and is the author of In the Shadow of Progress: Being Human in the Age of Technology (2008) and co-editor of The Future Is Now: America Confronts the New Genetics (2002). 

He was previously managing editor of the Public Interest and served as a senior advisor to the President’s Council on Bioethics.

State Representative Mike Dovilla serves the 17th District in the Ohio House of Representatives, where he is Vice Chairman of the House Finance Committee and a member of the Energy, Veterans and Military Development, and Workforce and Higher Education Committees.

First elected in 2010, Rep. Dovilla represented much of the same district from 2011 to 2016, during which time he served as Majority Whip and chaired multiple standing committees. Over his public service career, he has authored myriad state laws to strengthen education, support veterans, spur economic development, protect senior citizens, and improve government accountability. Returning to the Legislature in 2025, he has continued his policy work with leadership on the state budget, government reform initiatives, and other priority legislation.

Beyond his legislative service, Rep. Dovilla has held senior federal roles, including as a presidential appointee at the U.S. Office of Personnel Management and advisor to U.S. Sen. George Voinovich. He has also founded and led small businesses focused on consulting and leadership development and was the founding president and CEO of the USS Cleveland Legacy Foundation.

A commander in the U.S. Navy Reserve, Rep. Dovilla volunteered for service after the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks and has twice been mobilized to active duty, including in Baghdad during Operation Iraqi Freedom.

A lifelong Berea resident and a proud graduate of its public schools, he is his family’s first college graduate. He holds a B.A. from Baldwin Wallace University, M.P.A. from The American University, M.A. from the U.S. Naval War College, and Ed.D. from the University of Illinois.

Dr. Adam J. Dufault serves as Superintendent of Catholic Schools for the Diocese of Columbus, where he oversees 50 schools educating nearly 18,000 students. Since his appointment in 2018, he has worked to strengthen Catholic culture, advance academic excellence, and ensure the long-term sustainability for Catholic education across the diocese. 

He frequently speaks and writes on the mission of Catholic education. His work is grounded in the Church’s vision of Catholic schools as communities inspired by a supernatural vision, animated by communion, and sustained by Gospel witness.

He holds a B.S.F.S. degree from Georgetown University in Washington, D.C.; an M.A. in Educational Administration from Dominican University in River Forest, Illinois; an M.A. in Teaching from Dominican University in River Forest, Illinois; and a Doctorate in Education from Seton Hall University in South Orange, New Jersey.

Colleen D. Grady currently serves as the Chief of Educational Options and Improvement at the Ohio Department of Education. In her capacity as Chief, Colleen oversees the Office of Community Schools, Office of School Sponsorship, the Office of Nonpublic Educational Options and the Office of School and District Improvement.  

Prior to re-joining the Ohio Department of Education in June 2022, she served as founder of Grady Consulting LLC, a public policy analysis and government relations firm.

Her public policy experience includes serving as Senior Policy Advisor to the Speaker of the Ohio House of Representatives, Senior Policy Advisor at the Ohio Department of Education, service as a member of the Ohio House of Representatives, election to Ohio’s State Board of Education, and election to the Strongsville City Schools’ Board of Education for three terms.  

Angel Hennig is the Headmaster of Heart of Ohio Classical Academy (HOCA) in Dublin. Coming to Ohio as a part of ResponsiveEd's expansion team in 2025, she brings experience as a leader and a teacher to HOCA’s second year open. An educator at heart, she spent years in the classroom teaching Algebra through Statistics. 

Previously, she served in the position as an Assistant Headmaster, Interim Headmaster, Dean of Students, and Teacher at Founders Classical Academy in Conroe, Texas, and at Founders Classical Academy in Austin. 

Deeply committed to the development of the heart and soul of her students, she strives to lead teachers and staff to what is virtuous and true, to love what is beautiful and actively pursue what is good. Joining her in Ohio is her husband, Chadwick, who works with ResponsiveEd Ohio's IS department. They have three daughters, Elyza, Eliana, and Elyse. 

Prior to joining the Chase Center, Dr. James Hooks held teaching positions in Canada, Japan, and the UK, and most recently served as Assistant Director and Lecturer at the Hamilton School of Classical and Civic Education in Florida. 

He earned his doctorate from the University of Oxford in 2023. 

His dissertation focused on the French philosopher Pierre Bayle and the early modern debates over religious toleration. 

His research explores the connection between religion and politics in the early modern period, with particular interests in natural law, freedom of conscience, and the intellectual legacy of the Reformation. 

Trent Kramer serves as the Director of Charter School Partnerships at The Classic Learning Test, where he works with schools and networks across the country to advance classical and liberal arts education. 

Prior to joining CLT, he was the founding Headmaster of Ascent Classical Academy of Windsor in Windsor, helping lead the school from its founding to a thriving K–12 institution serving more than 700 students and families. In 2023, he was named Senior Headmaster for the Ascent Classical Academy network, supporting leadership and collaboration across the network’s schools.

With experience spanning school leadership, curriculum development, teacher coaching, and classroom instruction, he has spent more than a decade working in classical education. 

He has taught courses ranging from History and Philosophy to elementary Mathematics, trained teachers in classical pedagogy and Socratic instruction, and spoken on topics including virtue formation, storytelling in history, and cultivating wonder in the classroom.

He holds a Master of Education in Educational Leadership from Grand Canyon University and a Bachelor of Arts in History from Hillsdale College.

Stéphane Lavertu is the incoming Associate Director of the Chase Center, August 2026. He also is Professor of Public Policy at The Ohio State University with a joint appointment in the Salmon P. Chase Center for Civics, Culture, and Society and in the John Glenn College of Public Affairs. His research and teaching focus on K-12 education policy and governance, public policy analysis and evaluation, public administration, and political economy.

