The Summit Academy is a private, classical Catholic school serving students in grades 6–12 in Fredericksburg, Virginia. Rooted in the Catholic Tradition and grounded in the liberal arts, we offer a unique opportunity to develop the mind and body through a profound educational experience that engages the whole person.

The Summit exists to provide a robust education and to assist parents with their vocational calling to form sons and daughters in Christian virtue. The Summit aims to produce mature, responsible young adults who are equipped to engage the world.

Our educational task is to produce free, happy men and women. This means that students should be drawn toward a full awareness of reality. In all things, we seek to cultivate an awareness of and an appreciation for what is true, good, and beautiful. A Liberal education that is rooted in the Catholic faith is best equipped to accomplish this work.

More succinctly, we exist to do the following:

1.) Teach the Catholic Faith
2.) Provide excellent academics
3.) Equip young men and women to live out fruitful vocations

While these tasks are listed in order of priority, they are fundamentally cooperative—they cannot compete with one another. To do one of them well is to do all of them well. To compromise in one of these tasks is to compromise all of them.

We are committed to the Lordship of Jesus Christ, and this is in no way extraneous to the question of academic excellence. The questions of education ultimately come down to the human questions: Who are we and what is our place in the world? What are we doing and why are we doing it?

Man cannot truly know himself or the world in which he lives without seeking to know his origin, namely the One in whose image man is made.

Christ cannot rightly be held up as the center of students’ lives (academic or otherwise) if He is not simultaneously seen as the center of reason, history, and existence, and if He is not understood as satisfying the longings implanted in mankind. An education that teaches students to reason will be faithful to Christ and His Church while also equipping them to succeed in life.

Our mission is to ground students in an education that opens them to the realization of who they are called to be in Christ. What they are called to be is nothing short of the very glory of God. As Saint Irenaeus proclaims in our school motto: Gloria Dei est Homo Vivens, or The Glory of God is Man Fully Alive.