EP #190 Freedom Christian Academy Partners With Parents To Shape Faith And Learning

A new school is opening in Stafford, and the leaders behind it are making some bold, parent-friendly choices: small class sizes, back-to-basics learning, and a Christ-centered foundation that shows up in everyday instruction. We’re joined by Angel Mora, head of school and elder at Freedom Church, and Brenda Collins, Director of Teaching and Learning, to share the real story of how Freedom Christian Academy is being built and what families can expect from day one.

Angel walks us through the mission and the heart behind starting at the elementary level, when kids form core skills and lifelong habits. Brenda explains what it looks like to weave faith and a biblical worldview into reading, writing, science, and classroom culture so students can describe, defend, and explain what they believe. We also dig into why relationships matter so much for learning and how Brenda’s special education background shapes an approach that looks for the “why” behind how each child learns.

We get practical about admissions too: the application, references, student assessment, and the alignment conversation that makes sure the school and family are truly partnering. If you’re concerned about a startup school, Angel addresses the big question head-on, including mentorship support and plans toward accreditation. Then we talk about what makes FCA feel different: no one-to-one Chromebooks for little kids, more time outside, hands-on projects, raised-bed gardens, a donated greenhouse, and even plans for chickens and rabbits to make learning tangible and memorable.

If you’re searching for a private Christian school in Stafford, VA, this conversation is a great place to start. Check out frdmchurch.academy, then subscribe, share this with a local parent, and leave us a review so more Fredericksburg and Stafford families can find the show.

Angel Mora and Brenda Collins

Freedom Christian Academy

frdmchurch.academy

+1 540-726-0850

12 Flatford Rd, Stafford, VA 22554

Transcript

Welcome And Meet The Guests

Speaker 1 0:01

This is the Fredericksburg Neighbors Podcast, the place where local businesses and neighbors come together. Here's your host, Dori Stewart.

Speaker 2 0:13

Welcome back to another episode of the FXBG Neighbors Podcast, where we share the stories of our favorite local brands. I have two special guests joining me today. We've got Angel Mora, he is the head of school and elder of Freedom Church, and Brenda Collins, Director of Teaching and Learning of a brand new school opening this fall in Stafford, Freedom Christian Academy. Angel and Brenda, welcome to the podcast.

Speaker 3 0:42

Hi, thank you for inviting us.

Speaker 0:45

Thank you so much for having us.

Speaker 2 0:47

I am really excited to dive in and learn about each of you and learn about this new school. It's

What Freedom Christian Academy Is

Speaker 2 0:55

community. So let's start there. Share with us a little bit about Freedom Christian Academy.

Speaker 3 1:03

Yeah, uh for sure. Well, um, once again, thanks for having us here. We definitely want to get to get the word out to the community about our school. Um, so like uh Dori said, I know I'm Angel, I'm the head of school and also uh an elder of Freedom Church. Freedom Christian Academy, um, also known as FCA, you know, we're a new Christian private school here in Stafford, Virginia. Um, we're opening as a ministry of Freedom Church, and our mission is what we really want to do here is partner with the families by providing a Christ-centered education and rooted in strong academics and biblical character. Um, and I guess on top of that, you know, some of the questions is, you know, we're starting intentionally at the elementary years because we feel that those uh years matter so much. Um, this is when you know children are learning the basics of reading, you know, writing, math, you know, friendships, and and of course their faith. So uh what we really want is to build a school where students are known by name, by uh, you know, their parents feel connected and teachers are supported. So, all in all, you know, we want a place where children are just learning about Christ and in academics as well. Um and one other thing that our business is uh kind of rooted in as well, we don't feel that kids should be just sitting behind screens all day. We know we want them reading real books, writing by hand, you know, thinking, discussing, creating, and working with their with their hands and learning just you know through practical and meaningful experience. And of course, the most important thing is uh learning more about Jesus.

