John Stover spent the first part of his professional career as a nursing home administrator. “As a Christian guy, I have a passion for helping those who can’t protect themselves. As an administrator, I was in the home every day, and I could walk around and talk to residents sitting in the hallways and in the activity rooms, and just chat—listen to their life stories.” But, Stover moved up in the nursing home world to vice president of operations for a large health care company. “As I moved up the food chain in the nursing-home world, I just became removed from the people I wanted to help,” Stover said. “So, I went looking for something different. I love children, so in 2016, I bought my first pre-school in Tampa.”
Stover’s new career path grew to 10 pre-schools. “I was limited to infant through four years old,” Stover said. “That’s all I could really help. So, I wanted to bring a Christian academy to the people of Plant City, but I wanted it to be affordable. I never could figure out a way to do that until the Step Up For Students scholarship. It gives children a scholarship they can use at any private school that is contracted with them. It allows people not to have to choose between their faith and their finances.” Every child in Florida qualifies for the Step Up scholarship.
In the wake of the new scholarship funding, what some private schools have done is increase tuition so that it is above the amount of Step Up scholarships. “I wanted to try my best not to have to do that,” Stover said. So, the Plant City Christian Academy accepts the Step Up Scholarship as payment in full for tuition.
The Step Up scholarship allowed Plant City Christian Academy to open in 2023-2024 as a small pilot program to prepare for its full opening for the 2024-2025 school year. “I wanted to make sure we know what we are doing, that we have selected the best test vendors and software,” Stover commented. The Academy started with 23 students just in K-5 and then quickly grew. After the 2023 test program began, parents of middle schoolers came to the Academy pleading for their kids to get in because they were being bullied. So, the Academy enrolled them. Then high schoolers’ parents heard about this, and approached the school with the same problem, saying their kids needed a safe environment. The student body grew to 65 in K-12 through these needs and word of mouth.
“What really gets it for me is when I hear the stories the parents tell me about their children,” Stover said. At a Gala at the end of the pilot program, several parents spoke about what their child’s life was like in public school versus the Plant City Christian Academy pilot program. “For example, one little girl was getting bullied in school. Her father said she would vomit every morning before school because she had so much anxiety about going to school. But since she has been coming to our school she has gotten out of bed in the morning, happy as can be. She couldn’t wait to go to school—‘Let’s go mom and dad—it’s school time!’—a night and day difference.”
Stover’s commitment to treat the Academy’s employees well, along with the capital costs of buying and maintaining a large school building, makes running a school financially difficult. “It’s tough because we want to pay a good wage to the teachers,” Stover said. “At many of the Christian schools, their teachers are making $30,000 to $35,000 a year. But ours start much higher than that, and we try to compete with the school system to make sure we’ve got good salaries and benefits.”
In 2018, the First Baptist Church of Plant City moved to a larger campus on James L. Redman Pkwy, and put their prior building up for sale. But no organization ever bought it. “We saw this building on the market,” Stover said. “My understanding is the church board was looking at a school in years past. I think they really, in the back of their minds, wanted a school on this campus. So, our missions seemed to be very, very compatible, and we came to terms that allowed us to buy at a reasonable capital cost. The church has been wonderful to work with. We were able to get it done with the will of God pushing us along.”
Plant City Christian Academy’s classroom size is 18 students. Each class has one-and-a-half teachers. Every teacher has a bachelor’s degree in education. The school offers math, science, English, foreign languages, Bible classes, and a chapel. “For high schoolers we are focused on getting them some real world experience—robotics, 3-D printing—practical things they can learn with their hands,” Stover said. “It introduces them to the world of work. We want to get back to the basics of a good work ethic.” The school is accredited by the Middle States Association, one of the most prestigious of such agencies in the U.S.
“This is a different environment,” Stover commented. “Everyone who walks in that door says ‘Boy there is something different here.’ They feel the people…. I think that is God working. Christ says come to me all you who are weary and heavy laden.”