With over 25 years of experience guiding high school students and their families through the college selection and admission process, John Boshoven will be working with our new high school as a consultant as we launch next year. Widely considered an exceptional college counselor, John recently retired from Ann Arbor Public Schools in that capacity, but still stays involved with the district in other roles while also maintaining his personal business of providing private consultation to families on the college admission process.

In his consultant role with AACS, he will provide several workshops during the course of the year to our 9th grade students and parents in order to provide some early education about college admission. In addition, John will provide some times during the year for more individualized conversations with families. Lastly, he will work with the high school staff to offer suggestions and ideas to ensure we have a high school that is not only competitive for college acceptance but also remains Christ-centered and healthy. John also has experience as a social worker.

John also attends Huron Hills Church (now Grace Ann Arbor North Church), the location of our high school campus. We see this alignment as another example of God’s provision to us as we launch the first interdenominational high school in Ann Arbor. We are grateful for John and the wealth of experience he brings to our new high school.

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Ann Arbor Christian High School is thrilled to have Nolan Wolffis on board to coach Boys Basketball.  Nolan grew up in the town of Lynden, WA where his family attended Bethel Christian Reformed Church. Nolan went to Lynden Christian Schools, where he played 3+ years of varsity basketball and won a state championship as a senior.  After high school, Nolan went to Calvin College (now Calvin University) where he majored in English and spent two years coaching middle school basketball at Ada Christian.  Following college, he then worked for 3 years as a youth director at a church in the Grand Rapids area and spent multiple years as an assistant coach at South Christian High School and Hamilton High School, respectively.  Eventually, he moved to the east side of the state with his wife Lauren (who is from Dexter and is a 2008 AACS graduate!) and got his Masters degree in Secondary Education. Currently, Nolan is a Social Studies teacher at Jackson High School. 

Nolan has been married to his wife of five years, and they live in Dexter with their one year old English Springer Spaniel named Curry.  He is a HUGE fan of Michigan sports and the Golden State Warriors.  Nolan and Lauren are members at Grace Bible Church in Ann Arbor, where he serves on the greeting team and Lauren serves on the worship team (among other roles).  Lauren’s parents, Bruce and Marcia Mitchell, are long time AACS supporters whose four kids all graduated from AACS over the years.

Nolan cannot wait to help our young men of AACS High School grow their faith through basketball and help bring a Christ honoring, winning mentality to the program we are building at the AACS high school.  Go Eagles!

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We are pleased to announce that Autumn Lytle has signed on to be the head cross country coach for Ann Arbor Christian High School. Autumn is the sister of AACS alum Jack Burin.

Autumn is a lifetime runner. She ran cross-country for Salem High School, was the president of Grand Valley State University’s running club, coached middle school cross-country as well as Girls on the Run teams, and has completed 17 marathons. She recently moved back to Michigan with her husband, son, and daughter after living in Seattle while her husband completed his MBA. Running and faith are deeply intertwined in her life and she is so grateful for the opportunity to encourage others to run with perseverance the race marked out for them.

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We are very excited to announce that Carolyn Corey has been hired to teach at Ann Arbor Christian High School this coming Fall! 

Carolyn has strong roots in Ann Arbor, where she went to Pioneer High School and attended Knox Presbyterian Church. She received her degree in Secondary Education and Group Social Studies from Grand Valley State University in 2021 and currently teaches Multimedia, Business Law, Government, and Economics in Grand Rapids Public Schools. 

Carolyn loves hiking, being outside, and enjoying the Great Lakes. She and her family have a 22 year tradition of attending Cedar Campus (now Cedar Bay) on Lake Huron in the Upper Peninsula each summer for Family Camp. She has spent the past 4 summers working at Cedar Campus on the recreation crew, eventually becoming the Crew Coordinator for the summer staff at Cedar. In high school, she played volleyball and water polo, where they won the State Championship her junior year. 

With a sincere love for high schoolers and the energy and joy they bring, she also enjoys the in-depth content she is able to teach at the high school level. She is eager to extend the mission of AACS to bring a high quality, Christian high school alternative to the Ann Arbor area that truly meets the needs of teens. She cites the later start time of 8:30am as one good example of this, which she finds better coincides with teens’ circadian rhythms. Carolyn’s experience and insight are a welcome addition to the staff and entire AACS community. 

