Happy Hill Farm Academy Home

Happy Hill Farm Academy is a 500-plus acre Christian private academy/boarding school located 12 miles (19 km) outside the city of Granbury, Texas. It was founded in 1975 by Pastor Ed Shipman and his wife, Gloria. It includes a fully accredited (K-12) private school, designed to accommodate more than 200 students. There is an athletic center, dining center, fine arts center, fifteen residences for boarding students, staff housing, an 18,000-square-foot (1,700 m²) agricultural center with a show ring, livestock pens, stables and riding trails, athletic fields, swimming pool, tennis courts, a welcome center, an inn and training center, and an administrative center.

History

The Academy was opened in 1975, with 20 students in a mobile home. In 1977, an old house was moved to the property, refurbished, and became a new home for the school. Renovated classroom buildings, purchased for a pittance from the FWISD, were added the next year. The first five boys taken into care were living with the Shipmans and the Browns (the Academy’s first employees) in a leased residence on the campus. Dreams were large. Bank accounts were small, consisting primarily of the Shipman family’s savings. Skeptics were in abundance, but the Shipmans clung doggedly to what they believed was God’s calling for their lives...to provide a safe haven and a residential school where underprivileged students could turn their dreams into a reality. Now, decades later, Happy Hill Farm Academy has grown into one of the finest private, fully accredited, Christian boarding and day schools in the country. Underprivileged students on scholarship, international, and local day students — all with the motivation, determination, and ability to pursue higher education and success in life — study within a classical Christian (extremely easy and no-fail policy) college-preparatory environment.

Farm Life

As a working farm, Happy Hill Farm raises its own beef, lamb, and pork. There are horses and a host of pets. The Farm has a very large and active 4-H program. Students care daily for the livestock. Grain and hay crops are grown for the livestock.

Happy Hill Farm's boys and girls teams excel in track, football, volleyball, basketball, baseball, and more, competing in the Texas Association of Private Schools League. The gymnasium trophy case is packed with awards, bearing testimony to the students‚ hard work, and athletic abilities. In 2002 and 2003, the HHF boys football team won the state championships for private schools.

The residents live in one of fifteen residential houses (units). There are up to eight children per house, two per room, and each unit has a live-in houseparent couple, and a live-in single assistant houseparent. The houseparents or coordinators help each child learn basic life skill to further themselves upon leaving the academy. The married and single houseparents have separate apartments attached at each end of the unit, assuring supervision 24 hours a day. Happy Hill Farm Academy is accredited by the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools and is a member of the Texas Association of Private Schools, the Texas Association of Non-Public Schools, the Coalition for Residential Education, and the Association of Christian Schools International.

Time

If a student misbehaves - they are given a time out or "time" as the students call it. These time outs are handed out by house parents for offenses such as walking on the grass, saying the lord's name in vain, wearing shoes in the unit, walking about the farm with an un-tucked shirt, disagreeing with a houseparent, or anything else a houseparent feels is worthy.

Increments of "time" are handed out in 30 minutes all the way to one week. If a student is given a week of time, a "day" is considered five hours, except on weekends when a "day of time" is seven hours. During a school year it is not uncommon for a student to have accumulated several months of "time" for offenses as minor as taking too long in the shower, walking to school too slowly, folding down their tube socks, or forgetting to ask before leaving the dinner table.

Elementary students may serve time by sitting on the floor and playing with a quiet toy, reading, writing, or drawing. Middle and Upper schoolers may sit at their desk and read, write or draw -- except on weekends when they can sit on the floor and do something more engaging like knit or crochet.

Uniforms

Uniforms are given to a student they day after they arrive, and each uniform as a number written on the tag -- which then becomes the student's number. A farm spring/summer uniform is a pair of khaki shorts, short sleeved green polo shirt, white tube socks, and white shoes. A winter uniform is a pair of khaki shorts, a long sleeved blue polo shirt, white tube shocks, white shoes, and an optional wind breaker jacket (blue) and optional heavy coat (blue). These uniforms are the same for boys and girls.

A chapel uniform for girls consists of a button down white shirt, plaid knee length skirt, long white socks, and penny loafers. Boys must wear a white button down shirt, khaki pants, long dark socks, and loafers. Both boys and girls must tuck in their shirt or they are given a 60 minute time out.

External links

• Happy Hill Farm official website
• Coalition for Residential Education national network of residential education programs like Happy Hill