The History of Vineyard Academy and St. Ann Montessori School

- In 1995, a group of Catholic parents, educators, and lay leaders, in an effort to serve the Church, the diocese, and the community, founded Vineyard Academy as a private, independent elementary school in Richland, Michigan. This far-sighted group recognized the need for a unique center of learning and spiritual growth. With the help of the National Consultants for Education, they committed themselves to forming young souls to become true lights and moral leaders in the world.
  
  Vineyard Academy set a standard of academic excellence and spirituality. Vineyard's initial enrollment was eight students, Kindergarten through 6th grade. Classes were held in the home of one of the families. The following year, Vineyard purchased two portable classrooms and placed them on leased property. Over the next 18 years, the addition of four more temporary classrooms allowed the academy to expand to include pre-kindergarten through eighth-grade programs.
  
  In the spring of 2015, the Academy rented classroom space at Gull Lake Methodist Church. In August 2017, Vineyard Academy found a home at St. Ann Catholic Church in Augusta, MI, and the school partnered with the existing St. Ann Montessori school. Founded in 2012, at St. Ann Church, the Montessori integrated the proven success of Montessori education with the critical development of a child's spiritual formation through the Catechesis of the Good Shepherd, which nurtures a child's spiritual, cognitive, emotional and physical growth.
  
  These two excellent schools united during the 2017-2018 school year, as LIGHT OF CHRIST ACADEMY, to bring the best practices of these tried and true methods- Classical and Montessori - to families in the Kalamazoo diocese.