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Ann Arbor Christian’s new High School was recently featured in Ann Arbor Family magazine with an article by Mary Rose Kulczak. Click here to read the article.

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We have some exciting updates about fall sports at the AACS High School!

Girls Volleyball: The schedule for the fall is complete. Additional details will be coming soon.

Co-ed Cross Country: We have also officially decided to offer an AACS cross country team. This will be a co-ed team.

Boys Football & Soccer: We have officially decided to enter into a co-operative agreement with Father Gabriel Richard for football and boys’ soccer.

More details to come shortly about our fall season, but we are thrilled with our developing plans for the fall!

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Our beloved AACS middle school teacher Tami Michele will be headed to teach at the AACS high school this fall.  While she will be truly missed at the middle school, she will bring her tremendous talent, charisma, and the unique “ethos” of the AACS community with her to the second site. 

Professionally, Tami has many years of experience teaching high school and working with high school students.  She says she enjoys high-schoolers because they have a lot of energy and are full of life.  Her first job was teaching high school math at Franklin Road Christian School (now Novi Christian) from 1996 to 2000.  During a stint in Iowa from 2000 to 2004, she contracted with the ACT writing math questions for the exam.  Returning to Michigan in 2004, she developed a successful high-school math tutoring business, and later began working part time at AACS, increasing to full time in 2020.  Tami was on the AACS school board years ago when they laid initial plans to pursue developing a high school.  She frequently remembers reminding Wayne that, “when we open a high school, I want to teach there!”

Tami is a natural at explaining math. In junior high “zero hour” before school, she found herself helping fellow students with their math homework. In high school, when the basketball coach found his players on the verge of becoming academically ineligible to play, he sent them to Tami for math help. Originally a business major at Calvin College with dreams of becoming the CEO of a large company, she resisted the idea of being a math teacher like her dad.  But when a girl she had never seen before knocked on her door Freshman year saying, “I heard you’re good at explaining math, can you help me with Calculus?” she gave up and switched to a major in education.

Setting Tami apart is her family legacy of Christian education. As a child in South Dakota, her father rode a horse each day from his family farm quite a distance to the nearest one-room Christian school, where he was the only child in his grade. Her parents, herself, her husband Dan, and their children all attended Christian schools, their sons Justin and Collin graduating from AACS.  Knowing that her grandparents and her parents made many sacrifices to send their children to Christian schools, she admires the families that are now making sacrifices to open the AACS High School.

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There’s no better way to get a feel of Ann Arbor Christian and our new high school than to visit us! Because we understand that touring an empty facility has its downsides as we prepare to launch in August 2023, AACS is hosting a several days in which prospective 9th graders may spend a day at our main campus on 5500 Whitmore Lake Road, Ann Arbor with our current 8th graders, most of whom will be joining the 9th grade class. Start the day at our main campus and end the day with a short 2pm drive over to our high school campus. A pizza lunch will be provided to our guest students.

Our current 8th grade class is excited to welcome you!

Dates: 

• Friday, March 17 (Shamrock Shuffle fun run at lunchtime + a middle school chapel will end the school day)
• Wednesday, April 5
• Friday, April 14 (All-school Resurrection chapel will begin the school day)
• If you prefer a standard tour instead of Spend-A-Day, please schedule one here.

Times:

• 8:00am-2pm (see below)
• At 8:00am, a group of our current 8th grade parents will be available to welcome parents and to sit down with them to talk about AACS and our high school
• For families who have not visited our Upper Campus, at 2pm, we will drive 15 minutes over to our high school campus on 3150 Glazier Way. Parents should come to help drive their students.
• Please email Head of School Wayne Sit to schedule your Spend-A-Day.

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In preparation for our opening in August 2023, the school has set up a new computer lab at our Upper Campus. Next year, each 9th grade student will be assigned his or her own individual Chromebook. These laptops are important and helpful learning and productivity tools for our students. Knowing that high school work will become increasingly complex and involve juggling multiple windows on their Chromebooks, the computer lab will allow students to plug their Chromebooks into large 24-inch high definition monitors. This will allow our high schoolers to have a larger screen for their school work, as well as to screen to share during partner work. We appreciate the support of donors who make such resources possible, and who passionately believe in our vision to launch into high school grades.

