For 2024-2025:
Mission, Vision, Philosophy, and Goals:
Learning Tree Christian Academy purposes to provide quality care and age-appropriate learning opportunities with a Christian worldview for the children of Oak Grove and the surrounding area.
Mission: At Learning Tree Christian Academy we purpose to provide a Christian school with a Biblical worldview that enhances spiritual growth for our students and their families, while maintaining a peaceful, safe environment for students, and continuously promoting academic excellence.
Vision: Recognizing that early experiences have profound effects on development and learning, Learning Tree sets as its vision a sincere effort to assist parents in providing a positive learning environment with opportunities for personal growth, helping their children build strong character traits that will serve them well in their youth as well as help them become responsible citizens as adults, contributing to the needs of our local, diverse community, state of Mississippi, and extending nationally and internationally as these children grow to make a sincere impact in our world.
Philosophy: Learning Tree Christian Academy focuses on the overall development of the whole person including social, emotional, physical, spiritual, creative, cognitive, and language development through a combination of student-led and teacher-directed learning activities. We meet these needs through a loving, Christian, and home-type environment. Although Learning Tree is a Christian-based program, there is no particular denominational influence. Learning Tree also prioritizes safety, cleanliness, and health.
Developmentally-appropriate educational opportunities are provided daily, and we believe the children's enjoyment and learning success in early childhood and elementary school will enhance their desire to continuously learn in the future. Because we know that all children learn differently and at their own pace, Learning Tree strives to offer differentiated instruction to meet the student's individual learning needs. Since we believe young children learn through play and that play is an important vehicle for developing self-regulation and promotion language, cognition, and social competence, Learning Tree offers both indoor and outdoor fun opportunities that encourage "hands on" learning. Because we believe experience in the arts is an important part of a person's development, we offer art and music daily.
We also work with local speech therapists to provide free evaluation of children and therapy for children at Learning Tree if parents choose to do so.
Because we recognize the importance of parental involvement, we encourage our parents to meet with the administrator, directors and teachers regularly, volunteer in their child's classroom, and participate in any school-wide opportunities at Learning Tree.
Goals for our Children: We want our children at Learning Tree to thrive in a safe, healthy, loving environment. We want to encourage our children at Learning Tree to develop a passion for learning that will last a lifetime. We want to assist our children at Learning Tree to develop at age-appropriate rates in the areas of social and emotional, cognitive, and physical and language development, as determined through Ages and Stages questionnaires (ASQ-3) and assessments.
Goals for Families and Family Engagement: We want our children's families to feel welcome and an important valued part of our Learning Tree family and plan to get to know them better through daily conversations, scheduled meetings, and planned family events. We want our Learning Tree parents to meet with our administrator, directors, and teachers regularly to help us better plan for and meet the individual needs of each student including any cultural needs, while assisting with executing and evaluating any assessments. We want to provide opportunities for parents to volunteer in their child's classroom and at school-wide events, knowing children benefit from involvement of their parents, their first and best teachers.
Meet the Owners...
Hi. We are Larry and Maria Dorman. We have been married for 36 years and are blessed to have a wonderful grown-up daughter, Katie, who works with us at Learning Tree. The Lord has also blessed us with an awesome son, daughter-in-law, son-in-law, and three precious grandchildren.
Maria has a BSBA degree from USM with a major in marketing management, has her childcare director's credential, and has years of experience working with and loving children. She also has a Master of Science Degree in Educational Leadership from Pensacola Christian College and is continuing to take master's level education classes to better her skills as an administrator and teacher. Maria serves our Learning Tree families as co-owner and co-director of Learning Tree Preschool LLC. She is the administrator for our Learning Tree Christian Academy. Larry also graduated from USM with a BSBA in management information systems and currently works as office manager for Learning Tree. Larry and Maria are excited to share in the lives of those who join our Learning Tree family!
Meet the Staff...
Katie Wagner - Katie serves as co-director of Learning Tree Preschool LLC. With years of experience as a private art teacher, she also brings creativity and a love of art to all our Learning Tree children. She also has a son and a daughter who are students at Learning Tree. She is an early childhood education major, has her childcare director’s credential, and has had several years of childcare experience. Katie also has many years of experience teaching private art and music lessons. In her spare time, Katie enjoys painting, drawing, singing, and spending time with family and friends.
Our Amazing Staff: We have a fantastic teaching team at Learning Tree Christian Academy! Our teachers love the children and are dedicated to providing high quality education and care for our children. We are very thankful for all of them!