High School

Absolutely, and we have mapped out our curriculum for Grades 9-12 already. We believe in providing options for students to experience great academic success and personal growth. As a result, we have created a Grade 9-12 curriculum that offers a variety of course options and pathways to have a strong and positive high school experience and to be well-prepared for life after high school. For instance, based on what math course was taken in Grade 8, a 9th grader can take Algebra 1, Geometry, or Geometry Honors. Our curriculum also meets state graduation guidelines.

Please see the Curriculum & Graduation Guide below.

In addition, we plan to work with nearby Concordia University to offer additional course options for our students while enabling them to earn college credit and experience a taste of college life. Please see the Curriculum & Graduation Guide below for more details about dual-enrollment with Concordia. We are delighted to be a 5-minute drive to a faith-based university with shared values and a Christian worldview.

Yes, it will be. We are currently accredited through Grade 8 with Christian Schools International, which offers curriculum, teacher support, leadership training, testing, and other services to nearly 400 member schools in the United States and abroad. As we add each high school grade, CSI stands ready and eager to work with us to accredit those grades each year.

$11,250 with a $500 discount for the first 30 families. In addition, because we desire Christian education to be accessible to all Christian families, AACS has a robust tuition assistance program that offers up to 60 percent of tuition based on financial need. Learn more about tuition, fees, and assistance.

Educators who:

• love the Lord and want to help high schoolers grow in and embrace their faith
• are passionate about high schoolers and the unique season of life that they are in
• hold traditional and biblical views on critical social issues in our world today
• have clear education, training, and/or work experience that demonstrate that they will be excellent teachers

We passionately believe that the unique leadership and learning opportunities of being part of a new high school will provide our students with something rare and “once-in-a-lifetime” that no other local high school can offer. It will foster an entrepreneurial, pioneering, and service-oriented mindset that is irreplaceable and that will serve them well in life beyond high school. They will also have a voice in shaping the start of our high school by being among its first students.

Also, while a new high school, Ann Arbor Christian has a successful track record of 30+ years that we are building on and extending out into high school grades.

Yes. We want to ensure a high school education that meets and exceeds state standards. Please see the Curriculum & Graduation Guide below.

Yes and no. Most of our students will attend a four-year college, so we are fully committed to providing an excellent high school experience that prepares them extremely well for college. So, in that sense, we are college preparatory. However, we do recognize that attending college may not be God’s calling for all students and that there are other good paths that our students may follow. As a result, we view our high school as preparing our graduates well for life after high school.

In fact, we will launching our first teams this fall:

Girls’ Volleyball – We are excited to have our own AACS volleyball team, and scheduling has begun! A handful of games and tournaments have officially been scheduled for the fall high school volleyball season. In addition to use our own existing gym, we are actively exploring rental arrangements with facilities with a gym.

Cross Country – We are thrilled to have our own AACS co-ed cross country team.

Boys’ Soccer – We have agreed to enter into a co-operative agreement with Father Gabriel Richard High School for soccer. The co-op is a 2 year agreement, after which we could re-evaluate the need/desire to continue. For year one, they will be asking us to provide 5-10 students to play on the soccer team. If we have 10+ students by May 15, we may plan to field our own AACS team and will not do the co-op arrangement.

Boys’ Football – We have agreed to enter into a co-operative agreement with Father Gabriel Richard High School for football. The co-op is a 2 year agreement, after which we could re-evaluate the need/desire to continue.

Swimming and Hockey – We will continue to evaluate numbers for swimming and hockey to see if we will have enough to co-op for those sports as well.

We believe all children can succeed and thrive at school, and we have put in structures and people in place to support that belief. Please see our Student Support section section.

We currently plan to rent or purchase a shuttle van or school bus to transport students between our Main Campus and the high school campus (Upper Campus). For instance, a family with multiple children could drop off all of its students at the Main Campus, and the bus would then bring the high schoolers to the Upper Campus.  The bus may also be used for field trips and athletic activities. More details to come.

Currently, we plan to start the day at 8:30am and end approximately at 3:30pm. There will be an option for students to arrive earlier and to stay late. In addition, we are working on a creative and healthy class schedule with built-in time during the school day each week for enrichment activities, problem-solving opportunities, and student support. We will likely have block periods that are 75 minutes in length and meet on alternating days.

As a starting point, we are targeting 50 students for 9th grade. We will open regardless if we reach 50 or not, but we believe 50 is a good size to start with and is very reachable.

We believe that these groups will help us reach our goal:

• Students from our own 8th grade class
• Students from other Christian schools that end with 8th grade
• Many homeschooling families
• Many Christian families in the public schools who want something different and more life-giving for their children

Each high school student will be assigned his or her own individual Chromebook. These laptops are important and helpful learning and productivity tools for our students. The Chromebooks are owned by the school and will be filtered through our school’s security and filtering system.

In addition, we have set up a new computer lab at our Upper Campus with large 24-inch high definion monitors. Knowing that high school work will become increasingly complex and involve juggling multiple windows on their Chromebooks, the computer lab will allow students to plug their Chromebooks into the 24-inch monitors. This will allow our high schoolers to have a larger screen for their school work, as well as a large screen to share during partner work. 

Network printers will also be available to the students to print to.

Our school also uses the Google Apps for Education platform. Each student will be issued a school account that allows them access to Google’s productivity suite, such as Gmail, Google Docs, Google Sheets, Google Slides, and Google Drive.

Yes, there will be a uniform. Details to come later.

In order for our students to be fully present and engaged with each other and their teachers, phones (including other cellular devices, such as a cellular smartwatch) will not be allowed during the school day. They will need to be off and stored in their locker during the school day. If parents need to reach their student for urgent matters, they may contact the school office.

We are invested in the students’ relationships to being based on face-to-face, in-person interactions while at school.

We are very open to talking with any interested homeschooling families about a part-time enrollment.

Ann Arbor Christian School is an independent, interdenominational, and private Christian school not associated with a church or denomination. While our high school campus is located at Huron Hills Church (soon to merge with Grace Ann Arbor Church), we are not a school of that church and are completely autonomous from them. However, we are very grateful for the partnership that we have with the church and for their hospitality in hosting our high school.

As a school, about 45 churches are represented within our school community. We appreciate the diversity of churches represented in our school and the richness it provides to our community.

Although families in the school are members of churches that are unified on the essentials of the Christian faith (as summarized by the Apostles’ Creed or Nicean Creed), they may hold differing views on certain non-essential aspects of faith and practice, such as how baptism should be performed, how communion is celebrated, and the role of women in church leadership. Yet, our common mission of helping children grow as disciples of Jesus Christ empowers us to respond to these challenges with Christian love and maturity.

Rather than teach the non-core doctrine of any one particular denomination, we focus on developing the Christian character of the students, their knowledge of the Scriptures, their relationship with their Lord and Savior, and their understanding of what it means to be disciples of Jesus Christ. We are united in the foundational beliefs that make us all Christians.

At the same time, with a commitment to truth and love working together, we also hold steadfast to traditional and biblical views on critical social issues in our world today. We believe in God’s call to love all and to do so without compromising convictions.