Academy showing steady growth (05/31/06)

While children all over the county are singing the refrain “No more pencils, no more books...,” Sabrina Kelly already has her sights set on August, when the Jay County Christian Academy will begin the school year with new students, new teachers and new grade levels.

Next year, the faith-based private school founded by Fellowship Baptist Church and headed by Pastor Hugh Kelly and his wife, Sabrina, will grow to include seventh and eighth grade, which will mean hiring two teachers and adding three classes — a significant increase from the current staff of four teachers and three teacher aides.

Enrollment has increased significantly as well.

Sabrina said that when the school opened in the fall of 2004, it had only 18 students, but ended the school year with 24. In fall 2005, the school opened with 30 and wrapped up classes this spring with 52.

“What’s really attracting families to the school are the low numbers (of students per class),” said Jeannine Poole, a former Jay County High School teacher who serves as curriculum director for the school. All classes that exceed 13 students are staffed with a teacher’s aide.

Susan Bechtol, grandmother of Mason Mumby, who just finished fifth grade, said that the one-on-one attention offered at the school made a profound difference in Mason’s behavior, which had been disruptive in public school.

“He’s made a complete turnaround,” said Bechtol, attributing the smaller class sizes to his success. The good reports from teachers are “music to our ears,” she says.

Frequent field trips, another unique aspect to the school, attracted Mason’s younger sister, Morgan, who will enter second grade this fall. Morgan remained in Jay Schools last year, but her brother’s glowing accounts of his school day attracted her to the school as well.

“She was doing well (in Jay Schools) but she hears about some of the things he gets to do ...” said Bechtol. “She wants to go there, and that’s what made the decision.”

Poole explained that the school follows the A Beka and Bob Jones University curriculum, and a teaching method known as Connecting Learning Assures Successful Students (CLASS).

CLASS emphasizes what Poole calls a “being there” experience, connecting hands-on experiences with writing exercises to help students increase vocabulary and concept comprehension.

Recently, the students have traveled to a children’s museum, the Indianapolis Zoo and wetlands near Geneva, Some classes also make nearly weekly trips to area nursing homes.

“From these experiences, they build a vocabulary. It’s not just looking at a textbook. That’s what makes this school so fantastic,” said Poole.

A day at JCCA begins at 7:45, to allow for a half-hour of chapel time, led by Hugh Kelly, where students recite pledges to America, Christianity and the Bible.

The students then move to brightly-painted classrooms, where lessons are built around a particular subject. For instance, first and second graders learn in the “Caring Community,” in which kids learn about the basic make-up of a community and how people are dependent upon one another.

The students bring their lunch to school, and eat in the “Courtesy Cafe,” where table manners are stressed.

“They started eating ten times cleaner when we gave them table cloths,” laughed Sabrina.

They spend time in a computer lab, and have music, art and physical education classes as well.

But Sabrina said that while a typical school day at JCCA may operate differently than one at a traditional public school, the academy is meant to be a choice for students, not a replacement.

“We are not in competition with Jay Schools,” she said. “This is just another alternative.”

In some cases, it is an expensive alternative, as the cost of sending one child to the academy for a year is $2,200, plus a books and “learning” fee of $300. However, discounts apply if there is more than one student in a family enrolled at the school and scholarships are available.

Also, students are expected to adhere to a dress code — khaki or navy pants for boys and skorts or jumpers for girls and red, white or blue collared shirts for all.

The school receives no state funding and relies in part on collections taken at school programs and grants. Each teacher received a $250 grant from The Portland Foundation this year to be used on classroom supplies and learning projects, and $481 was raised last week at an end of the year program, which Hugh said will be used to recoup the cost of purchasing and installing playground equipment.

Though some concerns have been raised about the effect JCCA has on the Jay School Corporation, because fewer students means less money from the state, Jay Schools business manager Brad DeRome calls the impact “negligible.”

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DeRome explained that the school corporation received $4,061 this year for each enrolled student from the state basic grant and an additional $1,422 per student in county taxes.

“The bottom line is that if I have fewer kids in my district, I’m getting less money,” he explained. “If I’m getting significantly less money, I’m hiring fewer teachers and other positions.”

DeRome went on to add that the relatively small number of children at JCCA who would normally attend Jay Schools, excluding some JCCA students come from other counties and preschool students, for which Jay Schools generally does not receive substantial funding, has not caused a significant loss for the school corporation.

In addition, some JCCA students have been able to take advantage of Jay School resources.

“We have a couple of speech-impaired students who have received services through the special needs program at Jay Schools,” said Pastor Hugh Kelly. “There are some things we can do, because of our size, that other schools can’t do, and vice versa,” he continued. There are things that Jay Schools can do that we can’t. We aren’t in competition with them.”

One of the things JCCA can’t yet provide is a high school education, and because there are currently no eighth-graders enrolled for fall 2006, it will be at least a year or two before parents are faced with the decision of whether to send their children to Jay County High School or to private schools in Muncie or Fort Wayne.

But Sabrina doesn’t have time to think about that now. She has teachers to hire.

Jerry Nichols, currently a teacher at JCCA, will take on the middle school grades, since he has previous experience teaching middle school.

Sabrina Kelly she has spread word of the open teaching positions to Christian colleges, hoping that the faith and flexibility granted JCCA teachers will help compensate for the low pay. She says she has already received a few resumes.

And if the enrollment continues to grow?

“We can still take a few more students, but we can really only take a few kids in each class, so after that we might have to have a waiting list,” said Sabrina. “But we don’t know what God has planned for us.”[[In-content Ad]]