As students and staff head into the new school year, those at Lanier Christian Academy can do so knowing a brand new school building is on the horizon.
Lanier Christian Academy opened its doors in 2016 with a student body of approximately 400. Last school year was the first time in the school’s history with a count of more than 500 students, sitting at 515. As LCA heads into the 2023-2024 year, they boast a count of 540, which may still rise prior to the first day of school.
Next door to the current campus is a major new project LCA hopes to have completed by August 2024. With $13 million in hand currently, as part of the $18 million LCA campus project, David Roberts, the Director of Institutional Advancement, is excited to start breaking ground on the building.
“That's huge for our school, it's been almost 40 years that we've been leasing facilities,” Roberts said. “And we're just now getting to the point to where we're building our own on our own land. And that was forever just a dream, and now it's becoming a reality.”
LCA is the product of a combination of North Georgia Christian School and the Heritage Academy, both of which had over 30 years of history serving children in the state through a university-style model.
The new LCA school building is paid for by fundraising efforts by school officials and a bond obtained last year.
“We had to jump through a lot of hoops, and we did that, and we did it very successfully being only an eight-year-old school,” Executive Director of Strategic Giving and Project Development Al Gainey said. “It's incredible that we were able to accomplish that. But our financial position is such that the bondholders said, ‘Yeah, we want to buy those bonds.’ So that is exactly what has happened. And we did so over a $10 million bond offering that we put together. And that is where we are today from the standpoint of financing.”
LCA currently has approximately 75 staff members after filling a vacancy left when several veteran teachers retired last year with a combined experience of 96 years in education.
“Our turnover is very, very minimal in the faculty and the staff, which gives parents and students a lot of satisfaction, if you will, knowing that they'll have some consistency to their teachers going forward as the kids go up in grades,” Gainey said.
As learning loss due to the COVID-19 pandemic has caused issues for many schools nationwide, LCA has only seen a minimal dip. Roberts cited the fact that LCA students only missed the months of March 2020 to May 2020 as a major factor in the mitigation of learning loss. Students were back in the classroom by August 2020.
LCA students have reportedly remained at or above the state and national averages for test results, according to Gainey.
Another factor that contributed to the success of students during the pandemic was the model of learning conducted on campus. Approximately half of the LCA student population was already used to online learning procedures since they spent up to three days per week doing remote online school at home prior to COVID-19.
While the other half of the student body attended school in-person daily, the technology for at-home learning was already in place by teachers, making the transition during 2020 nearly seamless.
As for the new school building, Roberts hopes to see the first phases completed in the next 12 to 14 months, saying he would be “over the moon” if it could be completed by the time August 2024 rolls around.
With over 500 students slated for this school year, the LCA waiting list has continued to grow. The new building will allow for nearly 1,000 students, effectively doubling the number of students they are able to serve.
“The plan is to move the elementary students over first,” Roberts said. “If we can complete the second floor of the building, then we'd be able to move over our middle and high schools. And that would fill up the first two floors. The third floor would give us room for expansion beyond that.”
LCA has chosen Charles Black Construction Company, based out of Cleveland, as the contractor for the $18 million project which is located at Chesnut Mountain Church on Ga. 53.
The first floor will house 15 classrooms, a gym, a cafeteria, a media center, a music room and an indoor playground.
Construction has already begun on a practice field for the school’s football and soccer programs. The long-term plan includes a competition gym, an arts center and spiritual life chapel, a multipurpose building and an athletic complex.
More than half of the land used for the new project was donated by South Hall philanthropist Loyd Strickland. Strickland reportedly supported starting a Christian-based school in the area in the 1980s, when North Georgia Christian School, originally named Westminister Christian School, was founded.
The school hosts students from 11 counties and has grown nearly 35 percent since 2020. LCA serves students K-12.
