Methodology
This list starts with association directories, public school websites, and hand research. We do not invent tuition, enrollment status, or grade ranges. An empty field with an honest label beats a filled field with an unknown origin.
Inclusion rubric
Every listing is adjudicated into one of five tiers. Adjudication is a human decision backed by stored evidence — a source URL and a short quoted phrase from that source.
- A — Charlotte Mason school. The school's own materials name Charlotte Mason, or it appears in a recognized CM association directory, or it uses CM-specific practice vocabulary (narration, living books, Forms, nature notebook, picture study, composer study) to describe its programme. Listed and counted.
- B — Charlotte Mason influenced. The school names Mason as one influence among several. Listed with a visible Mason-influenced label; counted separately.
- C — Not a Charlotte Mason school. No reference to Mason or her practices in the school's own materials. Removed from the directory.
- D — Not a school. A community, group, club, or online gathering that does not deliver instruction. Dropped from this directory.
- E — Cannot determine. No accessible public materials, site dead, or genuinely ambiguous. Held unlisted until resolved. Never published in an ambiguous state.
The headline school count on this site is Tier A plus Tier B only.
What “confirmed” means
A listing is confirmed only when a human has checked it against a primary source and recorded a confirmation date, reviewer, and source URL. Import dates are not confirmation dates. Until confirmation, the listing page says what is still missing and never uses the word “verified.”
Self-confirmed (head of school via claim) and staff-confirmed are both confirmation. The claim flow records which path was used.
Completeness
Each listing gets a completeness score from sourced fields (website, address, model type, days on site, grades, description, tuition, contact, logo). Thin stubs stay reachable and crawlable via internal links but are not indexed in search until they clear a minimum threshold. That is deliberate: a smaller index of honest pages is better than a large set of near-identical stubs.
What we refuse to invent
Volatile fields stay blank until we can quote a source: tuition, open seats, exact grade spans when unpublished, and faith requirements when the website is silent. Parents should still confirm details on a tour. Operators should claim the listing to supply primary facts.
Corrections
Every listing page has a “Report a problem” control. Use Claim a listing if you run the school, or Contact for anything else. If the school is missing entirely, add a school.
Guides versus listings
Parent and operator guides explain models, costs, and founding steps in general terms. They are not a substitute for a school’s handbook. When a guide mentions ESA or accreditation patterns by state, treat those sentences as orientation and verify on the official portal before you enroll or register.