On Wednesday, September 9th, seventeen parents of new students gathered in the conference room for the first of four Vision Events.
“The purpose of this event is to understand where you are in the story of God’s plan for the school,” said Zach Clark, Director of Advancement.
This event was not a fundraiser, rather its purpose was to focus on the future of the school and how it relates to families. Lead by Jim Marsh, Head of School, Steve Lauer, Director of Development, and Zach Clark, the history and predicted future for Westminster was told to the parents. Before looking ahead to the future, a brief history was explained.
In 1976, in four rented classrooms in the basement of Missouri Baptist College, Westminster Christian Academy opened its doors for its first school year. There were 73 students, and only one senior. The school had no fine arts or athletics, but it did have a solid foundation on Christ.
Quickly, the school expanded and was in need for more room. In 1978, Westminster moved from Missouri Baptist University to an old elementary school that is now a Walgreens. This location is where WCA gained traction and started to expand rapidly. In fact, it was growing so swiftly, they needed to find another larger facility.
After growing from 73 students to 251 students in 20 years, WCA moved to the Ladue campus in 1992 and Jim Marsh became the Head of School. Under Marsh’s new leadership, the school’s growth continued to skyrocket and the school eventually reached a point where they were forced to reject students because the classes were full. Therefore, the old campus was renovated and was now able to accommodate 800 students instead of 600. Westminster was predicted to fill the new 200 openings in 6 years, but were surprised when they were filled in only 4.
Westminster’s leaders soon realized that it was yet again time to upgrade to a larger campus. In 2001, a building contractor first introduced 40 acres of land located conveniently in Town and Country. The Westminster community prayed and fundraised until they put an offer on the land and it was accepted. When Marsh first toured the building sitting on the new land, there were two airplanes and a helicopter in one wing of the building. The building was not exactly ready to be turned into a school. Also, there was not enough land to accommodate a school large enough for WCA’s needs. After attempting to buy surrounding land and having their offers rejected, it looked like this may not work.
“My plan and God’s plan didn’t seem to be on the same page,” said Marsh.
However, things came together splendidly and in 2008 Westminster was able to purchase the surrounding land. In November 2009, on the Wednesday before Thanksgiving, Ladue school district decided to purchase the old campus for $8 million more than expected.
The deal closed in 2010 and in the 2011-2012 school year, Westminster opened its doors in a school with 961 students and 320,000-square-foot building compared to 73 students four classroom in a basement. Westminster has come a long way incredibly fast in its 36 years.
“Our history consists of many miracles as part of one miraculous journey”, said Marsh.
The vision of WCA is: “To prepare more young men and women to engage the world and change it for Jesus Christ.” The goal is not to get bigger, but to get better. Today, 78% of Westminster students are college graduates, 74% have a church home, and 39% are involved in ministry work.
“My prayer is that Westminster would be here – strong and dynamic as ever – for our children’s children,” said Marsh.
Westminster has come on a miraculous journey. Clearly, God’s hand has been with the school because it has prospered so quickly since 1976 and continues to give students a good education that is based on Christianity.
“God has blessed us, there is no other way to say it,” said Marsh.
