Huntsville church opens Christian high school

While Madison County has several Christian high schools, Whitesburg Academy Upper School in Huntsville became the first Southern Baptist one with the addition of ninth-grade instruction this academic year. 
   
Established in 1999, the academy, a private school founded by Whitesburg Baptist Church, Huntsville, with the support of Pastor Jimmy Jackson, will add subsequent grades each year until 2010, when the first seniors will graduate. Approximately 200 students currently attend the academy, which is divided into the grammar school (first through fifth grade) and upper school (sixth through ninth grade). 
   
With a ratio of roughly 12 students to one teacher, each child has the advantage of being directly impacted by a Christian instructor, said Gerald Porter, principal of the upper school.
   
Mark and Suzette Baker chose to send their eighth-grader, Cameron, to the school because of the guaranteed Christian influence.
   
“Teachers have a great influence on their students. They are an authority figure, and children listen to what they say,” Suzette Baker said.
   
The planned addition of the remaining high school grades will allow students to obtain a complete classical Christian education before entering college. 
   
Along with the basic subjects, the curriculum integrates topics such as philosophy, classical languages and art. 
   
With lessons based on Christian truths, students are instructed according to the trivium method. 
   
According to this technique, grammar school and sixth-grade pupils begin with the grammar phase and are taught facts in various subjects using song, rhyme and chant repetition. 
   
The logic phase emphasizes sound argument to seventh- and eighth-grade students, while the rhetoric phase stresses persuasive thought for high schoolers.
   
“We give them a springboard to be critical thinkers,” Porter said.
   
Porter hopes students will leave the academy ready to actively impact society and plans to help them by implementing a program he calls Student Leadership University/Student Leadership Institute. 
   
It will involve student leadership training with a threefold goal: to teach students to be servants to one another, to be servants in the local church and to be evangelistic within the community.
   
“We want to produce children who want to take back the world for Christ,” Porter said.
   
Michele Tate believes her daughter Meagan, a ninth-grader, will benefit from this approach. 
   
“She is quiet but I want her to see God’s definition of a leader,” Tate said.