Acacia at a Glance

Our Mission: Acacia Academy cultivates character, faith, and knowledge by means of an excellent classical Christian K-8 education.

The Vision

Educates grades K-8
Excellent but not exclusive
Utilizes a proven, enduring classical education model
Member of the Association of Classical Christian Schools

Diverse student population in race, denomination, and socio-economic status
Academic diversity cultivating exceptional learners
An integral part of our ‘beloved community’

Emphasize 12 character-building habits:
attention, obedience, respect, responsibility, reverence, reflection, reconciliation, thoroughness, punctuality, service, self-control, and integrity

PORTRAIT OF A GRADUATE

Each student will possess:

Academic excellence and tools for a life of learning

Knowledge, appreciation, and love of truth, beauty, and goodness

A character marked by grace and virtue

A well-reasoned biblical worldview

The Acacia Experience

Why Acacia? Two special families share their insightful stories.

“The foundation is the most important part. Now is the time.”

— The Pickett Family

“Learning is not just about information, but it is also about how to grow as a person.”

— the Gruber family

CLASSICAL EDUCATION

Classical education belongs to the authoritative, traditional, and enduring stream of education begun by the Greeks and Romans, developed by the Church through the centuries and renewed by contemporary educators. Infused with the liberal arts and sciences, classical education includes the language arts of the trivium (grammar, logic, and rhetoric) and the quantitative arts of the quadrivium (mathematics, science, music, and visual arts). Students study great works of art and literature, both old and new, by methods best suited to their developmental stages. As participants in the great conversation of history's finest thinkers, students acquire more than vocational skills; they prepare for their roles as informed citizens, thinking Christians, and virtuous shapers of culture.

- CHRISTOPHER PERRIN

Why Classical Education?

Imagine being able to combine the proven educational techniques used to educate the great minds of western civilization with the foundational truths and morals of the Christian faith. That is what is achieved by a Classical Christian education. It strives to cultivate wisdom and a love of learning rather than just teaching facts and skills. Key classical attributes include:
A liberal education: meaning broad in scope, rich in depth, well-rounded
A view that man is to be crafted like a work of art by a standard of excellence
Trivium based curriculum: tools of learning that are compatible with the stages of development of children

Good Soil Report Summary

GRAMMAR

Stage 1
the memorization of facts and information

LOGIC

Stage 2
the organization of facts and the discernment of truth

RHETORIC

Stage 3
the full ownership of knowledge and clearly expressing it to others

Utilization of classic written works from the original great authors along the continuum of history (The Great Conversation)
Emphasize the connectivity and context of subjects: the relationship of art, history, music, language, philosophy, and science
Development of character-building habits: Attention, Obedience, Respect, Responsibility, Reverence, Reflection, Thoroughness, Punctuality, Service, Self-control, and Integrity
Mind-building teaching methods including narration, chants, nature study, short lessons, objective student evaluations, and minimal homework
This rigorous education model can be further enhanced by wrapping it with a non-denominational Christian worldview; providing continuity between a student's faith and his rational mind. Each child will be able to see that he is hand-crafted by God and that he is surrounded by a beautiful world waiting to be discovered. With a Christian foundation, children will also be able to learn in an environment of love, kindness, and joy, and they will be able to enjoy a wonderful community.

Children are our greatest responsibility. As we look to the future, we do not know which careers will be in demand or what problems our children will have to face. However, today we have an opportunity to help these precious children develop into independent thinkers with the faith, wisdom, character, and tools of learning that will help them deal with the challenges of the future.

Full Curriculum Scope and Sequence

Acacia Academy Curriculum Guide

SPIRITUALITY

Devoted (Acts 2:42). United in our diversity, we express our devotion through study, fellowship, service, worship, and prayer. Our chief purpose is to glorify God and enjoy our Creator, Provider, Redeemer, and Sustainer. Weekly chapel gatherings are open to the Acacia Family.

STATEMENT OF FAITH

In addition to receiving the Apostles’ and Nicene Creeds as classical statements of the Christian faith, we affirm the following:

God: The all-powerful, all-loving, all-holy One exists eternally as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.

Scripture: The Old and New Testaments, being inspired by the Holy Spirit, are the unfailing, authoritative, written Word of God.

Creation: In love, God created all things; declared them good; formed Man, male and female in His image; and commissioned them to cultivate and care for the world entrusted to them.

Fall: Trading truth for deception, Man sold himself and all posterity to the Evil One and introduced sin and death into the entire created order.