Speaker 2 3:00

I love that. I love that. Well, thank you for bringing this to our community. And you're right, it's so important to start those early years off right.

Faith And Worldview In Class

Speaker 2 3:10

So you talk about uh, you know, uh faith in the uh in your teaching. How do you weave that into the classroom?

Speaker 3 3:21

Yeah, Brenda, go ahead.

Speaker 3:24

Thank you for asking that. That is the foundation of everything that we're doing. We want children to be able to describe, defend, and explain their faith. And we want them to be able to explain why they believe what they believe. The example that I've used in some of our school tours is my son, when he was seven years old, he said, you know, science just explains to us how God did everything, how he created everything. And to me, that the seven-year-old could understand something that 90-year-old people are still trying to figure out was so powerful that God created everything. We get to learn about God's creation through what we are reading, writing, communicating, sharing with others, how we view the world, the biblical world view of understanding who we are and our purpose in this world.

Speaker 2 4:37

Amazing. Thank you for that explanation.

Brenda’s Path Into Special Education

Speaker 2 4:40

I'd love to learn more about you, Brenda. Tell us about your background and, you know, kind of what led you to uh becoming the director of teaching and learning. Sure.

Speaker 4:51

I always knew I was going to be a teacher. Five years old in kindergarten, I knew that teaching was where I was supposed to be. Senior year of high school, I found the world of special education. Um, there was a student who needed help. I figured out what she needed and helped her. And I went home and talked to my parents about what was what happened today. And they explained to me that's special education. Um, so went to college and that was my degree. Never changed my major. That was my focus from day one. In 2002, I moved to Hawaii where I had been praying to live and teach. And I was able to walk into my first school, Malcolani Elementary, on the leeward side on Oahu. And I started as a special education teacher. That has been my joy and my love throughout my career. In Hawaii, I met my husband who was a Marine, and I tease him that he ripped me from my homeland. But we have moved now all over the world. Um, I have been licensed in seven different states. 10 years ago, we were able to be stationed in Stafford. We moved away for two years and we came back. I was able to teach at one of our local elementary schools as one year as a general education teacher and the rest as a special education teacher. And it continues to be my love. Um, I love working with kiddos that maybe you have to be a detective to figure out how they understand and how they learn and what is going to get them interested, engaged, and owning their learning. Um, and then there's sometimes some kiddos that it's hard to connect with them or maybe not always the easiest to feel the love. You have to decide to love the students. Um, and that has been my desire is loving those kiddos that are sometimes hard to reach or requires some deeper digging. Yes.

Speaker 2 7:10

Amazing. Well, thank you for sharing that. And it your background is impressive. And as you're talking, I can feel your love for teaching and love for your students. So Freedom Christian Academy is lucky to have you.

Speaker 3 7:28

Thank you. Yes.

Building The School And Admissions

Speaker 2 7:31

And so, as a brand new school, what has this journey been like bringing it to life? Angel, I'll I'll I'll send that one to you. I imagine it's been a lot of hard work.

Speaker 3 7:43

It's definitely been a journey for sure, uh, to say the least. Um, but just like we tell the parents and we tell, you know, from the pulpit at the church, you know, we got to stay rooted in God and make sure and know that this is what he wants from us. So he's the one that's guiding us for sure. Um so, like I mentioned, you know, as an elder of the church, you know, we've always wanted to um to raise disciples as young as possible. We strongly believe that the next generation is truly important here at Freedom Church. And since then, you know, between Pastor Barry and the rest of the elders, you know, we have prayed many years and decided and wanted to uh open up a school, but we're waiting for the appropriate timing. And the timing was um this year, and as we were going through it, you know, it uh stuff that we didn't know, but of course, being partnered with Brenda definitely has helped out so much. Um and then the other thing that we've been super blessed is that we have some amazing mentors and amazing people to help us and guide us through this journey. Um so it's definitely an amazing journey that we're seeking and learning every day. But the ultimate goal is once again, we want to shape our children to see God themselves and others, you know, and see how the world could work around them. Um, yeah.

