Mount Pisgah School Celebrates 25 Years

As the 25th anniversary celebration begins, the Mount Pisgah Christian School family looks back and appreciates the leaders, students, faculty, and parents who had the vision and passion to bring the school mission to life.

The year is 1984. North Fulton is primarily undeveloped, dotted with a few subdivisions. Holcomb Bridge Road ends at Nesbit Ferry, stores and services east of GA 400 are few and far between, and Mount Pisgah United Methodist Church has fewer than 300 members.

Its Mothers’ Morning Out program serves 13 children in the church’s one-room basement.

Dr. Warren Lathem, senior pastor at the time, recalls the beginning of Mount Pisgah Christian School: “The demand was there for a real preschool. There was not a high-quality, academic preschool anywhere in the area. Church and community members wanted it.”

Lathem’s philosophy was to “reach people at the point of felt need,” serving the community in the name of Christ. “And, no, we didn’t know then what we were on the verge of.”

Mount Pisgah Christian School officially opened its preschool program to 73 students in 1986. Based on the tremendous success of the preschool, kindergarten was added in 1987 and pre-first classes started the next year.

“Progression of the elementary grades was largely in response to what people wanted,” states Dr. Lathem. The Preschool and Lower School were accredited in 1995, while the Middle School opened in 1997. “Adding the Middle and High School programs were much bigger decisions. We had to question every step of the way. We moved forward in spite of challenges, believing that if you can do it all yourself, you don’t need God.”

The new millennium saw tremendous growth in Pisgah’s educational opportunities. In 2002, both the High School and the year-round Full Day Preschool opened.

Full Day Director Susan Brown believes that it’s not just the high caliber learning environment that makes the Full Day program special: “While classes such as Spanish, P.E., and daily chapel are obviously important, it’s the secure family environment that also sets us apart. We are all one family here - children, parents, and teachers. This is a place where people want to be.”

The addition of the High School presented unique challenges. Head of Preparatory School Bill Shelnutt explains, “In the early years of the High School the greatest challenge was providing a varied and rigorous academic program that would be comparable to the much larger and more established programs of our public and private school competition. In the first year I arrived at Pisgah we had one AP course and four honors courses for 102 students. This past year we offered 14 AP courses and 18 honors courses to 250 students. Our goal was to give our students the relationships and intimacy of a small school coupled with the academic opportunities of a much larger school. As our students began receiving acceptances into the colleges of their choice, our academic reputation grew and so did our enrollment. Each rising ninth grade class has been larger than the graduating senior class and each of those classes saw their acceptance rate to their first-choice colleges go up.”

By 2003, several varsity sports programs were introduced. The inaugural varsity football team was made up of only 19 players. Varsity boys’ and girls’ basketball also began. As with all new athletic programs, the early years were challenging, but Pisgah Athletics have grown strong over the years, resulting in numerous region championships, and this year, the girls’ varsity tennis team won its first GHSA state title.

The school opened the Pisgah Athletic Campus, known as the PAC, in 2010. This premier athletic facility includes a lighted football and soccer stadium, track, baseball, softball and soccer fields, giving students a beautiful environment for a home-field advantage.

Today, exciting changes are happening in the school, while at the same time it remains true to its heritage. Head of Primary School Nancy Hanks Shaw has been at Pisgah for 10 years. “It’s exciting to be part of a school with such a great history and reputation,” she says. “We will continue to stay on the cutting edge educationally, using the best research based practices. We will do so without sacrificing the mission of making disciples.”

As the school celebrates its 25th anniversary, the students, families, and faculty of Mount Pisgah Christian School have many reasons to be thankful. 

What do the next 25 years hold? President Scott Barron predicts, “Pisgah will maximize technology to diversify the learning opportunities for students, teachers and parents. The school will be a learning portal to global resources for instruction, research, content creation and communication, delivering on our goal of preparing students for college and readying them for life. Pisgah will cultivate a passion for Christian education by being the best place for master teachers to thrive.”