"It's good to have an old man along.
— Leif Enger, Peace Like a River
An old man has seen worse."
What We Do
01
Most schools are started by people who love children, love learning, and love God — and who have absolutely no idea what they're getting into. That's not a criticism. That's a description of nearly every good thing ever built. We've helped founding boards find their footing, write their governing documents, hire their first head of school, and open their doors with clarity, courage, and a fighting chance.
02
The unglamorous work of running a school — the contracts, the books, the vendors, the annual fund — is not beneath the mission. It is the mission lived out in ledgers, line items, and priority lists. We help schools steward what God has entrusted to them with honesty, competence, and the quiet dignity that faithful administration deserves.
03
Culture is caught before it is taught, and the schools that last are the ones that know who they are in the hallways, not just the classrooms. We help schools build the rhythms, relationships, and habits of welcome that make families feel they have finally come home — what Christians have simply always called love. We help schools find the words, build the website, and shape the brand that consistently gives parents more than they expected.
04
Accreditation, curriculum review, long-range planning — these are not bureaucratic hurdles. They are invitations to ask hard questions about whether the school is becoming what it was called to be. We walk alongside schools in that honest reckoning with enough experience to know the difference between a school that is struggling and a school that is growing.
05
A school that cannot fund itself cannot fulfill its calling. We help schools build the rhythms and relationships that turn faithful families and friends into faithful donors — and keep them. From annual fund strategy to donor development, this is joyful sustained generosity.
06
Board conflict, leadership failure, financial strain, the quiet unraveling that nobody saw coming — we have seen most of it, and we are not rattled by any of it. We come alongside schools in their hardest seasons with steady presence, honest counsel, and the conviction that God is not finished with your school yet.
"What is good is difficult, and what is difficult is rare."
— Robert Capon
The Team
We are practitioners. We are leaders who have sat in your chair and learned through tribulation and triumph what faithful school-building requires. We have given our lives to serving Christian education and loving and serving the people committed to it.
Ryan Boomershine
Founder & Principal Consultant
For 28 years, Ryan Boomershine has served Christian schools from the inside—as a head of school, founder, operator, problem-solver, recruiter, marketer, and steady presence in seasons of growth and difficulty. He led a long-established Christian school in Michigan for 10 years, then founded and led an ACCS school in Nashville for 15 years, helping build it from scratch into a mature classical Christian school. He later served as COO at a sister classical school. He has also worked consulting and marketing with Hillsdale classical charter schools.
Ryan loves the mission of the Association of Classical Christian Schools because he loves what faithful schools can become over time: places where children are formed to love truth, goodness, and beauty under the lordship of Christ. His work with schools is practical and purposeful—bringing resources, connections, operational clarity, encouragement, and joy to leaders who are carrying heavy and worthy burdens.
Ryan and his wife, Christie, have reared four boys and a girl and are now enjoying the sweet new country of grandparenthood. They live in Columbia, Tennessee.
Nick Duncan
Consultant
Nick Duncan first discovered classical Christian education 15 years ago at the recommendation of a friend, and the Lord has kept him happily in the work ever since. Most of those years have been spent serving as a Head of School, while also teaching humanities, supporting capital campaigns, and continuing the lifelong work of learning. He holds an M.St. in Classical Christian Studies from New Saint Andrews College.
The Association of Classical Christian Schools has been a home base for Nick as he has grown in his love for Christ-centered, classical education and the riches of the liberal arts tradition. He has been deeply blessed by those who pioneered this work and taught him that true education is not merely the transfer of information, but the passing on of a way of life: a Christian way of life in which students grow in wisdom and virtue as their souls are nourished on truth, goodness, and beauty.
Because of the investment he has received through ACCS and its schools, Nick counts it a joy to give back as he has opportunity. He loves helping schools strengthen their mission, encourage their leaders, and form students who are prepared to live faithfully in the world God has made.
Nick and his wife, Stacey, are raising four future men in the rolling hills of Sparta, Tennessee.
Aaron Hanson
Consultant
Add Aaron's bio here — background, experience, and what he brings to the schools he serves.
Edwin Lang
Consultant
Add Edwin's bio here — background, experience, and what he brings to the schools he serves.
Ted Trainor
Consultant
Ted Trainor has given himself to the good work of classical Christian education since 1996, serving first as a lead teacher in the logic grades, then as a coach, a builder of culture, and since 1999, as a Head of School. He holds an M.A.T. in History from The Citadel, along with 80 additional hours of postgraduate study in school leadership and pastoral ministry.
Ted has carried the real work of school leadership in all its variety: training teachers, strengthening culture, launching capital campaigns, starting two rhetoric schools, developing house systems, coaching teams, and helping communities move toward shared goals. He is particularly gifted in the places where wisdom and courage are both needed: facilitating hard conversations, building teams, and helping leaders find the next faithful step.
Because Ted was mentored by others in the classical Christian school movement, he counts it a joy to give back to schools and school leaders in the Association of Classical Christian Schools. Over the last 25 years, he has counseled schools and leaders across nine states and spoken at national and regional conferences.
Thanks be to God, all four of Ted's children are graduates of classical Christian schools. Ted and his bride of 30+ years, Kathryn, live on a farm in the hills of Columbia, Tennessee.
Christie Wright
Consultant
Christie Wright has labored in classical, Christian education for nearly twenty years, coming to understand that without institutional health, skill, and courage, our schools simply cannot prosper. She has assisted in founding two ACCS schools in middle Tennessee, and has experienced both the necessary work of the long haul as well as the energetic zeal of the new upstart.
Christie's experience in classical K–12 classrooms has led to a firmly rooted understanding of successful teaching and learning, healthy classroom culture, and a Biblically integrated curriculum and pedagogy. She has served primarily in the roles of Academic Dean and Assistant Head of School, where she developed the art and craft of effective problem solving, developing high quality faculty from scratch, building organizations with courage and integrity, and utilizing her mastery of rhetoric for organizational alignment and conflict resolution.
Christie enjoys sharing her experience with teachers, administrators, and board members through the ACCS national conference, as well as in on-site teacher training and consulting across the country. She lives with her husband and their six children on a working farm, the home where she first learned to grow good things and for which she primarily labors.
We have opened schools, led schools, and steadied schools in their hardest seasons. We know what this work asks of you. When you're ready to talk, we are ready to listen.
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