Redemption: Our Lord Jesus Christ, fully human and fully God, by his sinless life, death, and resurrection, overcame sin and death and accomplished the redemption of the world. By grace, He offers eternal life to all who turn from their sin and trust him alone for their salvation.

Restoration: The Holy Spirit gifts and empowers His people for service in His world and draws them together in unity.

“I believe in Christianity as I believe that the sun has risen. Not only because I see it, but because by it I see everything else.” C.S. Lewis

Our Story

In 2009, born out of a desire to provide an enriched, delightful education that cultivates character, faith, and knowledge in their children, a small group of families started Acacia Academy in Kokomo, IN. Through a process of discovery, research, and benchmarking, classical Christian education was selected as a proven, powerful pedagogy. God littered the road with miracles providing leadership, curriculum, teachers, classrooms, and 24 students for the first year. Our grace-filled classrooms have been led by talented, devoted teachers educating united diverse students in God’s truth, goodness, and beauty. Now, over ten years since the beginning, we are grateful for a reputation of excellence and community service. As our title verses Isaiah 41:19-20 declare, “the hand of the LORD has done this.” We invite you to join the story.

Core Principles

Christian Foundation: Acacia is founded upon God’s ultimate, perfect, and unchanging truth, goodness, and beauty as expressed in the Scriptures, through nature, and through the person of Jesus Christ.

Christ-centered: Acacia is a Christ-centered school. The centrality of the person Jesus Christ, living both in history and through faith in our lives, impacts every aspect of the life of the school including what is taught, how it is taught, and how individuals conduct themselves.

Biblical worldview: Acacia will train students in Christian discipleship, integrating a Biblical worldview, and to have zeal for serving God and transforming the society in which they live.

Christian community: To accomplish its mission, Acacia must have an atmosphere of love, kindness, forgiveness, orderliness and joy; in essence, a Christian community. A school culture will be promoted in which misconduct is not acceptable, students recognize and respect authority, an excited love of learning is fostered, and reconciliation across societal boundaries is practiced.

Classical Trivium: Acacia will employ classical education methods: organized learning that is compatible with the stages of development of the children and emphasizes the grammar (knowledge), logic (understanding), and rhetoric (expression) skills necessary to launch young men and women on a lifetime journey of growth and learning.

The Great Conversation of Books: Students will pursue a mastery of language by utilizing classic written works by great authors from original sources along the continuum of history (The Great Conversation) and by studying core languages including Latin and English.

Integration of subjects: The school will supply a liberal education that emphasizes the connectivity and context of subjects: the interrelationships of art, history, music, language, philosophy, mathematics, and science.

PARTNERSHIP WITH PARENTS

Acacia recognizes that the foremost responsibility of the education of children lies with the parents or persons acting in the place of parents. As such, faculty and staff of Acacia enter into a deliberate partnership with parents in the educational process of their children spiritually, intellectually, physically, emotionally, and socially.

Photo: Parent prayer circle on the 1st day of the 2019 school year.

Parent Covenant

We joyfully embrace our responsibility for our child's education and eagerly partner with Acacia Academy to further our child's development in character, faith, and knowledge.
We understand and support Acacia Academy's mission for classical and Christian education and commit our family to the disciplined pursuit of truth, beauty, and goodness in every area of life.
We honor and uphold Acacia Academy's desire to glorify God--the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit-- and to lead our child in the Way of Jesus Christ.

Learn about PTF

Learning Environment

***Exemplary leadership***: All those who teach or who are in a position of authority at Acacia will follow Christ and inspire excellence in each student.
***Teaching methods***: Teachers will utilize mind-building teaching methods including narration, chants, nature study, short lessons, objective student evaluations, and minimal homework.
***Class size***: Meaningful teacher-student relationships and appropriate individualized attention will be enhanced by using small class sizes.
***Individualized learning***: Acacia seeks to accommodate flexible learning rates and styles. Decisions about school entry age and retention, readiness for enrichment, testing and evaluation are made in recognition that each student has special gifts and contributes in various ways.
***Habits***: Acacia will promote the development of character-building habits: Attention, Obedience, Respect, Responsibility, Reverence, Reflection, Thoroughness, Punctuality, Service, Self-control, and Integrity.

Community Collaboration

Schools: Acacia will seek to build bridges, not walls, between all schools and places that educate children.

Christian community: The leadership of Acacia will exemplify the body of Christ through cooperation with Christian groups.

