NEWS RELEASE
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
December 8, 2025
Contact: Joe Grabowski | joe@chesterton.org | 612-504-0637
Minneapolis, MN – The Society of G.K. Chesterton announced that the Chesterton Schools Network (CSN) has been awarded the $1 million Yass Prize. Considered the Pulitzer Prize in education innovation, the Yass Prize is devoted to identifying and elevating the next generation of education changemakers.
CSN was selected from a final group of 23 contenders - out of thousands of applicants - for its innovative model empowering parents as educational entrepreneurs to launch joyful, rigorous, and affordable classical high schools in their own communities. The prize announcement also noted the Network’s rapid expansion to more than 70 Chesterton Academies currently and its proven model for restoring deep thinking, virtue formation, and joy to the high school experience.
The Chesterton Schools Network will use the $1M Yass Prize to expand capacity dramatically to meet surging demand from parents and families, driven by school choice and the CSN’s growing reputation as a leader in renewing Catholic education in our time. On track to reach 150 schools by 2030, the CSN’s long-term vision is to serve 1,000 schools globally by 2040, with over 100,000 students. The Network’s leadership sees the Yass Prize funding as a crucial catalyst to achieving this goal.
Chesterton’s Winning Formula
The Yass Prize focuses on four principles known as “STOP,” aiming to encourage Sustainable, Transformational, Outstanding, and Permissionless education. In a press release announcing Chesterton as its grand prize awardee, the Yass Prize explained that the CSN model is:
- sustainable, focused on affordable, high-quality high schools for families;
- transformational, restoring joy, deep thinking, and virtue formation to the high school experience through a content-rich, low-tech environment;
- outstanding, fostering exceptional academic, social and spiritual outcomes for students nationwide; and,
- permissionless, equipping and trusting parents as the primary educators of their children to launch affordable, accredited schools in their own communities, in as little as 18 months.
Prize founder Janine Yass, in a press release on the Yass Prize website, emphasized the strength of Chesterton’s parent-powered model and its impact on students and families. “Across the country, we continue to meet extraordinary educators creating opportunities that families desperately need,” Yass said. “Chesterton’s work reminds us why we do this, to champion entrepreneurs who bring joy, purpose, and excellence back to education.”
“Our greatest honor is being able to serve our wonderful Network family,” said Emily de Rotstein, Executive Director of the Society of G.K. Chesterton. “The parents, founders, teachers, and communities whose steady work and sacrifice have built CSN into one of the fastest-growing movements in Catholic, classical education: they are the real heroes. They’re renewing Catholic education in our culture each and every day at the local level, and truly changing lives.”
