Mercy Preparatory Academy now enrolling

Mercy Preparatory Academy, a new university-model school in Waxahachie located at 108 Center St., is now enrolling kindergarten through 10th grade students for its first school year, 2023-24.

Using the university-model, the school will hold classes Tuesdays and Thursdays, sending lesson plans and homework assignments home for Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays. Labs and extracurriculars, including athletics, fine arts and more, will be held Fridays.

Administrator and founder, Erica Phillips, said she and her husband first felt called by God to start the school in 2018. They wanted to give Ellis County residents another option for education. As parents of four children, the Phillipses, long-time fans of the university-model school, had a vision for what they hoped their kids would experience at school.

“We love the university-model because that’s the college schedule in a Christian environment,” Phillips said. “There are great things about the model itself, but then yes, we had a passion for what it should like for our kids. We wanted diversity. We wanted community service. We want this loving culture that is just nurturing them the whole way. Like ‘Cheers,’ where you go and everyone knows your name – we wanted that where they could feel like it’s just an extension of their family, their church, or their community.”

Phillips wants Mercy Prep to be a place where different people come together.

“We want diversity in all aspects of the word,” Phillips said. “We want denominational diversity, socioeconomic diversity, racial and ethnic diversity… . We wanted something that would create a picture of what we think God’s world is like. The kids are in an environment where they are receiving biblical principles and in a Christian environment where people are setting examples for them, but they’re also exposed to different kinds of people. The goal is for the kids to experience diversity, so they would see that there are people that believe differently from them, and we can still get along and love each other.”

Service is a core component to Mercy Prep, Phillips said. Every student is required to do community service, and the school will have required service days on Columbus Day and Martin Luther King Jr. Day, where students, teachers and staff do community service projects together.

“We want community inward, so we want that whole mentality of it takes a village to raise a child – that happens here,” Phillips said. “We want them also to have a servant’s heart, where they’re going out into their local community and serving in various ways.”

In 2018, the Phillipses began working with the National Association of University Model Schools to create their new school. They attended workshops and trainings and met with other university-model schools. Phillips got her graduate degree in Christian school administration from Southwestern Assemblies of God University.

Mercy Preparatory Academy was set to open its doors in 2020, then the COVID-19 pandemic hit the nation.

“We recognized that was not the time to open a school, so we just set it to the side,” Phillips said. “My husband and I continued to prepare for whenever God’s timing was right.”

When multiple families began to approach them with support for Mercy Preparatory Academy, they knew it was time to open for the 2023-24 school year. Phillips said the school has almost filled its teaching positions, with some of its classes close to full.

“We feel like God has fulfilled all of that, so we know the timing is right, and we’re really excited about all of it and offering it to the community,” she said.

With the help of experienced teachers, Phillips created a unique and rigorous curriculum for Mercy Prep, taking materials from homeschool curriculum, ACSI, and more.

“To us, rigor does not mean busy work,” she said. “Rigor means consistently stretching their minds. They’re going to be challenged, but they’re also in a safe space where it’s OK to fail while learning new things.”

While students who graduate from Mercy Preparatory Academy will be prepared for college, Phillips said the school is not a college preparatory school. Instead, it is focused on preparing students for any path they choose to take.

“They’re absolutely going to be prepared to go to college, but if they want to go into ministry, the military, the trades, they want to go be a parent, we support that,” she said. “We want them to do what they feel God is calling them to do and not push them into a singular track. We want them to be strong in their faith but secure in who they are, so that when they leave school, whether they’re going to college or anything else, they’re able to share the good news, and they’re also not going to waver in their faith.”

Junior high and high school sports and the school’s fine arts will compete in tournaments and other competitions through the Texas Christian Athletic League.

Mercy Prep plans to complete its certification process with NAUMS by the end of the 2023-24 school year, which gives it accreditation through Cognia. Eventually, the school will expand to pre-K3 to 12th grade and offer dual credit, Phillips said.

A safety committee including federal law enforcement officers and military personal prepared safety plans for all potential situations.

For more information, visit https://mercyprep.org, call 469-505-8377, or email info@mercyprep.org.

Originally published May 31, 2023 - https://www.waxahachiesun.com/business/mercy-preparatory-academy-now-enrolling/article_09089b4c-ffef-11ed-bd38-ebece94b6ea6.html