In the News

Who taught public school and and served as coordinator and administrator for LDS Seminaries & Institutes before nearly launching a private school in the Shawnee, Ks., area more than a decade ago. That effort proved ill-fated, Mitchell said, but paved the way for the opportunity in Garnett. 

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"I've been planning to create my own school for a long time, I'd say real seriously for 15 years," he told the Review. The Shawnee effort nearly came to fruition but ended up missing its final targets, which may have been a blessing in disguise, he said. 

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"At the end we just couldn't quite get there," Mitchell said. "It was discouraging, but then Covid hit, and it would have destroyed me financially. I was grateful that it didn't happen."

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Mitchell said he put his plans on hold until he met up with Yutzy. 

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"We got to talking, and Daniel and his wife had a dream of building a private school for a while. I was like, 'well, I have three plans on my computer right now.;"

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The Yutzy School launched last fall with two families to work out the kinks and finalize an organizational structure, Mitchell said, using a building Yutzy built on 1600 Road near the reservoir entrance. Mitchell said this fall the school will be open to the general public with enrollment capped at 30 students initially. 

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"The plan is, as long as we meet our enrollment goal, we'll be building for the following year here in Garnett." 

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The development of the local school coincides with what's become an era of ongoing discussions in the Kansas Legislature regarding School Choice and the potential of tax-generated individual student funding -- so called "vouchers" -- being applied to parent's choice of educational options, as opposed to those tax funds being restricted to traditional public school offerings. Mitchell says school choice is a side issue which may or may not eventually affect The Yutzy School. 

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"The whole voucher discussion is extremely complicated," he said. "There are so many ins and outs of that." Regardless of how School Finance eventually plays out, Mitchell says the school won't attach to any federal or state funding source with "strings attached." 

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"We want to be a Christian-based school. We just want to be up front - this is who we are and this is what we're doing. We don't want to be backed into a corner where we have to teach things we don't agree with." Mitchell said families don't have to be a member of any certain church or religion - or even be believers for that matter - though attendees understand Christian standards will apply. 

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"The Bible is taught every day. We pray at the beginning and end of every day and over lunch. If you don't want to pray you don't have to. We won't force any of our students to do that, but we do expect them to be respectful during those times." 

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Right now Mitchell serves as the only instructor for the school, with a new hire hopefully coming on in a few weeks. But Mitchell says the school will rely heavily on what it calls a Parent Partner Program - a 54 percent tuition reduction to families regardless of the number of kids to attend school, if a parent will volunteer an hour a day at the school, preferably during the teaching time. 

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"At our core our belief is that parents need to be involved," Mitchell said, "Then we'd better make ways for parents to be involved." Besides cutting the need for paid staff, Mitchell said that plan also helps parents accentuate classroom lessons with at-home projects or practical family lessons. 

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Parents who choose not to be Parent Partners pay $8,000 a year for their first student who attends Yutzy School, with a sliding tuition scale the more kids from a family who attend. The school year runs basically the same schedule as public school, August through May, but there's no instruction on Friday - that's a day the school sets aside as a family day. 

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For more information on The Yutzy School, search Facebook or Instagram or click www.yutzyschool.org.