Colleen Hroncich
Colleen Hroncich
As she went through the twists and turns of life, Lauren Novak had no idea she was being prepared to start and lead Springbrook Christian Academy, a hybrid program in rural Pennsylvania. After a career in public education, Lauren chose to stay home with her children. She thought about homeschooling but wasn’t sure it was the right path for her family. But when her children—then in kindergarten and second grade—were sent home during COVID-19, she realized they all liked being home and learning together. So she jumped right in and began homeschooling that fall.
While homeschooling, Lauren ran a once-a-week co-op at her church with 150 children. Seeing the success of that program, her pastor and church elders asked her to help them start a school. “They wanted an option for parents who didn’t want their kids in public schools,” Lauren says. “They thought, it’s really hard to tell parents it might be a good idea to not have them in public school when you don’t have an option for them.”
The church leaders didn’t have a specific plan for the school outside of the name, so Lauren and the pastor met regularly to discuss their thoughts. “We started out pursuing a more school-type path, but my passion for homeschooling was always there in the background, pulling me one way. And I felt like our pastor’s passion for a school was kind of pulling me the other way, and we were kind of going back and forth. We started looking into what other people were doing and found the hybrid homeschool being like the best of both worlds—meeting the needs of so much of what we both wanted,” Lauren recalls.
They put out a survey to the local community and found the things that Lauren wanted to do were not necessarily what the community wanted. » Read More
https://www.cato.org/blog/friday-feature-springbrook-christian-academy