War Hill Christian Academy Executive Director Troy Shaw prepares to cut the ribbon during a tour of the school Thursday.

DAWSONVILLE, Ga. — War Hill Christian Academy is one of the best kept secrets in Dawson County. The college-prep, non-denominational school has been providing a quality Christian education to k-12 students for more than 30 years and yet has only 60 students and five certified teachers on its small campus on Dawsonville Highway.

The school’s new Executive Director Troy Shaw was hired last spring to change that.

“It’s great that it’s been around that long but what is bad is nobody knows about it,” he said Thursday while leading city and county officials and members of the Dawson County Chamber of Commerce on a tour of the campus.

Troy Shaw demonstrates one of the workbooks used by students at War Hill Christian Academy.

War Hill employs an Accelerated Christian Education and all teachers provide personal, hands-on mentorship. The school’s mission is to meet the need of home schools and church schools around the world. It is fully accredited by the Georgia Accrediting Commission and students consistently test higher than their counterparts in conventional programs and go on to pursue higher education with skills, values, and character qualities that are exemplary.

They also have dual enrollment opportunities through Truett McConnell University, the University of North Georgia and Lanier Technical College. The school’s vision is to develop a generation equipped spiritually, academically, emotionally, physically and socially to change the world.

But the small Christian school has its challenges.

“Every year is a financial challenge,” Shaw said. “The school is a ministry of War Hill Church and without it, the school would not exist because every year it loses money.”

So this year, the school has launched a Partners in Education (PIE) program that so far has raised about $7,000.

Thanks to its “partners” and many prayers, War Hill has made some modest improvements to its campus.

Shaw said thanks to the PIE program, the school has purchased new flooring for some of the classrooms, new chairs and a new 55” flat screen television for each room.

“The TVs are more user friendly for our teaching style than smart boards because they can connect to U-tube and do power point presentations,” Shaw explained. “We also have a new security system that we’re very proud of for the protection of our children and we have bought a couple of new computers for our classrooms thanks to PIE.”

That is not to say the school has everything it needs. War Hill fields a boys’ and girls’ basketball team and girls’ volleyball team and the gymnasium floor is in desperate need of replacement. So is the roof. More partners in education are badly needed and Shaw is working hard to find them.

Meanwhile, Shaw and the War Hill staff will continue to pray and provide a quality Christian education for students and give thanks for their blessings.

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