Veritas Press. Classical Academic Press. We'd like to be up front with you: we're fans of CAP at Veritas Press! Veritas chose CAP's Latin for Children for its grammar-stage Latin long ago and still carries it today. CAP's Latin history readers are designed to pair with the Veritas history card series. Some of our families use both, and so do we.

That's because Veritas has always approached curriculum the same way: we build what we can build best, and we curate the rest. When we develop a course in-house, it's because we believe we can deliver something no one else has. When we carry someone else's materials, it's because they've already done that. CAP's Latin is a good example of the second kind. So this isn't a comparison between rivals but between two different models for delivering a classical Christian education.

This guide will help you determine which model fits your family best.

At a Glance

What We Have in Common

Before getting into the differences, a word on common ground. With this comparison, there's more of it than usual.

First, Veritas Press and Classical Academic Press are both Christian programs. We serve families who want their child's education centered in Christ.

Second, both are genuinely classical programs. Both are rooted in the trivium. Both teach Latin from the early grades. Both believe the great books and the liberal arts form students in ways that conventional schooling can't.

Third, and this is the unusual part: we've worked together for twenty years. Veritas chose CAP's Latin for Children as our grammar-stage Latin curriculum early on, and we carry CAP titles in our catalog today. CAP, in turn, designed its Latin for Children history readers to pair with the Veritas Press history card series. Some of our families use both programs, and we think that's a fine outcome.

So if you're deciding between them, take the pressure off. You're not choosing between a good program and a bad one. You're choosing between two different models, and the right answer depends on how your family works.

Two Different Approaches

This is the core of the comparison.

Program Structure

Classical Academic Press Programs

CAP's catalog is organized by subject rather than by grade. The lines that built its reputation:

Latin: The sequence runs from Song School Latin (grades 1–3, taught through songs and games) through Latin for Children (grades 3–7, with video instruction from Dr. Perrin) to Latin Alive! for the upper grades. It's a well-constructed grammar-stage sequence — which is why, when Veritas evaluated what to carry for our own families, Latin for Children was the choice. Good curation means knowing good work when you see it. What it doesn't provide is the full Latin-through-humanities arc that Veritas builds through the upper grades, where Latin becomes the entry point into the great texts themselves.

Logic: The Art of Argument (informal fallacies), The Discovery of Deduction (formal logic), and The Argument Builder form a standalone logic sequence designed as a discrete subject, typically in the middle school years. At Veritas, logic isn't isolated into a single course but practiced continuously. Omnibus students construct and evaluate arguments every week across history, theology, and literature, which means the skill develops in context rather than as a separate unit. Both approaches take logic seriously; the difference is whether you want it taught as a subject or embedded in everything.

Writing & Rhetoric: A twelve-book series built on the classical progymnasmata, the ancient sequence of imitation exercises that trained orators for centuries. It runs from roughly grade 3 through grade 8, with an emphasis on incremental, model-based composition. Veritas approaches writing differently: through VSA, students write regularly inside live courses across every subject, culminating in the kind of sustained argument — the research paper, the thesis, the Socratic discussion — that college expects. One builds the skill through dedicated practice; the other builds it through constant use.

Grammar, Greek, Bible, and more: Well-Ordered Language for grammar, Song School Greek and Greek for Children, God's Great Covenant for Bible, plus Spanish, French, and poetry. For history, The Curious Historian covers the ancient world for elementary and middle grades, and Humanitas offers a four-year, primary-source Western Civilization sequence for the upper school.

Science: CAP acquired the Novare Science line in 2020, which covers grades 6–12 with a mastery-oriented approach. There is no CAP science line for the elementary years.

Now, the completeness picture. CAP offers Grade Kits that bundle materials by grade level, but they cover four subjects: grammar, writing, Latin, and history. CAP publishes no math curriculum at all, and its science starts at grade 6. A family using CAP is assembling a curriculum, not unboxing one. They'll source math elsewhere, choose an elementary science approach, and decide how the pieces fit together. For families who enjoy curating, that's the appeal. For families who want the whole picture handled, it's a real consideration.

