HCA Becomes 1st KC Area Christian School to Offer PLTW

The U.S. Department of Commerce estimates that jobs in science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) will grow 17 percent by 2018—nearly double the growth for non-STEM fields. By 2018, the U.S. will have more than 1.2 million unfilled STEM jobs because there will not be enough qualified workers to fill them. STEM is where jobs are today and where the job growth will be in the future.

In the fall of 2014, HCA began the development of a new STEM diploma with a new elective course offering, Intro to STEM Topics.  In this course, students were introduced to 3D design through Autodesk Inventor, designing a variety of 3D objects including an F1 race car model.  Students then explored programming and robotics while designing and building robots to compete in a FTC style robotics challenge.  The course finished with an electronics module with students building a variety of electronics projects using the Raspberry Pi, a credit card sized Linux computer.  In the 2015 version of Intro to STEM Topics, students will print their race cars on our 3D printers and race them on our new 75', electronically-timed track.

This course was designed to introduce students to STEM topics in preparation for the introduction of the PLTW Engineering curriculum.  PLTW is the nation's largest provider of K-12 STEM solutions with over 8,000 schools in the US using their curriculum.  In August of 2015, when HCA began offering Introduction to Engineering Design, one of the foundational courses in the PLTW engineering track, it became the only parochial school in the Kansas City area offering the PLTW curriculum.

STEM @ HCA

HCA Cheerleaders Receive the Rock Chalk Spirit Award

The last weekend in July the Heritage Christian Academy cheerleaders attended spirit camp at the University of Kansas. This 3-day overnight camp consisted of 13 hours a day of learning cheers and chants, dancing, stunting, and team-building exercises.

Our HCA cheerleadering squad not only performed a high scoring routine; they were also voted as the sole high school squad to win the "Rock Chalk Spirit Award". This award is given to the team that excelled, was supportive, was always listening to camp instruction and was positive to all campers and KU staff.  In addition, Senior Brookie Reymond was awarded the individual Rock Chalk Award for her leadership skills.

CONGRATULATIONS to this group of ladies!

HCA @ State

Heritage just completed a successfully spring athletics season, participating in KSHSAA state competition in three different sports.



GOLF - The boys' golf team qualified for state for the second straight year at regionals, finishing third in our region with both Parker Allen and Jonathan Edmondson medaling as one of the top 10 finishers.  The next week they ventured to the state competition in Emporia where Parker finished with a 3rd place medal after a tiebreaker for second shooting a 73 in soggy conditions.







BASEBALL - The baseball team qualified for state for the second time in the last three years,
defeating rival Maranatha in an exciting regional final.  The next week they traveled to Great Bend where they lost a tough 3-0 game to state runner-up Medicine Lodge.









TRACK & FIELD - Freshman Kate Allen was HCA's first ever representative at the KSHSAA state track meet.  Kate qualified by winning three events at regionals - long jump, triple jump, and 300M hurdles.  At the state meet in Wichita, Kate medaled in all three events, finishing 5th in the long jump and 6th in the other two events.




CONGRATULATIONS to all of these athletes!!  We are proud of the way you represented HCA at state.