Speaker 2 9:23

Wonderful. So if there is uh a family listening, parents listening, and they're curious about you know the process, the admission process, walk me through what that looks like from a parent's perspective.

Speaker 3 9:40

Yes, for sure. So how we do it, you know, we have this uh you go on Freedom Uh Freedomchurch.academy, the website, and then there is gonna be some enroll now functions, and you enroll is gonna prompt you to fill out an application. Uh, once the application, you know, it's gonna ask some you know some generic basic questions, but also uh from a pastoral reference and a teaching reference. Um and the purpose of that is just to see how our alignment is because we want to ensure that our school and yourself as parents are aligned uh for the same mission and of course our um alignment with God and our values here at Freedom Church and our statement of faith. Uh so after that, you know, Brenda will screen the package, uh the application, and then she will perform an assessment. Um, and she will determine if we are if we have the resources and abilities to teach the young child appropriately. Um, once that is done, um, it'll get routed to myself. If Brenda feels that we're capable, route to myself, and I will have a personal uh one-on-one with the parents and once again and determine uh more of the faith thing uh to ensure that there is a complete alignment between us, the school, and of course, the parents. Because, like Brenda and I say, we don't want to be the first people to teach the child about Christ and Jesus. You know, we are partnering with them, we're coming alongside them, so it has to be a mutual agreement that together we're building this child, not just the school or not just them.

Speaker 2 11:20

That makes a lot of sense.

Why Small Class Sizes Matter

Speaker 2 11:22

I see that you talk about uh small class sizes. Talk to me about the importance of that and why you have made uh that intentional decision.

Speaker 3 11:34

I'll let Brenda take that one. She's uh definitely smarter in the educational piece.

Speaker 11:41

It's not brand new information that smaller class sizes better support students. You're able to meet the needs of the students. Um, in public education, you walk into a classroom and you have needs of children who are new to our country, children who learn in a very unique way, children who are thinking so abstractly. The teachers are amazing at meeting the needs of the students. You can't meet the needs of your students when you have too many students. We are very intentional about keeping our classrooms no more than 18 students. The goal is 15 students going up to 18 students. We are going to maintain licensed teachers in the classrooms. And also not all private schools are able to provide the paraprofessional support and extra adult support to make sure that we're meeting the needs of those students. Teachers are able to get to know their students, how they learn, how they work, how they process what is interesting to them, and able to build those relationships. If kids are not safe and don't have relationships with the people they're working with, they're not going to learn to the best of their ability. So we want every child to meet their potential. And our responsibility is helping support them in meeting that potential. And we do that in part by maintaining those small classrooms. Amazing.

Speaker 2 13:24

You're really setting the students up for success. I love that. Thank you.

Trust, Mentors, And The Growth Plan

Speaker 2 13:30

Do you hear any myths or misconceptions that you would like to clear up for us about your school?

