Second Baptist Christian Academy aims to add middle school
By Kevin Spradlin
PeeDeePost.com
Cheryl Lampley spent eight years retired after 34 years in public education — including 21 years at L.J. Bell Elementary School. At the beginning of the 2014-15 school year, she took a leap of faith and accepted the principalship at Second Baptist Day School in Hamlet.
And earlier this week, at the whim of the school’s board of education and the church’s board of educators, Lampley will no longer be employed at Second Baptist Day School when the start of the 2015-16 school year rolls around.
Submitted photo
Oh sure, Lampley will report to the same office in August, have the same desk and oversee generally the same group of teachers and students. The only difference will be the name of the school for which she toils.
Board members of the Second Baptist Day School approved on Wednesday a name change to Second Baptist Christian Academy beginning with the 2015-16 school year. The change, Lampley said, continues the evolution that is the education program offered by Second Baptist.
“As a school, we’ve been tossing the idea back and forth” for some time, Lampley said. “When Second Baptist Day School first began, it was a pre-school. Now the grade level goes up to fifth grade.”
Beginning this fall, school officials aim to add sixth grade, too, as well as seventh and eighth grade in subsequent years.
“The day school still sounded babyish for (the older students),” Lampley said. “We wanted it to sound a little more professional, a little older.”
Kevin Spradlin | PeeDeePost.com
The Hee Haw Gang could welcome newer, older members to the club of the soon-to-be-renamed Second Baptist Christian Academy’s plans to adda sixth grade come to fruition.
The addition of a sixth grade class is not a done deal. The school has permission to move forward, but it needs at least 10 students enrolled to confirm the plans.
“We are trying to get the word out there,” Lampley said. “I feel sure, God willing … we’ve been blessed.”
From pre-K through fifth grade, Second Baptist Day School has 143 students enrolled. Earlier this week, Lampley reflected on her first year, which is less than two months away from concluding.
“I look forward to going to work every morning,” Lampley said. “It’s just wonderful. This has been a Godsend … for me to use my administrative degree in a Christian atmosphere. I’m an old lady now. I still love my profession. That’s always been my goal — to help other teachers enjoy their profession as much as I’ve enjoyed mine.”
Lampley worked at Cordova School as a reading recovery specialist and spent 21 years at L.J. Bell Elementary School. She continued her own education and was selected as assistant principal at Sycamore Lane Middle School in Scotland County. She finished up her 34-year career in public education as director of reading at the central office.
“I tip my hat to public school educators,” Lampley said. “That was my livelihood for 34 years.”
She retired in 2006 and realized it was “time to do something different.”
It took nearly eight years for just the right something to come along.
“During my retirement time, I stayed busy,” she said. “I kept connected with schools. I wasn’t really off.”
She worked as an interim with Richmond County Schools but one day last summer saw on Facebook a friend indicate Second Baptist Day School was seeking a principal.
“I immediately got my resume updated that day,” Lampley said. “It was like it was just a Godsend that was brought to me. I definitely feel like that’s where I’m supposed to be. It’s been a wonderful year. I look forward to many, many more.”
There is a flexibility, a freedom, at Second Baptist Day School that cannot be duplicated in a public school setting, Lampley said. In Hamlet, she helped form a silent witness team for students in grades 3 through 5 and personally coordinates a Bible trivia group twice a month for the same age group. The school created a chorus for those in kindergarten through the second grade — “we need something for the little people” — and has enjoyed “very productive staff development meetings” with an administrative assistant, 13 teachers, four assistants, three cafeteria workers serving two hot meals a day.
The goal of the Baptist school, no matter its name, is to “provide the students with a Christian education,” Lampley said. “We can’t quite be so free with that anymore” in public schools.”
Plus, she said, the small class sizes in a private school setting are next to impossible to duplicate in the public counterparts.
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