Apogee Dripping Springs

We have a semi-finalist in the house. 🎉

Clea Erdman, Apogee sophomore, has been named a Semi-Finalist in the 2026 I Am Texas Writing Contest — a statewide competition for Texas students in grades 2-12.

She entered the Fiction/Non-Fiction category and drew her inspiration from San Antonio Bride, a painting by Spanish-born artist José Arpa y Perea, nicknamed "The Sunshine Man" for his mastery of light and shadow.

Clea's story didn't get there alone. Mr. Rutland, our ELA teacher, coached and refined student submissions from start to finish — believing in their voices and pushing their craft.

This is what learning looks like at Apogee. Real skills. Real stakes. Real results.

Final winners announced August 24. We'll be cheering loud.

Do you have a teen or young adult who loves to write, but gets completely stuck when it is time to edit?

The Young Writer is hosting Crazy Editing Week, a free online writing challenge for writers ages 13–25, starting Monday, May 11, 2026.

This is such a fun opportunity for young writers to learn how to polish their work without feeling like editing is a slow march through grammar jail.

Each day, students will:

• Watch short 10-minute trainings from editing experts
• Learn practical techniques to improve their writing
• Edit a personal writing project, novel, short story, essay, article, or another piece they have already started
• Work alongside other young writers
• Compete as a community for fun prizes

The best part?
Students do not have to show up at a specific time each day.

They can complete the trainings and editing work on their own schedule, and they can spend as little as 15 minutes a day or go all in if they are feeling inspired.

Editing is where good writing becomes stronger, clearer, and more beautiful. But most young writers need guidance, encouragement, and a little momentum to actually enjoy that process.

This event gives them all three.

Sign up for free here:
https://theyoungwriter.com/crazy-editing-week

🏆 We are so proud of one of our own!

This past weekend, Aubrey, one of our part-time Apogee Dripping Springs students, took home FIRST PLACE at the inaugural Hope Full Farm Farm to Fork Junior Chef Challenge in Dripping Springs, and at just 13 years old, she was the youngest competitor in the entire field.

Out of more than 20 applicants, only 4 young chefs were selected to compete.

Aubrey was paired with Chef Edgar Rico of Nixta Taqueria as a mentor and spent months developing her winning dish: a Beef Tartare with green goddess sauce on a homemade tostada, topped with radish, pickled turnips, mint, arugula, cilantro, and an assortment of farm-fresh edible flowers. 🌸

The competition was held at Hope Full Farm, a nonprofit regenerative farm dedicated to fighting childhood hunger in Central Texas. Young chefs competed using seasonal produce grown right on the farm. Aubrey earned the $2,000 first-place scholarship.

You might know Aubrey from our Monday Toastmasters for Teens class, where she's been developing the kind of poise and confidence that helped her with speaking in front of a large crowd + judge panel!

This is exactly the kind of whole-child, real-world experience that Apogee is built around, and she absolutely delivered. 👏

Congratulations, Aubrey! 🎉

My students (and some homeschool friends) have been up to something pretty amazing - more pics and vids to come! BIG shout out to Chuck Lemmond at Hometown Missions and the CIEF group.

🌟 We are SO proud to share that TWO of our Apogee Dripping Springs students have been selected as Ambassadors to the Tony Robbins Global Youth Leadership Summit (GYLS) this July in San Diego! 🎉

GYLS is an internationally recognized five-day leadership program that brings together over 400 teens from nearly 50 countries. Our students will join young leaders from around the world for an immersive week of hands-on service learning, leadership development, global connection, and the kind of real-world growth you simply can't get from a textbook.

Being selected as an Ambassador is genuinely competitive — it requires a letter of recommendation, documented community service hours, and a video interview. We are so proud of these two young women for putting themselves forward and earning their spots.

This would not have happened without two incredible people who believed in our students enough to go to bat for them:

💛 Susan Chewning Halaut, our Leadership Coach: thank you for seeing the leader in each of our students and championing them so well.
💛 Kevin W, Youth Pastor at Dripping Springs Presbyterian Church — thank you for investing in these young people beyond the walls of the church and supporting their growth in every arena.

This is exactly what it looks like when a community rallies around its youth. We are grateful, we are proud, and we cannot wait to hear everything these two bring back from San Diego in July. 🌊

I was honored to be featured in a national article by the Cato Institute as part of its Friday Feature series, which highlights innovative education models.

When I launched this program, the vision was simple: create a learning environment where the community becomes the classroom, and students are encouraged to explore their interests, build real skills, and learn directly from people doing meaningful work in the world.

Over the past two years, our students have had the opportunity to learn from local entrepreneurs, builders, chefs, coaches, artists, and professionals across many fields. They’ve worked on real projects, practiced leadership and communication, and built relationships that extend far beyond the walls of a classroom.

It was encouraging to see the article recognize the heart of what we’ve been building here in Dripping Springs: a small, personalized learning environment where curiosity, responsibility, and real-world experience matter.

Programs like this only work because of the incredible local mentors, families, and community partners who are willing to invest in the next generation.

Grateful for the recognition and proud of the students who bring this vision to life every day.

You can read the full article here:

Friday Feature: Apogee Dripping Springs Texas mom Sarah Pevehouse created Apogee Dripping Springs microschool because she wanted her own daughters to have a high school education that was heavy in life skills and character development, as well as academics.

During our “Compassion in Action” session, students explored a powerful question:

Who are the people in our society that often go unseen?

Each team researched a group that experiences “invisibility” in modern life. Two of our students chose to study individuals experiencing homelessness and the broader issue of housing instability.

As part of their research, we visited Community First! Village in Austin, an innovative community created by Mobile Loaves & Fishes that provides permanent housing and meaningful work for people rebuilding their lives after homelessness.

The visit helped students move beyond statistics and headlines. They saw how thoughtful design, community, and dignity can restore hope.

This project was part of our “Seeing the Invisible” research initiative, where students investigated the history of these issues, their impact locally, and the organizations working to restore dignity in our region.

Experiences like this help students understand that compassion isn’t just an idea.

It becomes real when you see people, listen to their stories, and learn from the communities working to make a difference.

Community First Village

One of the ways we bring history to life is by turning the local community into part of our classroom.

For the second year in a row, our students visited the Texas Medical Association’s History of Medicine Gallery for a private archive viewing of medieval medical tools, texts, and training materials.

Many of the manuscripts we saw were written in Latin and were used to train physicians centuries ago.

One of our students had chosen to research the role of the medieval physician as part of our Middle Ages project, so this visit gave them the rare opportunity to see artifacts connected directly to their topic.

It’s one thing to read about medieval medicine.
It’s another to stand in front of the instruments and texts that physicians actually used.

A huge thank you to Nancy Semin-Lingo, who once again hosted an incredible visit for our students.

Experiences like this remind us why we love using our community as part of the classroom.