Hawthorne Christian Academy (First Free Will Baptist Church)

Hawthorne Christian Academy is a non-profit, ministry of Chester First Free Will Baptist Church. The school is starting it's thirteenth year and begins caring for children as young as infants and continues this training through the 12th grade. The church and the school faculty and staff believe that we are operating an important mission, "reaching children and young adults for Christ". Our faculty and staff are professing Christians who are active members in their local churches.

We believe in academic excellence at HCA and have developed our teaching methods to create a learning environment where children can succeed. We accomplish this through not only traditional classroom instruction, but also utilizing various activities, hands on teaching, interactive technology, field trips, and small class sizes. In fact, our average student to teacher ratio is 10:1. Implementing these strategies along with quality, Christian curriculum gives HCA an academic advantage. Hawthorne uses the A Beka Book curriculum in most subjects, and BJU Press in all mathematic courses. In addition, we test every student from K5-12th grade annually with the Stanford Achievement Test to ensure that students are achieving their potential. We have graduated thirty one high school students, and the education these graduates received has helped them succeed after Hawthorne in various public, private, and Christian colleges.

Hawthorne is continually growing, and in recent years we have added new playground equipment, opened a new library, upgraded our computer lab and network, developed an art lab, and created a science lab with modern chemistry, physics, and biology equipment. This past year we added "smart" classroom technology and presentation equipment to all of our elementary classrooms and in our middle and high school classes to give our students a visual way to understand complex concepts. HCA is a member of SCACS (South Carolina Association of Christian Schools) and AACS (American Association of Christian Schools), our preschool is DSS registered (DSS 905), and our cafeteria is DHEC inspected (A rating).