Pine Castle Christian Academy

Pine Castle Christian Academy
Address
7101 Lake Ellenor Dr. Orlando, Florida USA
Information
Type	private school
Established	1983
Dean	Mark Ritchhart
Grades	Pre-K–12
Enrollment	235 (2011)
Campus	Suburban
Color(s)	Black, Maroon and Gray
Mascot	Harry the Eagle
Yearbook	Wings
Affiliation	Independent
Website	www.pccaeagles.org

Pine Castle Christian Academy (PCCA) is a small Christian private school founded in Pine Castle, Florida, an area that sits on a border between Belle Isle and Orlando, Florida. Now independent and non-denominational, the school was founded by Pine Castle United Methodist Church under the name Methodist Country Kindergarten; PCCA has been an K-12 academy since 1983, when it received its current name.

History

The Family Life Center

In 1954, Pine Castle United Methodist Church, founded the school as a ministry exclusively for kindergarteners, then called Methodist Country Kindergarten. The kindergarten became an academy in 1983, when the church opened PCCA to first through sixth grade students. Each year after that, it successively introduced one more grade level, until, in 1990, the first senior class graduated.^[1]

During the mid-2000s, PCCA grew to over 600 students, about 200 of whom were high schoolers. The academy achieved its first state-level athletic victory in 2006; after three more state titles in the following year, all Pine Castle Christian Academy athletic teams were classified as 2A, except for football, which remained a 1B sport.

During the 2009-2010 school year PCCA was informed that their current facilities were no longer going to be available to them. Instead a public charter school would be renting the facilities and so PCCA had to find new facilities. After searching they found their new facilities which were the former Darden training facilities. A grand opening celebration was held on September 7, 2010 and school started for the 2010-2011 school year on September 8, 2010. Since then they have constructed new softball and football fields on nearby fields to enrich the athletic program.

Extracurricular activities

Athletics

Both girls' and boys' varsity basketball teams won the Florida state 1A championship in the 2006-07 season. Girls' won with a 38-37 victory over runner-up Malone High School; boys' finished with a 55-46 victory over The Rock. In the 2005-06 season, the boys' varsity basketball team finished 25-4, won Districts, and advanced to the Sweet Sixteen.^[2]

The girls' varsity softball team, in its 2006 season, won the class 1A Florida State Championship, the first state-level championship won by any PCCA team. In 2007, PCCA repeated its victory as the class 1A Florida softball champion.

Theater department

Each year, the Pine Castle Christian Academy Theater Department puts on two plays: a drama in the Spring and a comedy in the Fall. Many plays feature a dinner or desert theater. Since Spring of 2006, each play has also had a "Parent Preview Night," which allows relatives of the actors to view a dress rehearsal free of charge.

Pine Castle is also a part of the SAK Comedy Lab high school improv league, started in the 2005-06 school year. Students meet once per week in the Fall to practice improv games together, then compete in against other schools in the Spring. PCCA won in the league's first season and took second in the 2006-07 competition.

Although the theater department usually produces pre-existing scripts, PCCA's eighth high school play, Welcome to Justice, was an original play by the academy's drama department head at that time, Dan Buck. The showing of Justice was a test-run and last chance for revisions of the script, before it went into full production in professional theater.

The first theater director/teacher at Pine Castle was Dan Buck. Later in his time there a second director, Tess Card, was also hired. Both left at the end of the 2006-07 school year, and in Fall 2007, they were replaced by the department's new head, Caroline Burkhard.

Caroline Burkhard was replaced in the fall of 2008 by Teri Begin, who directed both the fall and spring productions that year. She left after the end of the 2008-2009 school year and was replaced by a part-time director. Teri Begin was the last full-time theater department head.

List of Plays:

Spring-2009: Pirates of Penzance

Notes

Clubs and organizations

Quill and Scroll Society

Angler's Society (fishing club)

Notable faculty

Stephen Edwards II- Founder of the Quickies

Notes

External links

• Pine Castle Christian Academy website

Coordinates: 28°28′23″N 81°21′57″W / 28.47301°N 81.365944°W / 28.47301; -81.365944