The next time you meet up with an old friend and he says, “What’s new?” be sure to tell him about the new educational facility that opened last month in the village of Sardinia. The Brown County Christian Academy [BCCA] opened wide the doors on Aug. 31 for their very first day of school. Many, many long days of planning went into making this vision become a reality.
“About a year ago I was sitting with a group of friends at a Sunday night service and the preacher posed the question, “If you could do anything you wanted to do without fear of failure what would it be?,” said Eric Purdy, BCCA Headmaster. I immediately responded, “We’d open a Christian school. Where had that come from I thought. I had never uttered those words before and surely did not plan my response. I think the only person more surprised by my answer than me was my wife,” said Purdy. And with that, the dream had been launched.
Purdy had been a Middle School teacher with the Eastern School District, and his wife, Melissa, is also a teacher. Purdy resigned from his teaching job and the family lived off of Melissa’s salary for the past 13 months while Eric did the work researching into Christian education, finding a facility, forming a school board, interviewing new students, and hiring staff members. The Purdy’s held a total of eight Informational Coffees throughout Brown and Clermont counties last winter. All the hard work has finally produced a quality, classical Christian Academy. The Academy opened with 22 students in pre-K through fifth grade. Students hail from Georgetown, Russellville, Winchester, Sardinia, Hamersville, Williamsburg, Lake Waynoka, Mt. Orab and Macon.
“The students, parents, and staff members are all so excited to be a part of this educational opportunity in Brown County,” said Purdy. “Regular classroom academics will be offered daily, plus music, art, physical education, Bible and Latin. We are members of the Association of Classical Christian Schools, that offers us advice and helps us with educational materials, and have decided to be non-chartered, non-tax supported (08 School) because we do not want the money allocated from the State or Federal Departments of Education to restrict our curricula, force us to incorporate Common Core and require unwarranted high-stakes testing into our classrooms. The standards of classical Christian Schools are far and above any standards set by state and federal legislators.”
“We are excited for the education we will be providing the students enrolled at BCCA.”
For more information about the Academy, you can call BCCA at (937) 446-1220 or email eric.purdy@thebcca.org.