Leadership
Board of Directors
Mrs. Meghan Fischer
When we moved to San Francisco in 2016 with a toddler and a baby on the way, I saw the immense need for excellent Christian education in the city. The night before we moved to Dallas, in June 2018, we had the very first prayer meeting for the school that would become Donum Dei Classical Academy. Since then, God has blessed me richly through my involvement as a Donum Dei Board Member. It gives me great joy that children in San Francisco will be able to be educated in the rich Classical tradition, with the ultimate goal of glorifying God in all they do.
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In addition to being mom to three little ones, I worked as Legal Counsel for Global Religious Freedom at ADF International. I have written academic papers and articles on a wide range of freedom topics. These include policy papers urging the United Nations to protect the rights of Christians to worship freely across the world and a survey and report encouraging Silicon Valley tech companies to guarantee that Christians and ideological minorities can bring their whole selves to work. I received a law degree from Harvard Law School and Bachelor’s and Master’s degrees in Linguistics from Harvard College.
Mr. Nathaniel Fischer
I am the founder of Principal Investments, which acquires small businesses and places a particular focus on talent programs and development. I previously co-founded InvestRes, a real estate investment and management company that grew to more than $1.5 billion in assets and 400 employees, and have helped launch several technology companies and personally made a variety of other control, angel, and alternative investments. I graduated from Calvin College and Harvard Law School.
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Talent and human potential have been central to both my business and personal interests for years. Meghan and I lived in San Francisco for two years between 2016-2018, and I quickly recognized both the pressing need for solid Christian education there and the enormous importance SF’s culture places on education. I was drawn particularly to the impact an excellent Christian school could have given San Francisco’s enormous impact on national and global culture as a dominant tech and new media hub. Even though we moved to Dallas a week after learning about the idea that became Donum Dei, we have been excited to support Donum Dei and its mission.
Mr. Colin McLean
I am a local businessman, serving in the position of Senior Vice President of Sales for Digital Realty, a leading real estate investment trust. I serve the Academy voluntarily as the Secretary and Treasurer/Chief Financial Officer and am on the Board of Directors. I have worked professionally in organizational management, sales, and operations for the past 20 years. I earned a Bachelor’s degree in Government from Wofford College in South Carolina and a Master’s degree in Public Policy from Pepperdine University in California.
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I have faithfully served the local church in various capacities, including leading finance, generosity, and fundraising efforts. For the past 15 years, I have led various church community groups and Bible studies, including active involvement in both the traditional church and the house church movement.
Dr. Christine McLean
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It has been my joy to lead the Academy in the development of its mission, vision, values, Classical curriculum, parent education, student recruitment, and donor partnerships. I have also spearheaded fundraising efforts on behalf of the Board of Directors. I have networked with Classical education experts nationally and regionally; visited various high-performing Classical schools across the nation to ascertain promising practices; and engaged and collaborated with the local community to support the Academy as the first and only Classical Christian school to serve Christians in the city of San Francisco.
While living in Texas, I opened the first Classical Conversations community in southwest Austin with 63 students. The following year, I developed and led a second campus. In my role as Director, I educated and recruited families with students from ages 4 to 12 and led tutors in the areas of Foundations, Essentials, and Challenge to create thriving homeschool communities. As a result of my pioneering and leadership in this area, Classical Conversations communities have doubled. I classically homeschooled my children for six years before establishing Donum Dei Classical Academy.
For over a decade at the University of Texas at Austin, I served in the roles of College Relations Coordinator, Assistant Director of College Relations, and the Senior Associate for the Center for Community College Student Engagement. I led statewide and regional workshops to strengthen student learning, engagement, and retention; presented at national and regional conferences on areas pertaining to student success and learning; co-directed relations with internal and external constituencies; and served as a keynote motivational speaker at various college convocations.
Pastor Tom Shaw
I served as the Senior Pastor of The City Church in England for 10 years (during which time the church grew greatly and also planted 9 other congregations) and am now the leader of the Sanctuary Church plant here in San Francisco. I am particularly passionate about story and yearn to see the great stories of the Bible known, told, re-told, imagined, and pondered. After approaching Bible study and teaching mainly through a systematic and topic-based approach, I am excited about the Grand Narrative of the Bible being far more widely understood. I am hopeful that this Story will replace the other dominating stories that we have grown up hearing everywhere else as “real.” Our lives make sense when we see them as part of an ancient and wonderful ongoing great story. This written account then becomes alive through the Spirit and community.
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I am very excited about us seeing and savoring the images the Bible’s stories paint for us, ultimately leading to Jesus Himself. I believe we are designed to learn hugely through story. There are no greater stories than the stories found in the Bible. Alongside the passion of Donum Dei to educate about Greek and other mythology, it is a joy to walk through some of the Bible’s material and compare and contrast it with other world meta-narratives. It is great fun to see the discussion and questions that arise within the Bridge-age students, thus demonstrating the healthy traits of the logic/dialectic stage of learning.
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I hold an undergraduate degree from the University of Kent in Canterbury, England in Social Psychology.
A Letter From the Head of School
Welcome to Donum Dei Classical Academy!
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As a classical Christian school that exists in a city with a dwindling population of children, Donum Dei exists to be a gift of God to the families, the churches, and the people who call San Francisco home. At Donum Dei, we seek to impart a rich classical Christian curriculum full of Scriptural truth and life-giving experiences.
Our curriculum is deeply integrated with Christ at the center of it all. This curriculum comes to life in the hands of our godly, experienced teachers and education partners who implement multi-sensory classroom learning activities that foster human creativity and connection in the form of theater, art history, and geography mapping, to name a few.
We have also partnered with pastors and leaders across the city to help lead our weekly Thursday morning assemblies. These school-wide assemblies bring together our partner families, friends of Donum Dei, and prospective families in a culmination of our mission to nourish students’ hearts, souls, minds, and bodies for the purpose of growing them in knowledge, wisdom, good character, and Christ-like virtue worthy of bringing glory to our God.
As you walk the halls of Donum Dei, you will hear this mission come to life as our students use their voices to put to memory incredible amounts of information through chanting and singing. If you listen carefully, perhaps you’ll hear some joyful noises to the Lord, even in Latin, Hebrew, or various Romance languages, through our Youth Chorus program. You might witness various teachers and volunteers serving students daily through our individualized math and reading tutoring and games. And, perhaps you would observe the joy our students have when training their bodies in our Martial Arts, Run Club, or Ballet/Movement programs.
As you move from your observation of our youngest students, you would witness notable personal, academic, and spiritual growth in our students. Our Bridge at Donum Dei students (ages 11-14) grow in curiosity as they navigate and wrestle through Socratic discussions in disciplines such as Rhetoric, Humanities, and Logic and actively train in the disciplines of English, Latin, and Greek grammar. If you asked them questions, you would hear how they have grown in their ability to apply wonder, wisdom, and worship to their contemplative work in Bible Narrative or Spiritual Disciplines.
There is truly no other learning community in San Francisco — public or private — quite like Donum Dei Classical Academy! I warmly invite you to taste and see that the Lord is good in San Francisco. Come and behold the journey we are on as we join with others to build a strong foundation where Christians can flourish, thrive, and rest in this great city.
For the glory of our great God,
Christine McLean, Ed.D.
Head of School
