Moving on

Just one year ago, Heritage Christian Academy was planning to move from the Shades Mountain community to the former Riverchase Middle School.

After two years of talks with the Pelham Board of Education, a purchase contract had been signed, and Heritage Christian Academy teachers already were decorating classrooms at the Riverchase site. 

Parents and students were anticipating a new beginning in a new place for the former Shades Mountain Christian School.

And then the news came in July that abruptly squashed the hopes and dreams of many who were eager for the change.

The Pelham Board of Education had entered negotiations to sell the facility to the Hoover Board of Education instead of Heritage Christian Academy. Parents at the private school were dumbfounded.

One year after their plans were dashed, Heritage administrators are at work on a new plan that will allow the school to grow while keeping its roots in Shades Mountain.

Loan problems

What many people didn’t know at the time was that the bank that had been working on a loan agreement with Heritage Christian Academy, just days before the closing in June, suddenly needed more time to get the loan approved, according to Bill Vandiver, who served as HCA’s school board president the past seven years.

HCA proposed a short-term lease agreement until the long-term financing could be worked out, but the Pelham Board of Education wanted to go ahead and sell, and Hoover was making a cash offer, Vandiver said.

HCA Headmaster Lynn Gurganus said he thinks the closure of Southeastern Bible College on May 31, 2017, had a ripple effect in the banking industry, affecting HCA’s loan.

 “It was a devastating blow when it happened, but I think to a person we’d say we’re in a lot better situation than we would have been had it gone through,” Gurganus said.

Heritage Christian Academy then considered buying the Southeastern Bible College campus on Valleydale Road instead, but eventually the school decided to stay put on the campus of Shades Mountain Community Church, formerly known as Shades Mountain Independent Church, on Tyler Road.

New building

Now, HCA has completed its first school year since deciding to stay put and plans to construct a new school building on the Tyler Road campus.

There were plans years earlier for a new school building there, but they were scrapped when the decision was made to move off campus. Now, school officials are dusting off those plans and taking another look, Gurganus said.

Shades Mountain Community Church has welcomed the school back and offered to give the school 3 acres for a new facility across Tyler Road from the main church building. Those 3 acres are right next to the gymnasium, between the parking lot and ring road that leads to the baseball and softball fields.

Gurganus said the more school officials thought about it, the more it made sense to remain on the Shades Mountain campus. Instead of having to pay $4.5 million for Riverchase Middle School, they have access to free land right across the street, with baseball, softball and soccer fields in place. They already have a gym and parking lot, too.

“It’s the perfect situation,” he said. “Why we tried to move from it, I’m not sure.”

Gurganus and Vandiver said school officials still are not certain how big the new building will be or how much it will cost, but Gurganus expects they will begin moving into it in three to five years after restarting a capital campaign. The move likely will be done in phases, probably starting with kindergarten and the elementary grades, he said.

In years past, the school had utilized the church gymnasium and five classrooms attached to it, but those were unavailable this past school year, Gurganus said. When the school decided to move, the church leased out those classrooms and the gym to other groups. Those leases have now expired, so the school is moving back into those areas, he said.

For the 2018-19 school year, HCA will use that space as a middle school building, giving some separation between those students and both the elementary and high school students, Gurganus said. Some office personnel will move across the street to the gym building as well, he said.

That will free up space for the church, which has delayed some of its plans for the space it expected to gain from the school’s relocation. “The church was very gracious in putting aside some of their plans to allow us to come back,” Gurganus said.

Church connection

Rick Goertzen, the pastor of Shades Mountain Community Church, said having the school come back to the church campus was somewhat of a no-brainer. “Welcoming them back was not a problem at all,” Goertzen said. “They needed a place to land.”

The church, though fiscally separated from the school since 2011, still believes in the mission of the school and wants to see it succeed, said Goertzen, who has been the pastor there more than two years.

The two entities struggled with some financial and governance challenges as they went through a fiscal separation. However, Goertzen said that whatever problems were in the relationship in the past have been put aside, and the two parties are cooperating more intensely. 

“I think the relationship between us is fantastic,” Goertzen said. “We’ve gotten together to make each other better and stronger.”

Gurganus, who came to HCA as a counselor two years ago and took over as headmaster in January, said the relationship with the church is far better now than it was prior to the school deciding to leave.

However, all the changing of plans has had an impact on the schools’ enrollment.

Two years ago, the school had about 230 students, and now it is down to about 200, Gurganus said.

Some people left when they thought the school was moving to Riverchase because it was farther for them to drive. When the move to Riverchase didn’t happen, others left because they had moved to Riverchase to be near the school, Gurganus said.

HCA eliminated its kindergarten class for 3-year-olds this past school year because it didn’t think the Riverchase campus, formerly used for middle schoolers, would accommodate 3-year-olds well, Gurganus said. But the 3-year-old class is being added back for the 2018-19 school year and it is full, as is the K-4 class, he said.

Roller coaster ride

Mick Vigneulle, whose father Dick Vigneulle founded Shades Mountain Christian School in 1974 and pastored Shades Mountain Independent Church for decades, has had five children graduate from the school, and his wife teaches there now. He said the past 10 to 12 years have been like a roller coaster for the school.

Shades Mountain Christian in 2006 made an offer to buy the former Berry High School campus from the Hoover school board for $13.8 million, but the deal fell through because the school could not come up with enough money to make it happen.

“We kept looking and looking and looking [for a place to move],” Mick Vigneulle said.

The Riverchase Middle School site looked like a done deal, but then it fell apart, and then Southeastern Bible College was considered. The uncertainty was trying on people but finally there seems to be a sense of stability, he said.

“They just needed to know we’re not moving anymore,” Mick Vigneulle said. “It just made sense for us to come back home. I feel like we’re going to grow now.”

Goertzen said he believes the school still has to gain some of its momentum back, but it has a good foundation on which to start. “I’m looking forward to seeing them grow and do great things,” he said.

Gurganus said the failed effort to move to Riverchase was devastating to the school community, and it took probably half of the first semester this past year to come to grips with it.

“It was a death. You go through the grieving process,” he said. “We identified so much with that place that I think we thought we had to have that place to do what we do. We talked about it so long. It had been a two-year conversation. When we didn’t have that place, we were adrift. … It shook us to the core.”

But it didn’t break them, he said. The faculty finally realized they can fulfill their calling to speak into the lives of students right where they are, he said.

Vandiver said it has been a difficult ride, but God has given him a peace about staying on Tyler Road. “I think we’re definitely where we’re supposed to be,” he said. “I think we’re on firm footing, and I think we’re poised to grow again.”