Tom Newbill, Ann McLean and Milby West are dreamers. As individuals, they envisioned Goochland County as the right place for a Christian oriented private school. Several years ago, they got together and started talking about their shared interest.

In September, their dream will become reality with the opening of Hunter Country Day School on the grounds of Dover Baptist Church in Manakin-Sabot.

“We have an educational building that really isn’t used except when we are having services,” said Dover Pastor Mike Gardner. “Over the years, we’ve been approached by other groups who wanted to utilize the area to open a day-care center or school. For some reason, we just didn’t find the mix right until Tom, Ann and Milby came along with their idea.

“They were not only interested in a Christian based school, but in a lot of what we refer to as community involvement,” he added. “They have a strong commitment to involving the parents of the students in the education of their children and also in a strong commitment to accountability and responsibility on the part of students, parents and teachers in working not only in the school but in the community.”

Newbill talked more about family involvement.

“We want the parents to be a part of the day-to-day education process of their children,” he said. “It might be helping out in the classroom or it might be at home. From time-to-time, we plan to give the children a topic that they have to discuss with their parents at the dinner table that night and then have the child relate what they learned to their class the next day. It’s just one way of getting the family involved in the education process of their child.”

The classes this fall will be for students from Kindergarten through the fourth grade.

“We plan to add a grade every year until we have K through the eighth grade,” McLean said. “At that point, we’ll evaluate where we are and decide if we want to grow the school to include high school.”

Hunter Country Day school will be a mix of many other private schools.

‘We visited a lot of private schools, some in Virginia and others out of state,” Newbill said. “We are trying to take the best of what we saw at different schools as a model to guide us.

It will be a growing process, but we are committed to creating a quality learning school.”

The school’s mission statement says, “Hunter Country Day School develops the whole child, challenges the mind and nourishes the spirit in an environment guided by Judeo-Christian principles.”

Applications are being accepted for this fall. For questions or to get information, e-mail queries to either amclean5@comcast.net or tnewbill@aol.com. When e-mailing, type Hunter Country Day School in the subject field.