Veritas Press Programs

Who Does the Teaching

Both programs respect the parent as the primary educator. The difference is in what each one builds around that conviction.

Classical Academic Press

In CAP's core model, the parent teaches at home, and the materials are designed to make that doable. CAP writes its texts directly to the student, which means the explanations live on the page rather than in a separate teacher's manual that the parent has to master first. The Latin and Spanish programs include video instruction, with Dr. Perrin himself teaching Latin for Children on screen. A parent who never studied Latin can run the program, because the program carries its own expertise.

For families who want live instruction, Scholé Academy offers it. Founded in 2014, it provides live, online classes across the K–12 range, capped at fifteen students each so that teachers can give real individual attention. Several instructors are CAP's own curriculum authors, which is a genuine draw: you can take the Art of Argument with people deeply invested in how it's meant to be taught.

One structural point worth knowing, stated in Scholé Academy's materials: it describes itself as not a school in the traditional sense. Teachers are independent contractors rather than employed faculty. Courses are taken à la carte. The academy is not accredited, does not issue diplomas, and does not provide official transcripts. Parents remain the administrators of record for their homeschool, compiling their own transcripts with the academy's recommended credit values and grade records. For many families, that arrangement is exactly what they want: expert-led classes within a homeschool they fully control. For families who need an accredited credential, it's a meaningful limitation to plan around.

Veritas Press

Veritas Press starts from a similar respect for the parent, but offers more choices about who sits in the pilot's seat.

If you want to teach, You-Teach gives you everything you need: best-in-class curriculum, scripted lesson plans, and a clear path through the material. With You-Teach, you're the instructor, and we're the engine behind you.

If your student is ready to work independently, Self-Paced courses let them move through engaging, structured content at their own pace. These courses are designed to pull students forward — the material itself does the motivating.

If you want a professional teacher in the room, that's where Live Online Classes come in. Classes taken à la carte are a lifeline for homeschool parents who are confident teaching most subjects but want expert help with a few harder ones — high school math, logic, chemistry. As a full Diploma Program through VSA, they become a complete classical Christian school experience. Many homeschool families make this shift as their student approaches high school, when the subject matter deepens and the stakes around transcripts and college admission start to feel real.

All 200+ VSA faculty hold at least a bachelor's degree; over two-thirds hold advanced degrees. All affirm Veritas's statement of faith. These are hired, trained, and accountable professional educators—which is what makes the accredited VSA transcript possible. When your student finishes at VSA, the diploma and the honors-weighted GPA travel with them, recognized by colleges without explanation or asterisk.

Curriculum and Academic Rigor

How Classical Academic Press Approaches Learning

CAP's materials are designed to be engaging: Latin taught through songs, fallacies taught through cartoons, writing modeled on stories children enjoy. The assumption is that curiosity is an asset to rigor, not a distraction from it. Veritas shares that conviction. The families who describe VSA teachers as "rock stars," or who remember Omnibus discussions years later, aren't describing a grim experience. Rigorous and joyful are not opposites — at either program.

The deeper philosophical commitment is scholé, the Greek word for restful learning, which animates the whole CAP family of brands. The idea: education in America has become hurried and anxious, and classical education should recover an unhurried, contemplative pace, teaching fewer things deeply rather than many things thinly. At Scholé Academy, this shapes assessment too. Mastery and narrative feedback take priority; traditional grades are available on request in the upper levels but are deliberately not the center of the experience.

It's worth saying plainly: scholé does not mean easy. Scholé Academy families regularly report that the courses are demanding and require a serious time commitment. The difference between CAP's posture and ours is about pacing and emphasis, not seriousness. Both programs expect real work from real students.

CAP's Christian identity is deliberately broad. Its faith commitments are summarized in the Nicene and Apostles' Creeds, and Scholé Academy serves multiple traditions explicitly, with distinct Houses of Studies: St. Raphael School for Orthodox families, Canterbury House for Anglicans, and Aquinas House for Catholics, alongside the shared "Great Hall" of common courses. For families in those traditions who want classes taught from within their own communion, this is a genuine and somewhat rare offering.