Speaker 3 13:40

Yeah. Um, you know, as I do my interviews or as we do the tours, you know, uh I guess maybe it's not a misconception, maybe it is truly a fair question. But uh, you know, families ask us, you know, you're a new school. How you how do you know this will be a good school? Is it gonna be successful? Is it gonna make it? And and and you know, and it's definitely like I said, a very, very fair question because you know, we appreciate that the parents are truly invested in finding that right school for their precious little children. So once again, very good questions. But I guess one thing that kind of I alluded to earlier, and you know, one thing that we're doing here at FCA is we are really not starting from nothing, not from scratch. You know, we have, of course, the I think the biggest thing is the support from the Freedom Church itself. You know, we're ministry of them. So um, but also we are working with some very, very experienced school mentors from uh one of them is from ACSI, the accreditation uh agency that we're gonna seek accreditation from. You know, we have the amazing opportunity to be assigned the mentor who is gonna eventually inspect us once we become accredited. So uh he is reviewing all our documents, making sure we have the appropriate curriculum. So, and with this process, and we've been assigned other mentors as well. Um, and throughout this whole process, you know, we've received uh some good encouragement and affirmations that we are uh doing really well. Some uh mentors are saying that we're ahead of most startup schools that they've seen. So, you know, that's of course really encouraging from us or for us. And I think but the other key piece, you know, like person that you're talking to right now, uh Brenda, we have an amazing team and and with so many talents and gifts, you know. And I think that's the talents and gifts is what's more important than the actual experience because uh they could couple their experience with their gifts that God has blessed them with. Um, from from leadership, operations, finances, ministry, and some of those we've had uh blessed with some volunteers that help us in those areas. So um assisting us with boosting, you know, some of those startup costs that we really don't need. We have all this extra help and being in a in a church that has, once again, a lot of talents and experience has definitely helped us there. So one thing we have realized is you know, is it's not just Brenda and I who's doing this, you know, it's everybody helping us, you know, praying for us, getting us through it. So I guess the one thing I just want to tell everybody, you know, yes, we definitely understand, you know, we have to earn your trust, but you know, our goal here is to be very clear, consistent, and faithful in how we build FCA from day one. So please come and check us out, come and think of us. Uh, and and and we promise you that we are doing our very best to uh, I guess, relieve you potentially that misconception. Or, you know, like I said, it's a fair question.

Speaker 2 17:07

Yeah, thank you for for clearing that up. I imagine that gives a lot of parents some some peace of mind. And congratulations on your strong start. That's um that's the really big that you're even ahead of the curve. And so that leads me to my next question. What does Freedom Christian Academy look like in the next, say, five to 10 years? Can you share with us a little bit about your goals for the school?

Speaker 3 17:35

Yes, I'll start and then I'll definitely turn over to Brenda. Um, see if I've missed anything. So our first year, this year, our goal was only to open from K through second. Um, with requests from very interested parents and you know, of course, families. They've convinced us to open K through five. Um and and we're we're excited to do it. You know, that was eventually going to be our goal. Our goal was gonna be it, like you mentioned, those five years was this year K through the second, the following year open third grade, and then the following year fourth, and then fifth. Um, but we're opening up K through five, and we're doing our best to uh um to accommodate all the grades, and and and you know, like Brenda said, we have the teachers that peripher professional health. But the other what we want to do here in the very near future, and I'm hoping I pray, keep on praying, we keep on praying uh that either the middle this year or next year is open up a preschool as well, um, and also before and after care. The preschool is just it's taking a bit longer because there's a couple extra permits that we got to go through, and the before and after care, it's more of a enrollment. If we get enough enrollment, you know, we could boost the before and after care. But as far as um structural, you know, the room at the church, we definitely have the room for it. And uh there has actually been a conversation and we're definitely keep on praying about is uh you know, a couple parents, are you gonna do middle school? Uh and you know, we'll pray about it. We're definitely praying about, you know, Brenda and I and and Pastor Barry, you know, keep saying, we'll do whatever God wants us to do in a course with the parents. So it's um we have this we have the space, so it's definitely our our vision is big. We just gotta make sure we're aligned with God's.

Speaker 2 19:42

Yeah, that makes a lot of sense. Brenda, do you have anything to add to that?

Speaker 19:48

The addition I would contribute is we are intentionally focused on the foundation that we're building and making sure that we are strong from the start and able to grow from that foundation. So that balance of the need of the community and the need of our families with growing too big too fast and can't sustain it. We are very intentional and have been I've been working on this in my mind and in my heart for about two years. Um, and then with the church, we've been working on it for a long time on making sure that we have the support, the facilities, the room for the growth, but not outpacing ourselves. So that has been a huge part of the intentionality. Also making sure that we have our strong culture, our strong faith, that we have spiritually mature Christians supporting our school. We have been that God's timing of providing the launch team, the volunteers and the congregation backing the school. It's like Mr. Morris said, it's already more than what we had said we were starting with. Um we see the growth coming and just being so careful about honoring our inaugural families and honoring our future families.

