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By Carey Reeder | Managing Editor

After years of preparation, Liberty Christian Academy opened its doors on Aug. 9 to begin the 2023-2024 school year.

“I do not know if it has fully sunk in that it has opened,” LCA board member Thomas Mims said. “It was a long process … It went very smooth, and that goes to show that all of the teachers worked hard to get everything in place. We just try to give them the tools to be successful so they could focus on getting their classrooms ready and training done. It goes to show on their end the preparation before the school year leading up to the first day of school.”

Mims has been planning the school since Easter 2019 after he was wondering why there is not a Christian school option in Clanton. From there, Mims built a team of board members — Austin Brewer, Debbie Jones, Dr. Jeff Price, Sam Hayes, Kyle Woodham and Denise Eiland, and now in 2023, he has made that school a reality.

“That is where it all started building,” Mims said. “From that point on, we got together with Debbie and Austin … It built from there and in 2020 we got our core group together, and that group has carried it forward while adding a few more along the way.”

LCA is located inside New Life Church at 1014 Lay Dam Road, Clanton. However, the school is not attached to the church and is independent from any denomination, and rents its space from the church. The school incorporates all denominations and has board members from Baptist, Methodist and other denominations as well.

Brewer said the independent denomination Christian schools are pretty common in Alabama.

“You do not want one family or church to feel like they cannot come here,” Mims said. “Our core doctrine is the same, and we do not want anyone to feel left out. We want everyone to feel welcome.”

LCA is just pre-kindergarten and kindergarten right now, but they will add a grade level each school year. The end goal is to have the current students go through each grade level at LCA as they incorporate it. In the end, Mims and the board hopes to have a pre-k to 12th grade school with its own ball fields, facilities and buildings.

In building the curriculum for the school, LCA reached out to other high-achieving academic Christian schools in the area, such as Prattville Christian Academy and Briarwood Christian Academy, to help construct it to help shape their students. Eiland has spearheaded the curriculum search and getting things together to teach the students.

“They have been very helpful with how they do it and the best practices that they have found,” Mims said. “They have helped us through this process, and they have people dedicated just to the curriculum. Us being so young we do not have that, so they are very helpful. All of the schools we have talked to have the same common goal we do — the Kingdom of God.”

Jones said LCA has Spanish classes and does P.E. classes at Cornerstone Fitness & Wellness, and they are getting a music teacher for classes soon as well. She said the main goal LCA wants to have for its students is setting them up for success after high school, and graduating in a way that colleges are looking to have them at their school.

Mims added that he has seen college fair days at other Christian schools he has visited recently, and he wants to build LCA up to get those schools through their doors.

“We want to expand as much as we can and reach as many kids as we can,” Mims said. “Our goal is to keep the costs as low as possible as well.”

LCA currently has 16 students in its classrooms, and Brewer said he has seen all of the kids smiling with their backpacks during the first full week of school. On the first day of school he was helping parents pick up their students, and he overheard a mother ask her daughter how her day was and if she wanted to come back. The girl smiled and said “I want to come back every day.”

“It is enjoyable seeing the kids smiling and wanting to come back,” Mims said. “We know the kids are learning and they are enjoying it.”

More information about Liberty Christian Academy’s tuition, programs and classes can be found at www.lcalions.org or visiting the school at New Life Church in Clanton.