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Ann Arbor Christian’s new High School was recently featured in The Sun Times News with an article by Editor Doug Marrin. Click here to read the article.

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What a fantastic turnout! This past Friday, the school hosted an evening of fun, fellowship, and touring at our Upper Campus. We had a great turn out of over 60 people – both current 8th grade families at AACS and guest families with 8th graders from other schools. During this time, we enjoyed a delicious catered meal of Mexican food. While parents toured and talked, the students enjoyed exploring the facilities and playing various games, with some of the activities led by a few AACS alumni students who came back to help. Please keep spreading the word about our new high school opening in August!

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AACS is looking for the following coaches to kick off our high school athletic program:

JV Girls Volleyball (fall)

JV Boys Basketball (winter)

JV Girls Basketball (winter)

Qualified applicants should be committed followers of Jesus Christ, and have previous playing and/or coaching experience in the sport that they are applying for. Interested applicants should contact Bryan Diemer at bryan.diemer@annarborchristian.org for more details.

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We now officially have our first rising 9th grade from outside of Ann Arbor Christian signed up for our new high school opening next year. In addition, as her family got to know AACS, they decided to not only enroll her for our high school, but also to start her in 8th grade (and her younger siblings) for the reminder of this year. We praise God for bring us a new school family and for opening a new high school opportunity for Christian families in the area. Several other families from outside of AACS have also started their high school applications. Please keep telling others about the AACS high school!

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Bob Ause, the recently retired chair of the Science Department at Greenhills School, is currently serving at AACS as the long-term substitute for 8th grade science this year.  Bob has also volunteered to consult and be a resource for the high school leadership team as they continue to develop the AACS High School science curriculum. With a passion for science and languages, Bob has a Bachelor’s degree from Willams College in Massachusetts in Chemistry and Classics. He went on to get a Masters of Divinity from Fuller Theological Seminary in 1995 and a Masters in Education from the University of Michigan in 2010.  He has 28 years of experience teaching high school and middle school students, mainly teaching biology, chemistry, AP chemistry and physical science.  

Bob says his favorite age group to work with is high schoolers. He served on Young Life staff from 1987 to 1994 doing youth outreach in Vienna, Austria and Hungary, where he learned to speak Hungarian and met his wife Tammy in Vienna in 1989.  They have two daughters in their 20s, Emily and Erica, and have been members at Knox church since 2008.  He attributes his love of teaching to having great language teachers in high school, great science teachers in college, and a unique experience with Young Life before his senior year of college teaching basic health care and first aid at rural drug dispensaries in Uganda. 

With his unique professional background, his concern for high school youth, and his understanding of the stressors and challenges facing high schoolers today, Bob will be offering insight and expertise to the high school leadership as they continue to create a healthy AACS High School environment and a strong science curriculum. 

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As we begin to consider what kinds of clubs and activities we might have at the new Ann Arbor Christian high school, we decided to survey the current 7th and 8th grade AACS students to see what they think sounds fun and interesting! They were very excited to give input on this and the results have been tallied. More details to come about how many/which things will be offered and we will continue to work with our students to understand what other options are out there (many of our 8th graders are the oldest in their families), but it’s fun to see what their interests are and start the planning. In addition to our athletics program, we know that the student leadership and learning opportunities that come from clubs and activities are an important part of high school culture.

The top vote getters were:

• Ski and Snowboard Club
• Ultimate Frisbee Club
• Board & Card Game Club
• Community Service Club
• Coding (Web & Game Development) Club
• Speech & Debate Club
• Table Tennis Club

Following those were: Improv Club, School Newspaper, School Yearbook, Cooking/Baking Club, Computer Science Club, and Pickleball Club.

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The school is thrilled to share that well-respected and seasoned educator Brian Baird from Dexter High School is joining the Ann Arbor Christian School staff in February to help with the planning of our new high school. With his 30+ years of high school experience (which includes holding leadership roles, serving on various committees, and working closely with the counseling department to support students with their mental health) and often praised as one of the best teachers at Dexter High School, Brian will bring invaluable insights and advice as we continue our planning between now and summer. In addition, he spent a number of years teaching in an inner city high school, which gave him new perspective and heart for students.