He is passionate about conducting policy-relevant research, particularly to help improve K-12 education here in Ohio. He regularly conducts such research in collaboration with schools, nonprofit think tanks, and state and local governments.

He has a bachelor’s degree in political science from The Ohio State University, a master’s degree in education from Stanford University, and a doctorate in political science from the University of Wisconsin.

Troy McIntosh is Director of CCV's Ohio Christian Education Network (OCEN). He came to OCEN after serving 27 years in Christian education as a teacher, principal and—for his last eight years—as head of school at Worthington Christian School in Worthington, Ohio. Prior to his time in education, he worked in the Ohio House of Representatives in the Legislative Services Commission Fellowship program.

During his time at Worthington Christian, he served the broader Christian school community as an Association of Christian Schools International (ACSI) Regional Council Member and Accreditation Commission Member, accreditation team chairperson, and conference presenter. For the last 15 years, he has held various roles with the Ohio High School Athletic Association (OHSAA), including President of the Central District Athletic Board and Vice President of the OHSAA Board of Directors.

He is a graduate of Wheaton College (B.A. Economics) and The Ohio State University (M.Ed. Education) and is a Colson Fellow with the Colson Center for Christian Worldview. He and his wife, Julie, live in Westerville, Ohio, and have three grown daughters.

Mike McKenna was drawn to classical and Christian education from a nagging sense that something was missing. After earning his BA in music education (Montclair State College) and his MA in Christian school administration (Grace Theological Seminary), he served as headmaster of Christian schools for more than a decade. However, he felt that school was imitating public secular education, with Bible class and chapel added on. 

He attended a seminar by Dr. George Grant on classical Christian education, and the scales fell from his eyes. Once he realized Christian education was meant to be much more robust, more about becoming fully human than merely learning the Three R's, there was no looking back. 

Grammar, logic, and rhetoric and the heritage of our forefathers, which modern education—even much of modern Christian education—has tossed aside, were the good and necessary way to educate our children. 

He has been headmaster of classical and Christian schools since 2000 and currently serves as headmaster of Mars Hill Academy in Mason, Ohio. He and his wife, Chris, have five children and 10 grandchildren.

Jerilyn Olson is the Chief People Officer of Great Hearts, overseeing recruitment, human resources, and professional development across regions.  

She has worked for Great Hearts since 2005 – first as a teacher and coach and then in various capacities connected to teacher recruitment and professional development. 

She has a bachelor’s degree in Government and Literature from Claremont McKenna College and a master’s degree in humanities (with an emphasis on classical education) from the University of Dallas.  

She and her husband have three children and reside in the Phoenix area.

Soren Schwab is a passionate educator with more than a decade of experience in classical education. 

Born and raised in Germany, he moved to the United States in the late 2000s to pursue his literature and theology studies. He earned a B.A. in English from Hillsdale College and an M.Ed in Curriculum and Instruction from Colorado Christian University. 

For several years, he led the Humanities Department at The Vanguard School in Colorado Springs. He joined the Classic Learning Test in 2018, driven by his desire to see classical education flourish across the country. 

He currently serves as CLT’s Chief Evangelist, overseeing all of CLT’s sales and marketing efforts, including Classical Baccalaureate. He and his wife, Paula, live in Annapolis, MD.

Jake Tawney has an undergraduate degree in mathematics and computer science from Denison University in Granville, Ohio. 

He continued his studies at The Ohio State University, where he earned a master's degree in mathematics. After teaching all levels of high school mathematics and computer science for nearly a decade, he took on the role of Director of Student Services for a district in central Ohio. 

During his time in Ohio, he also taught at the Pontifical College Josephinum, including courses in Euclid and the Philosophy of Mathematics. After serving as the Chief Academic Office for Great Hearts Academies, he joined the team at The Institute for Catholic Liberal Education, where he now serves as the Director of Curriculum and Academic Resources. 

He has authored two books, including a primer through Cana Academy on using Euclid to teach high school geometry and most recently Another Sort of Mathematics through Encounter Books.

He is the proud husband of Christina Tawney and the proud father of eight children, all of whom have something unique in their souls that can only be satisfied by wondering about mathematics. He and his family reside in Phoenix, Arizona.

Senator Jane Timken was appointed to the Ohio State Senate representing the 29th District. She is currently the Republican National Committeewoman representing Ohio. Senator Timken was the Chairman of the Ohio Republican Party from 2017 to 2021, the first woman elected to that position. She led the Republican Party to great electoral success — winning all statewide offices in 2018, retaining the Congressional delegation, and delivering Ohio for President Trump. In 2022, she ran for the U.S. Senate.

Senator Timken began her legal career with the firm Black McCuskey, which included civil litigation, employment law, workers’ compensation, and medical malpractice defense. She served as a magistrate and law clerk to the Honorable Judge Sara Lioi in the Court of Common Pleas, Stark County, Ohio, and worked with the Soles Law Offices.

The Senator has served on numerous community and charitable boards in Ohio — Henry and Loise Timken Foundation, ArtsinStark, Trillium Family Solutions, Center for Grief Counseling & Education, Ohio Legal Assistance Foundation, North Canton Medical Foundation, Stark Education Partnership, and the board of Trustees of Kent State University. 

Senator Timken is a graduate, cum laude, of Harvard College. She received her J.D, summa cum laude, from American University, Washington College of Law, Washington, D.C. 

Born in Cincinnati, Ohio, Jane lives in Stark County, Ohio with her husband W.J. Timken, Jr. (Tim). She is a mother of two children.