Accessibility: Acacia will strive to be accessible to families of all income levels through need-based financial assistance.

Businesses and organizations: The staff and directors will establish relationships within the local community for mutual learning.

Service learning: Acacia teachers will integrate service to the community with classroom curriculum.

Our Team

Greetings! My name is Rob Hoshaw and I am currently serving as the Head of School for Acacia Academy. It is my 14th year of saying that, and yet I am still amazed that it is true. After about 20 years of electrical engineering, program management, and risk/quality management, God called me and my family to start Acacia. It has been a wonderful adventure littered with miracles. For me there is no greater mission than to cultivate character, faith, and knowledge. By God’s grace, may it continue to be so.

Rob Hoshaw
Head of School
rchoshaw@acaciaacademy.org

My name is Lisa Taflinger and when my youngest son went to Kindergarten at Acacia Academy, I went with him as an aide in his classroom. I have changed roles over the last nine years but one thing has been constant-my love for this school! I am currently working as the Administrative Assistant and am able to see first-hand how God continues to use Acacia Academy to cultivate character, faith, and knowledge in the lives of our students. It is a joy to come to work every day!
I have a BA in Social Work from Anderson University and received my teaching license from IWU in their Transition to Teaching program.

Lisa Taflinger
Office Manager
ltaflinger@acaciaacademy.org

Elizabeth Huffman studied English at Asbury University and Indiana University Kokomo and began her teaching experience with 10 years in Cape Coral, FL, in classes ranging from Kindergarten to 3rd grade along with some work in 5th grade and middle school Literature classes. She was the 3rd grade teacher at Acacia Academy for 5 years, and this is her second year in the Kindergarten classroom. She enjoys spending time with her husband and 2 daughters and likes to hike, ride bikes, read, and cook. Her desire in the classroom is to help lay the spiritual and academic foundations for her students.

Elizabeth Huffman
Kindergarten
ehuffman@acaciaacademy.org

Mrs. Waters is a lifelong Indiana resident with a Bachelor of Science Degree in Elementary Education from Manchester College. After 10 years of teaching, she took a break to start a family and became an Acacia parent. She was excited to join the staff in 2022 and enjoys camping, reading, and spending time with her family.

Carey Waters
Class 1
cwaters@acaciaacademy.org

I'm Mrs. Weirauch and I teach grade 2 at Acacia Academy. I enjoy the teaching/learning environment and get great satisfaction out of watching my students learn and mature through the school year. I teach at Acacia because here I am afforded the opportunity to teach the whole child.

Judy Weirauch
Class 2
jweirauch@acaciaacademy.org

My name is David Pollard, and I have the honor of being the third grade teacher at Acacia Academy. I hail from Greentown, Indiana, but spent ten years in Nashville, Tennessee. During that time, I earned my MDiv at Lipscomb University, met my wife, Marissa, and started our family with our son, Alexander. We moved back to Kokomo in July of 2020, and I joined the Acacia family for the 2021-22 school year. I seek to inspire in my students a posture of wonder and worship of their God, leading to wisdom and good work. We explore everything from parts of speech and multiplication to ancient civilizations and the art of a finely crafted paragraph. We enjoy great literature together and learn to articulate what makes it great. It is my joy to witness students being conformed into the image of their Creator through learning.

David Pollard
Class 3
dpollard@acaciaacademy.org

Hi! My name is Mrs Neer, and I have been teaching 4th grade at Acacia Academy for 7 years. I like to think of fourth grade as a year of discovery. I enjoy watching students' faces light up as we learn about the ancient Greeks and Romans, biology and the natural world around us, as well as the mysteries of language as we explore Latin. I like to take my students to far away places and heroic adventures through literature. Through all we do in the classroom, I hope my students begin the path to discovery of who their Creator intends for them to become. I am, I can, I ought, I will be.

Marilee Neer
Class 4
mneer@acaciaacademy.org

Nathan Greeley is the class 5 teacher at Acacia Academy. He is from New England, but has lived in Indiana since 2013. Greeley is a very bookish fellow and is always eager to find time with a volume of theology, philosophy, or history. He is married to Anne, an art historian. The thing he most loves about teaching is telling children about the happiness, peace, and purpose that come from knowing Jesus.

