Jamie Fairbanks Chased Her Dream of Classical Education
Archway Roosevelt August 28, 2024 -
Jamie Fairbanks says she is thrilled to be the new headmaster at Archway Roosevelt. She has longed for a classical education model that helps children flourish even before she knew Great Hearts existed and said she has been in her own pursuit of Truth, Goodness, and Beauty her whole life. Before coming to Roosevelt, she served Trivium Prep as a Literature and Composition III teacher and the Dean of Academics and Interventions. But Fairbanks’ significant work in education and student advocacy began years ago.
Fairbanks grew up in Alaska. Not Fairbanks, Alaska, as you might assume by her name, but in Anchorage. She said she lived in a home that valued knowledge and beauty, which inspired her to pursue an education in social sciences. “After my undergraduate work, I returned to Alaska and served as a history, psychology, and economics teacher for six years,” she explained, “but chose to leave education to raise my five children. However, my love of educational policy’s ability to improve children’s lives was never diminished.”
The large Fairbanks family moved to a small community called Maple Valley near Seattle, Washington, where they lived for nine years. It was there that she and a colleague made the ambitious decision to establish a classical charter school, with the model of Great Hearts in mind. Fairbanks noted that the education system and political climate in the Pacific Northwest is not as “charter-friendly” as states like Arizona. “We were the people in the room everyone wanted to ignore,” she recalled.
After facing significant opposition, her charter partner decided to move to Arizona and began working for Great Hearts, the very network of charter schools they had visited while researching potential models for their school. “So, I had to just kind of let that dream die. When she left, I just went back to what I had always done. I was in the PTA, and I was serving on all different kinds of committees within our school district,” she said. “And then my heart just felt called to want to make change, and I wanted to make this community better, so I felt like I should be running for school board. So, I announced my run for school board, and that started kind of the end of our love for Seattle because immediately our family just started being attacked within our community. It was a very cold awakening for me.” Fairbanks said she had always truly believed in decorum in discussion, but all of a sudden, she had others posting things on social media about her that were half-truths. It was difficult for her but almost unbearable to see her campaign affect her family. “It was just a really difficult time for us.”
After losing the seat on the school board, Fairbanks couldn’t see raising her family in the community, so they packed up and moved across the state to Spokane, where Fairbanks worked on getting her master’s degree. They bought a 20-acre farm complete with livestock. Her husband runs a medium-sized national company and was able to work from virtually anywhere. “He loved being on the tractor every day and running around the farm.”
Fairbanks was still a bit envious of her former charter partner, who was fulfilling her life dream of working for a school like the Great Hearts academies. She happened to run across a job posting for Great Hearts Online and thought the possibility of living in Washington while teaching online sounded like a dream. But as soon as her application went through, she found herself on a phone interview with two Great Hearts academy headmasters. “We were just jiving, and the conversation was so much fun,” she said. “I was just having a blast, and we ended that interview, and I went to my husband and said that they both offered me jobs and that was the most fun interview I’ve ever been a part of. I didn’t know how to say no at that point, and my husband was like, ‘Well, I guess we’re leaving Washington.’ And so, we packed up two weeks later.”
Her oldest daughter was leaving for college, but she still had four children at home, not to mention a 20-acre farm with animals. Her always-supportive husband stayed behind to get everything sold off. “I consider myself just very lucky. I have a spouse who, every step of that process, was like 100% behind me. He was like, ‘Whatever it takes to have you reach your dreams.’ So, I tell myself all the time that that’s the kind of spouse you want. I’m super lucky.”
The family has adapted and enjoyed living the Southwest life and exploring everything our desert community has to offer, trading in their views of pine trees for majestic sunsets and “forests” of cacti. Her household continues to be full, with her four boys at home, her husband, and her uncle with special needs, who lives with the family as well. She is also loving her new role at Archway Roosevelt and serving her families.
“My hope always is that I want parents to feel like we are supporting them as they raise their children. If they feel that way about our school, then I feel like we’ve been successful,” she said. “So much of education now has become this kind of ‘us versus them’ mentality, and I don’t want that at all. My goal is always to come alongside parents and say, ‘How can we help you as you raise your children?’ and that’s really something that I learned through that political process. It is that we are to be helping lift our parents as they lift their scholars to be something that they dreamed about.”
“For over 25 years,” Fairbanks added, “I have had the same quote on every locker door, dorm wall, and classroom I have worked in. It comes from the author, historian, and minister Edward Everett Hale, who says, ‘I am only one, but I am one. I cannot do everything, but I can do something. And because I cannot do everything, I will not refuse to do the something that I can do.’”
Do you have a story or know of a story that you would like to see featured at Great Hearts? Please contact jason.moore@greathearts.org.