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Pilot Program Key in Getting Cross Classical Academy Off the Ground In this exclusive interview, Mandi Moore and Joyce Baker explain how a Pilot Program can make your UMS launch a smooth ride By Jonathan Bell
Students from Cross Classical Academy’s Pilot Program Kindergarten Class (L to R): Hannah Davis, Harrison Davis, and Cameron Moore.
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t’s often said that necessity is the mother of invention. If the adage is true, one needs look no farther than Cross Classical Academy, Brownwood, Texas’s newest educational option, for evidence to back it up. At first glance, Brownwood may seem like an unlikely location for a UniversityModel School®. Two hours from Fort Worth and eighty-five miles from Abilene, the local commercial hub and county seat (the Greater Brownwood area, which includes neighboring Early and a few outlying areas, claims about 30,000 people) is typical of many small towns throughout Texas. Demographically, Brownwood is short on disposable income. The median household income here hovers around $33,000—not destitute, but a good measure below the state average of $50,000. Culturally, its residents are at heart rural people, many of them farmers and ranchers, and they live here either because they have for generations or because Brownwood offers the conveniences of town without the bustle and infringements of a larger city. It’s the kind of place where shopkeepers still know their customers—and often their spouses, children, and pets—by name, where boys are groomed for high school football nearly from birth, where the town slogan is “Feels Like Home.” Yet knowing the challenges a UMS would face in a town like this didn’t dissuade a courageous cadre of Brownwood residents from plunging ahead. Cross Classical Academy, the brainchild of 35-year-old Mandi Moore, launched a pilot program last Fall in preparation for its official opening in 2011. Together with 50-year-old Joyce Baker, a former elementary teacher and mother of four grown children, Moore has quickly propelled the fledgling school into the local spotlight, offering an alternative to parents who desire to provide a Christian Classical education for their children. Moore, whose unassuming title is Administrator, heads up the school’s organizational and marketing efforts. As Dean of Academics, Baker is teaching the inaugural kindergarten class and developing next year’s academic curriculum for all grade levels. I sat down with Mandi and Joyce for some insight into their vision for Cross Classical Academy. Brownwood, Texas seems an unlikely spot for a UniversityModel School. What inspired you to start a school like this here? Mandi: For me, the school really grew out of my own needs. A few years ago, I began prayerfully examining education options for my daughter Cameron [now age 5]. I served as a volunteer mentor in public schools for three years. I knew of the sole Christian school in Brownwood. I had looked into homeschooling. However, I knew Cameron’s gifting, her strengths, her weaknesses, and her personality were not well suited to any of these options. Furthermore, I was reluctant to have her removed from family life forty hours a week, and I preferred an option that allowed for high parental involvement. Through a series of steps—including visiting several other UMS schools in Central Texas and attending a NAUMS New School Workshop and National Convention in Fort Worth—I became convinced that the UMS model was a perfect fit for my family. In the ensuing months, my husband and I began to feel that the Lord was leading us to make the University-Model an available option to the families in our community. When did the process start for you? Mandi: May 2009. Over the next few months, I researched what exactly launching a school would entail and began developing an agenda and a calendar. By summer, the Bakers were
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www.umsjournal.com
January/February 2011