Dr. Nathan Greeley
Class 5
ngreeley@acaciaacademy.org

Mrs. Natalie Pugh is a graduate of Indiana University and has been cultivating hearts and minds at Acacia since 2012. She loves buying and devouring great books; consequently, her husband has a difficult time keeping up with all the required bookcases to house them all! Not only does Mrs. Pugh enjoy taking adventures in books, she loves traveling and collecting new and shocking stories for her students, such as, tobogganing down the Great Wall of China, tarantulas in the dark in the Dominican Republic, or wild ponies on the Appalachian Trail. Ultimately, Mrs. Pugh seeks to give glory to the love of her life, Jesus Christ, and stoke a passion for him in the hearts of her students as well.

Natalie Pugh
Class 6
npugh@acaciaacademy.org

Joan White grew up on the East Coast but has been happily settled in the Midwest for 35 years. She and her husband have six children, three children by marriage, and four grandchildren. After discovering Classical education while homeschooling her own children, Mrs. White has taught middle school at Acacia for nearly thirteen years. She delights in learning new things every year.

Joan White
Class 7/8
jwhite@acaciaacademy.org

Greetings! My name is Cindy Williams and I've had the pleasure of serving as Acacia Academy's music teacher since 2013. The 2022-2023 school year marks my 20th year as a professional educator. I began taking piano lessons when I was 8 years old and started playing the alto saxophone in my school's band when I was 10. Once I started playing, I never stopped! I earned my Bachelor of Music in Music Education from Saint Mary's College, Notre Dame, with concentrations in alto saxophone and music history. I also hold a Master of Education from Olivet Nazarene University. I can think of nothing more rewarding than sharing the gift of music with my students. Acacia's music curriculum is wonderfully diverse, with elements of singing, playing instruments, music theory, music history, composition, and so much more! Whether we're singing the Books of the Bible, honing our skills playing the glockenspiel, or mastering a new piece on our recorders, Acacia students know how to "make a joyful noise unto the Lord." What a blessing it is to witness Psalm 100 in our classroom every day!

Cynthia Williams
Music
cwilliams@acaciaacademy.org

Hi! My name is Emily Singleton. I am the classroom aide at Acacia Academy. My role has often been referred to as the Fun Aunt of the school. I’ve been married for 20 years and have two daughters. My oldest is an Acacia graduate (completing all K-8) and my youngest will claim the alumni title next year. I am also the mom of Reading Ruby, the school dog. This is my 11th year being part of the Acacia family. I have enjoyed getting to know each child and helping them thrive throughout my journey here at the school.

Emily Singleton
Teaching Assistant
esingleton@acaciaacademy.org

Hi! My name is Magdalene Mastin and I teach BrainTrain (AKA nerdy gym) as well as direct most of our fundraising/development efforts. I find great joy and purpose inviting Acacia kiddos (including the three that I birthed) to use their Created bodies intentionally to serve their whole being; we make silly faces and weird voices while we jump, balance, throw, draw, and turn upside down to develop our vestibular system and proprioception as well as engage and process our diverse emotionality. I studied English literature and art/dance ministry at Hope College up in the Motherland of Michigan and currently hold several creative positions rooted in embodiment work and pursued intimacy with God: life coach, spiritual director, photographer, and movement instructor. I’m generally carrying around four beverages (decaf Americano, mango smoothie, kombucha, salty water) and love talking about the 4-15 books currently half-read on my nightstand.

Magdalene Mastin
BrainTrain/Development
mmastin@acaciaacademy.org

Rounding out our Creative Arts department, is our art teacher, Dianna Rudd. Dianna and her husband Andy have five children - two Acacia graduates and three current Acacia students. Having experienced the benefits of Acacia as a parent first, Dianna likes to say she became an ‘accidental art teacher’ after being a therapist for 15 years. The truth is, she’s passionate about teaching students as they explore the creative process. She believes we are all artists, made in God’s image. She says, “Who’s more creative than God? We are His greatest masterpiece! My goal is that each student will leave my classes having had fun, knowing they are loved by their Creator, and valuing themselves as an artist.” When not making a mess in the basement, you can find Mrs. Rudd hugging an alpaca, swimming in the sea, or snuggled up reading a good book.

Dianna Rudd
Art

Acacia Teacher Covenant

I joyfully partner with parents to further students' development in character, faith, and knowledge. I understand and support Acacia Academy's mission for classical and Christian education and commit myself to the disciplined teaching of truth, beauty, and goodness. I desire to glorify God-- the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit-- through careful instruction and holy living to lead my students in the Way of Jesus Christ.

Board of Directors