Speaker 2 21:32

Amazing. Amazing. I love that you are being super intentional in the faith, but also, you know, it's what's best for the children in the end. And I really love your approach with this. Thank you. Is there anything that we haven't talked about yet that maybe you want um families to know about your school?

Hands-On Learning And How To Visit

Speaker 21:59

I have a couple of things. Is that all right, Mr. Mora? So one of several of our philosophies about this school, Mr. Mora had alluded to it earlier, we're not sitting behind screens. There has been an overkill of promoting technology within the classroom. At FCA, we are not using one-on-one Chromebooks or computers with littles. Each classroom will have a smart board and I might show you know a two-minute alphabet song video, or we might pull up a science observation, but we are not sitting behind computers. We are very much back to basics reading, writing, and math along with that faith development and then being outside as much as possible. I am so excited about having raised gardens, raised bed gardens. We are, we have a chicken coop that we will soon be filling with chickens. We are looking to build and sustain rabbit hutches for rabbits. And we would love to see the students what can they build and create? Are they going to open a little egg store? Are they going to use the fiber from the rabbits to create and grow process sell? How are they going to use this? And our science, we're not just learning about plant systems and processes from a science textbook. We're using the raised beds. We um have also had a greenhouse donated to the school. So during the winter months we're going to have the greenhouse growing our fruits and vegetables and whatever else the kids are interested in. We are very much a hands-on um we're also bringing back more recess the kids need to be outside playing not just reading about what they're learning but learning and experiencing what they're doing. So I'm very excited about this. I went to a workshop last summer um with an incredible woman um outside of Richmond who is running an incredible school and there is just so much wisdom in doing it building it creating it experiencing it and that is a huge focus of our school.

Speaker 3 24:37

Yeah I I could add a couple things too and I um so our chapel our chapel time is going to be a truly it's going to be a once a week chapel session that's going to be led by our church leadership as well but not also them. You know what we're going to be working with with other church leaders around the community that are aligned with our church values to come and you know share some word to our these young children. So we're super excited not just to get the time to do chapel but also you know partnering with our rest of our church leaders or church community to pour to these young kids um and then also uh a really one that I really enjoyed that we agreed on as the as the school is uniform. So we are going to be a uniform based school they're going to you know kind of like this the logo here that's going to have their polos with um with them and you know it's going to be super cool. So super excited about that. And like Brenda said it's the basics it's going back to hands on you know from we had a wonderful lady kind of volunteer from the church will teach your children how to crochet you know stuff little things that I think schools nowadays kind of forget. So super excited.

Speaker 2 25:55

Yeah absolutely thank you for sharing that and I feel the excitement from both of you and it just sounds like such a wonderful environment for the kids and I imagine it's going to be uh a difficult process um you're you're gonna get uh your 18 students and then you might have to turn some people away because it just sounds like such a great environment for kids to grow and learn. So congratulations on on your school I'm really excited for you.

Speaker 3 26:29

And if there are parents listening that want to learn more if they want to come visit you share with us your contact information yes so uh go on the website I think the website would be the easiest because that's a one-stop shop that has you know how to book a a tour you know if you're ready just to um to apply is everything there and also of course it gives a the information in general um about the school about the staff and everything that we believe in what we're teaching but it's a frdm church or church academy so frdm church academy that's the website there it's uh everything is there it has our phone number info whatever you need uh just call us and and we'll we'll communicate as quick as possible amazing amazing well Angel and Brenda thank you so much for joining me on the podcast today and sharing Freedom Christian Academy with us thank you so much thank you thank you for listening to the Fredericksburg Neighbors podcast to nominate your favorite local businesses to be featured on the show go to fxbg neighborspodcast .com