In August 2016, United Christian Academy opened in Hattiesburg, Mississippi, to serve local children from financially disadvantaged households with a full-time Christian education and support system. The vision is to see our students come to know Jesus Christ as Savior and move out of physical and spiritual poverty, and one day become Christian leaders in their families and communities.  In our fifth year, we are currently serving 20 students in grades 3-8 during the 2020-2021 school year.

WHO WE ARE:

Founded by United Christian Ministries, United Christian Academy is a “Christian Education Center” that grew out of a long time vision of wrapping around and deepening the support of the children served through UCM’s Bible studies across the city. We understand that in order to really give these children a chance to move forward in life, they need more support.

• Location: 3901 Lincoln Road, Hattiesburg, MS 39402 — Woodland Presbyterian Church has generously given us the use of the old Presbyterian Christian School (PCS) building on their campus.
• Mascot: Timberjacks — Named after our founder, Jack Kennedy, and the former minor league baseball team “The Timberjacks” in the City of Hattiesburg in the early 1900’s. We brought the “Jacks” back to the Burg and now it’s a team for all kids.
• Grades served: 3rd – 8th grade
• School Type: United Christian Academy operates under the “homeschool” umbrella in the State of Mississippi. Our parents have signed their student out of the public school system and entrusted UCA with providing an academic and life skills program for their child. The curriculum and educational resources we choose to use, ongoing literacy and math skills progress tracking, annual standardized testing, report cards, and transcripts ensure we have a quality program that allows our students to be academically successful for years to come. Students who leave UCA as an 8th grader will be prepared to succeed in high school and beyond!

WHAT WE DO:

United Christian Academy gives us the opportunity to impact the “whole child” – socially, academically, physically, emotionally and spiritually.

We serve 20 students (3rd-8th grade) with a Christian education and support center, 8:00am-2:30pm, Monday – Friday. A hybrid between the offerings of traditional school and homeschooling, UCA provides a challenging academic program, individualized literacy and math interventions to help close gaps, Christian discipleship and nurturing, life skills development, physical education, social enrichment, two meals each day, and transportation to/from school for many students. The results have been incredible to witness!

In the 2021-2022 academic year, we plan to serve more students and their families with this same model. Our hope is to enroll 25 students in grades 3-8 for this upcoming year.

OUR IMPACT:

Not only have we seen significant personal development (i.e., growth in social skills, life skills, conflict resolution, and personal responsibility) in our students, but they are also visibly healthier and have made important strides academically.

• YEAR 1: End of year testing revealed half of UCA’s students gained 2.5-3 full grade levels in their reading skills. Multiple students completed 2 years of math curriculum in a single year and 60% made a perfect score on the Iowa Assessments computation test.
• YEAR 2: EOY of year testing provided an opportunity to compare year-over-year growth and the results were outstanding!
  • The average growth for returning UCA students for each subject was 1.5-2 full grade levels from May 2018-May 2019.
• YEAR 3: We were once again impressed by EOY testing showing returning students growing above and beyond grade level expectations in 2018-2019.
• YEAR 4: We graduated 3 graduates at UCA.  EOY testing showed two graduates to have a cumulative score equivalent to a 10th grade level in 2019-2020.

We are closing their gaps!

WHERE WE’RE GOING:

We are planning and preparing to bring in a new group of 3rd grade students in Fall 2021.

We are neither publicly funded nor tuition-based. As a result, we rely upon the generous contributions of individuals, businesses, and churches for the daily operation of our program. Please visit our support page and consider a gift today.