Brian has degrees from the University of Michigan (BA), Eastern Michigan University (teaching certification), and Northeastern Illinois University (Masters). We are so grateful for God’s provision of people like Brian who feel drawn to our school’s vision to expand strong and Christ-centered education for the community. In his application, he wrote: “To be at a new beginning and to help shape a school and a culture is about the biggest dream a life-long teacher could ask for. ” What an amazing sentiment! Brian and his wife attend 2|42 Community Church in Ann Arbor.

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As the high school planning continues, many AACS parents, alumni, and other supporters are committed to praying personally and together for the high school, its success, and for protection of the staff, students, and families who are engaged in the effort. The SOAR group was asked by Wayne Sit to help cover the developments at the high school in prayer. To help with this, a Google doc prayer calendar is available.  Please contact Jayme Higgins with questions or to sign up for a date that you can pray for AACS.

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There’s no better way to get a feel of Ann Arbor Christian and our new high school than to visit us! Because we understand that touring an empty facility has its downsides as we prepare to launch in August 2023, AACS is hosting a several days in which prospective 8th graders may spend a day at our main campus on 5500 Whitmore Lake Road, Ann Arbor with our current 8th graders. Start the day at our main campus with our rising 9th graders, meet some of their parents, and end the day with a short 2pm drive over to our high school campus. A pizza lunch will be provided to our guest students.

Our current 8th grade class is excited to welcome you!

Dates: 

• Friday, January 27 (a middle school chapel will end the school day)
• Friday, February 10 (an all-school chapel will begin the school day; also Science Fair Day)
• Wednesday, February 22
• Friday, March 3 (an all-school chapel will begin the school day)
• Friday, March 10
• If you prefer a standard tour instead of Spend-A-Day, please schedule one here.

Times:

• 8:00am-2pm (see below)
• At 8:10am, a group of our current 8th grade parents will be available to welcome parents and to sit down with them to talk about AACS and our high school
• For families who have not visited our Upper Campus, at 2pm, we will drive 15 minutes over to our high school campus on 3150 Glazier Way. Parents should come to help drive their students.
• Please email Head of School Wayne Sit to schedule your Spend-A-Day.

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Any 8th graders (from AACS or elsewhere!) and their families are welcome to join us for an evening of food, fun, games, and socializing at the new Upper Campus of our high school (3150 Glazier Way, Ann Arbor – Huron Hills Church) on Friday, February 24^th at 6:00 PM.  Whether you’re a current AACS family, have already toured the new school, or are just hearing about it for the first time, we’d love the opportunity to share with you a taste of the life and culture of AACS that makes it such a unique place! 

We’ve invited back a few AACS alumni students to coordinate some games as an opportunity for all the 8th graders to connect and begin building relationships.  The parents will have plenty of time to socialize and have a chance to engage in discussion about the new high school.  Current families would be happy to share our own experiences of AACS and why we’re so excited about this new venture for both our own children and for the generations to come. 

Though the opening of a high school level is a new step for AACS, we’re confident about the foundation that we’ve been building upon for decades now – one of deep spiritual formation, academic excellence, and a rich experience of community with like-minded families seeking to disciple their children in the way of Jesus.  We hope this evening together will give you a tangible glimpse into the heart and mission of AACS.

For questions or to RSVP, please contact Amy Brink at 734-644-2236 or amycb@comcast.net.   

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We are so thrilled to offer high school sports when we launch our high school in the fall of 2023!

Boys Soccer – If we have enough players, we will field our own school team. If we do not have enough players for our own team, the plan is to enter into a co-operative agreement with Father Gabriel Richard High School for soccer. The co-op is a 2 year agreement, after which we could re-evaluate the need/desire to continue. For year one, they will be asking us to provide 5-10 students to play on the soccer team. If we have 10+ students by May 15, we can plan to field our own AACS team and will not do the co-op arrangement.

Girls Volleyball – Scheduling has begun! I am excited to announce that a handful of games and tournaments have officially been scheduled for the fall high school volleyball season. In addition to use our own existing gym, we are actively exploring rental arrangements with facilities with a gym.

Go Eagles!

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