How Veritas Press Approaches Learning

Where CAP centers on excellent individual subjects, Veritas centers on formation: academic, character, and faith, woven through every course, every subject, every interaction. The goal is a well-formed person, and that requires the parts to work together.

That shapes how Veritas thinks about curriculum. Courses developed in-house are built to that standard from the ground up, integrating a biblical worldview not as an add-on but as the lens through which every subject is taught. And when Veritas selects outside curriculum, we choose from the best available — programs with the strongest track records, the clearest pedagogy, and the deepest academic integrity. In mathematics, that means Saxon, Math-U-See, and Jacobs. In grammar-stage Latin, as it happens, that means CAP's own Latin for Children. We know good work when we see it.

The most distinctive element of Veritas's secondary curriculum is the Omnibus: a six-year Great Books program (grades 7–12) that integrates history, theology, philosophy, and literature into a single unified course. Students read primary texts — Homer, Plato, Augustine, Dante, Calvin, Locke — discussing them together and evaluating them through a consistent Reformed Christian worldview. CAP's Humanitas is a strong primary-source history sequence for the upper school, and CAP offers solid standalone literature courses. But there is no CAP equivalent to Omnibus: one spine, six years, where the literature, the history, and the theology are deliberately one course because they are, in the end, one story.

At the VSA level, formation happens inside a fully accredited Christian school, where professional teachers bring it to life in real time, in live discussion, in the back-and-forth of a classroom that happens to exist online. Roughly 90% of VSA courses carry honors designation, and the weighted transcript reflects that. But the point is students who know how to think, who know what they believe, and who know why it matters.

Community

CAP's answer to the community question is Scholé Communities: a network of local, parent-led, in-person co-ops that use CAP materials and gather around the scholé philosophy. Communities are free to join or to start, most meet weekly, and a startup guide plus a searchable directory make launching one straightforward. For families who want an in-person rhythm with like-minded families, it's a genuine offering, and it pairs naturally with Scholé Academy courses for the subjects parents would rather hand off.

Scholé Academy itself, being an à la carte course provider, builds community primarily inside the classroom: small classes capped at fifteen, real discussion, teachers who know their students.

VSA's online community is broader and more structured, because VSA is a school. Live classes create real relationships between students and teachers who meet weekly, discuss ideas together, and hold each other accountable. There are clubs, extracurriculars, a student yearbook, and a five-day in-person End of Year Gathering (EOYG) in Lancaster, PA that students and families plan around. The community forms because the school is designed for it — not as an add-on, but as part of what it means to attend VSA.

Neither replaces a local in-person community in your own neighborhood, and Scholé Communities is CAP's honest attempt to serve exactly that need. But if you're weighing the two online schools, VSA offers a broader and more structured school community.

Which Program Fits Your Family?

The right choice depends on your family's priorities: whether you want to assemble a curriculum or adopt one, how much an accredited diploma matters to your plans, and what kind of theological formation you want woven into the academics.

If you love curating your own program, if you want best-in-class Latin, logic, or writing as individual subjects, if you're an Orthodox, Catholic, or Anglican family drawn to a school track built within your own tradition, or if the scholé pacing fits your family culture, Classical Academic Press makes excellent materials, and we say that as a customer of twenty years.

If you want one complete program from kindergarten through graduation — including math and science at every level, a consistent Reformed Christian worldview woven through every subject, live instruction from credentialed teachers at real scale, and an accredited diploma and transcript that colleges and the NCAA recognize without explanation — Veritas Press is built for your family. Schedule a consultation and we'll show you exactly how it fits.

And sometimes the answer is both. Plenty of families run CAP's Art of Argument alongside Veritas history, or use Latin for Children inside a Veritas grade-level package, where, in fact, we put it ourselves. Good materials cooperate. So do the people who make them.

What Families Say

See If Veritas Press Is the Right Fit

We'd love to help you think through the options. Talk to a Veritas family consultant — no pressure, just a real conversation about what your family needs. If you'd like to book a free consultation, just fill out the form below.