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Cornerstone Christian Academy Welcomes 500 New Students
Cornerstone Christian Academy Welcomes 500 New Students
Photos by Haley Toth
By Leonard Shapiro
Sam Botta will always remember the day— Feb. 6, 2022—when he and his wife Lynda were sitting at their home in Chesapeake, Virginia and livestreaming a Sunday sermon being delivered by Senior Pastor Gary Hamrick four hours away at the Cornerstone Christian Chapel in Leesburg. It was truly life changing, to say the least.
The Bottas’ local church in the Virginia Beach area had been closed because of Covid concerns and they had been told by friends about Pastor Hamrick and his ministry. They had become regular viewers of what they considered to be his inspirational sermons. And this day was no exception.
From the pulpit, Pastor Hamrick announced that Cornerstone had purchased a 90-acre property that formerly housed the Middleburg Academy until it closed in 2020. He went on to say that the church was planning to open its own school, Cornerstone Christian Academy (CCA), initially grades kindergarten through eighth, in the fall of 2023. They’ll add ninth grade the following year and eventually have all 12 and as many as 700 students.
Botta, a long-time educator and coach in both public and private schools, at the time was the athletic director at Regent University in Virginia Beach, where he had also earned his doctorate. He liked that area. He loved his job. But when Pastor Hamrick also said that anyone interested in attending the new school, or working there, needed to e-mail right away, the Bottas immediately looked at each other.
“My wife says my mouth had dropped open,” he recalled. “She pointed to me and said, ‘You have to apply.’ I said, ‘I do?’ But I knew she was right.”
Little that has happened ever since has changed his opinion. On August 22, more than 500 youngsters will descend on the school for the first bell at 8 a.m., with another 70-plus faculty and staff also on hand. And Sam Botta, Cornerstone’s first head of school, will be there to greet them one and all.
Cornerstone has made a multi-million dollar financial commitment. Over the last year, the main academic building has been totally renovated, with new flooring, re-configured offices and classrooms wired up to handle digital needs, with more to come. The gorgeous grounds feature two primary academic buildings, totaling nearly 84,000 feet, and four residential dwellings, including a sprawling manor house dating back to the 1920s, and a now totally refurbished gym and athletic fields.
On the day Pastor Hamrick announced the new school, he invited people to pre-register before the official application process began. Within five hours, 1,600 students had pre-registered from 27 different states. By the end of the week, 2,500 had responded.
Children of many Cornerstone Chapel families will make up the majority of the student body, with youngsters from all around Loudoun and Fauquier counties and beyond also attending. They will receive a faith-based Christian education with what Pastor Hamrick has described as a “biblical world view.”
Tuition from grades K-2 will be $8,000, grades 3-5 $9,250 and grades 6-8 $10,500. Scholarships and financial aid also will be available.
The rush to sign up is obviously in no small part due to dissatisfaction from some parents with local public schools, particularly in a Loudoun County system recently roiled by controversies involving the handling of a sexual assault complaint, transgender issues and concerns about the curriculum.
“So many things were happening,” Botta said. “There was an outcry from people in the community who wanted to know what they could do to counter what they believe is diametrically opposed to what they think is the way to educate their kids…The education here (at CCA) will be at the highest level. We have hired outstanding teachers, many of them from public schools.”
Said Pam Pryor, director of communications for Cornerstone Chapel, “after watching what was going on in Loudoun and some people saying parents shouldn’t have a say, we felt we had to open the school. It will be academically rigorous with religious education.”
Botta and Pryor both used the term “calling prep” as opposed to “college prep” to describe the school’s philosophy.
“Calling prep is beyond just preparing them for college, which of course we’ll do,” Botta said. “But ten or twenty years into adulthood, we want them to be good husbands and wives, great parents, leaders in their communities. That will be the true test of how we do.”
